The key components of an effective marketing plan include an Executive Summary, Market Strategy, Market Research, SWOT Analysis and Evaluation and Control.

An Executive Summary encourages an organization to create a brief overview of their entire marketing plan setting realistic goals and measureable steps to achieve them. While a Market Strategy encourages the organization to clearly define its primary, secondary and tertiary markets along with product, price, distribution and promotion of the product or service they are offering. During Market Research an organization must become knowledgeable of marketing dynamics such as seasonal items, customer shopping habits, products currently on the market, what the competition is doing, pricing, and suppliers and distributors they can count on. In other words your target market must be clearly defined. Under a SWOT Analysis, an organization must assess and reassess its strengths, weaknesses. opportunities and threats in order to meet and accomplish the goals initially set. Finally, under Evaluation and Control, the organization must look closely at what to do and what not to do during the next marketing period in order to ensure that it stays on track with its goals.

The Marketing Plan is one of the most important elements of the marketing process because of its multiple roles. A clearly defined marketing plan helps an organization set goals that are quantitative and realistic in nature. It encourages an organization to define the mission and overall direction of its products/services. The plan provides an organizations' Marketing Executives with a general business perspective of the environment. It provides both positive and negative conditions such as emerging markets and new competition and forces a company to gauge how well it is prepared internally and externally to compete within the business world. The