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

In Blackadder, Baldrick's "cunning plan" usually turned out be neither particularly cunning nor indeed planned. In marketing you can't get away with either as effective marketing planning lies at the centre of most companies' "make a buck" schemes.

Malcolm McDonald's book is the bible for anyone charged with the responsibility of preparing and implement a marketing plan. From the organisational issues, timescale and techniques the-"who, when and how"--to the projected outcomes--every part of the "five-year" marketing scheme is examined. In this fourth edition Malcolm McDonald has addressed "new" issues such as key account handling and electronic marketing using the Internet. He has also added a step-by-step marketing planning chapter, what he calls his "fast-track" approach, invaluable if you need to learn the basics in a hurry. The book is very well put together and gets top marks for clear English. There are lots of diagrams, models, case studies and exercises that help you "diagnose" the state of health of your company's current marketing approach. Chapters begin with a summary and end with a review, so all the choicest bits of information are easily digestible. Marketing Plans follows a logical approach and takes the student through a sequence of activities, giving a clear set of objectives and the means to achieve them. --Kristen Bowditch