An Empirical Investigation of Marketing Planning

Abstract

This paper reports on a study of the planning procedures as well as the contents of marketing plans of 56 business firms located in The Netherlands. More specifically, we examined what subjects in which components of marketing plans were considered important. A distinction is made between consumer marketers and business-to-business marketers, as well as between tangible products and services. We found that two to three months are devoted to the preparation of the marketing plan in most organizations. This plan is usually not ready earlier than about two months before the beginning of the next planning period. Most marketing plans are built around three components: the marketing report, a strategic plan, and an operational plan. The period which is usually covered in marketing reports is about one year, the strategic marketing plan usually has a time horizon of either three years or five years, whereas the operational plan covers a one-year period in many cases. In this study the elements which are found in these components of a marketing plan are summarized. From this inventory, we found that the number of firms that pay explicit attention to organizational and financial objectives in their marketing plans is relatively small.