Marketing Plans: How to Prepare Them, How to Use Them

As the National Director of Marketing for my firm, I read and use many different marketing books, manuals and reports. However, Marketing Plans, by Malcolm H.B. McDonald is the most complete guide I have found for actually designing a comprehensive and effective business plan. The layout of the book makes it useful to the novice as well as the experienced Marketing professional. The information is stated clearly, completely and effectively. In fact, I was so impressed, that I have totally redesigned our corporate marketing and branding plans using the information from this book as the basis for that design. Thanks for all the help Mr. McDonald!!!

McDonald also wrote Key Account Management (more for salespeople) and co-wrote a smaller, but more difficult book called Marketing Plans the Work. This one (Marketing Plans: How to Write them, How to Use them) is more of a text book, which normally I think would make it more "dry" but in this case it's just the opposite: packed with information, useful exercises and a clear step-by-step approach to writing a real marketing plan. Academically sound but not "academic." Plus it can help you and your company get more of a marketing orientation, or at least understand what a "marketing orientation" is all about.

Just bought my third copy... i give one away every year to a struggling marketeer. If you buy only one book on marketing, make it this one.David Barnes Director of Market Analysis, Philips Components

First published in 1984, Marketing Plans is now an international marketing bestseller. Covering the application of basic marketing principles to sound business practice, it is essential reading for marketing practitioners and students the world over. The purpose of this book is quite simply to explain and demonstrate how to prepare and use a marketing plan. To this end, marketing managers and business executives concerned with profitability and sustained growth of their organisations have profitably used it as a practical guide. Clearly and powerfully written with step-by-step lucidity, it is probably the best book on the theory and practice of marketing planning ever published.Authored by Malcolm McDonald, Professor of Marketing Strategy at the Cranfield School of Management and the acknowledged world authority on marketing planning and strategy, this thoroughly updated and redesigned fourth edition contains new material on growth areas such as key account management and electronic marketing. Its brand new two-colour graphic design with revised page layout and enhanced learning features provides maximum clarity, much like a typical US College textbook. Definitions of important terms and vocabulary are provided as margin notes to allow for smoother, easier reading of the text. Exercises appear at the end of each chapter to translate the theories into action.This complete learning package focuses on key recent developments in marketing techniques and provides a range of practical marketing tools. The reader is taken through the whole process of marketing planning-from the initial assessment of a company's business plan, to the steps necessary to ensure a company achieves its profit targets. The first 12 chapters help the reader understand both the process and diagnostic tools of marketing planning whilst the final 13th chapter is a clear step-by-step guide to devising your own marketing plan, combining current best practice with the necessary theoretical background. This book is recommended reading for marketers, executives and students studying for the Chartered Institute of Marketing's Certificate and Diploma examinations. In a nutshell, there is no better book that covers the whole process of marketing planning.