Understand your market and your place in it. The marketing plan takes the strategic plan to the next step. Once a firm has defined where and what it wants to be in three to five years, it can then address the specific services it will and will not provide and the types of clients on which it wishes to focus.

The marketing plan builds on the firm’s central service statement—what it wants to provide and to whom—and then defines how to do it.  An effective marketing plan:

• Explicitly states which of the firm’s services will be the primary focus of marketing efforts
• Discusses the basic pricing philosophy of the firm (i.e., low-cost provider of a commodity, premium provider of specialty services) for your primary services
• Identifies what is unique about the firm, your offerings, or your position in the market
• Defines how the firm will reach your desired client base—advertising; media relations; networking in trade, legal or community settings; public speaking; direct mail; Web site; Internet marketing; newsletters; other means
• Audits and evaluates your current marketing materials and recent marketing activities, then identifies opportunities, devises strategies and outlines tactics that can serve as the foundation for a marketing program
• Addresses how the firm wishes to appear, your image and the main design themes of all of the materials that go to clients and prospects