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Developing a Marketing Plan

Developing a Marketing Plan

At a smaller transit agency, every resource has to be carefully allotted. A marketing plan will save you time and money by organizing your communications efforts and keeping them on track. A plan helps you clarify what you are marketing, who you are marketing to, what resources are available, and how you will reach your audiences. It will also demonstrate your marketing effectiveness to your staff, board, and other stakeholders. This section of The Marketing Toolkit provides a marketing workbook with several worksheets that, when completed, will help you build a marketing plan of your own. 

Elements of the marketing plan

A marketing plan has five basic sections. The Marketing Workbook provides corresponding worksheets to customize your plan to your marketing environment.

Situation: Research and Surveys

What is the local understanding of your system and its services? Market research and rider surveys will help you understand how your system is perceived, which will guide you to promote your strengths and improve your weaknesses. 

Resources

Knowing how much staff time and how much of your budget you can allocate to marketing will help you understand what marketing strategies are realistic for your organization. 

Goals

Setting goals for your marketing assists you by giving clear targets for success for your communications. Reaching your goals tells you your resources have been spent wisely. But even failing to reach goals can be a useful learning experience, providing information on what you might consider next.

Target Market

Just as understanding the situation in which your marketing occurs lays the groundwork for spending resources effectively, taking a deeper dive into the specific target markets you want to reach will help ensure both time and budget are well allocated. 

Strategies

Choosing strategies that are both realistic and applicable to your situation is critical to the success of your plan.

Putting it all together

The Marketing Workbook is designed to be used along with the information provided in The Marketing Toolkit. Completing each worksheet will give you the information you need to write the five essential sections of your marketing plan. 


It’s recommended that you write a new marketing plan every year, but you probably won’t need to complete each worksheet annually. Instead, every year, check the success of your goals and adjust the next year’s plan to meet new goals or improve on established goals. 


Consider revisiting The Marketing Workbook every three years to reassess your market situation, target audiences, and resources for a fresh view on your marketing possibilities. 

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