Simplified Marketing Yourself Plan for Personal/Professional Branding

“Brand image exists in the minds of the audience members. It’s the marketer’s job to shape that image

accordingly.” Typical marketing plans require marketers to assess their own sets of resources, evaluate the marketplace, determine their target market(s), and then create a set of reasonable objectives (goals) with an accompanying set of appropriate strategies and tactics to reach those objectives.

For this assignment, you will create a simplified marketing plan for your own personal and/or professional brand, i.e., “Brand You.” This could in itself be a daunting task, but fortunately, most of this has already been completed by you for you in previous class assignments.

Simplified Personal/Professional Marketing Plan Elements

1. Plan introduction and duration. This is a brief introduction to the purpose of the plan, including the duration of its scope (1 year, 2 years, 3 years, etc.). The duration must be for at least one year.

2. Summary/synthesis of your personal raw materials. (This was accomplished as part of your Raw Materials Assessment.) Summarize and synthesize your personal raw materials in a manner that allows a reader to understand the opportunities and challenges that may face you as you construct and develop “Brand You.”

3. Market segment(s) that are to be targeted. (This was accomplished if you completed the Product/Audience Match assigned earlier in the semester.) This section should include any relevant portions from your Product/Audience Match Strategy assignment that would apply to this marketing plan:

a) The potential target markets for your personal/professional brand (from “Part 1: List Current Audiences” and “Part 4: List Prospective Audiences”).

b) Why these audiences are being targeted (from “Part 2: Importance of Current Audiences” and “Part 5: Importance of Prospective Audiences”).

c) What the people in those segments desire in a person, employee, boss, etc.; that is, the attributes of the ideal candidate to be courted by that market segment (from “Part 3: What Current Audiences Want from You” and “Part 6: What Prospective Audiences Want from You”).

Note: Even though you will only mention in this document the target segments that are applicable to this marketing plan, you must still include the complete Product/Audience Match Strategy assignment as an Appendix to this assignment.

4. Objectives/Goals for your brand. (Much of this was accomplished if you completed the Personal Marketing Strategy assigned earlier in the semester.) List at least five clearly identified goals that have a measurable component and a time (deadline) component. Delineate how each goal will be measured to ensure, eventually, that it has (or has not) been accomplished. You can have multiple-level objectives and combine this section with multiple-level strategies from the next section if desired. The key is that all objectives must lead you to your overall goal of winning the hearts of your target audience(s). NOTE: Even though you will only mention in this document any objectives/strategies that you feel are relevant to this marketing plan, you must still include the complete Personal Marketing Strategy assignment as an Appendix to this assignment.

5. Strategies and tactics designed to reach the objectives. (Much of this was accomplished if you completed the Personal Marketing Strategy assigned earlier in the semester.) Your strategies should have direct-line connections to the objectives they are designed to reach. As mentioned above (in Part 4), you can combine this section with the Objectives or leave it as a separate section. In either case, you must include a one-page figure/chart/image that depicts how the strategies and objectives are connected.

6. Marketing Plan Timeline. Create a timeline for your plan where you detail the start and end dates for each strategy and tactic. You must include a one-page figure/chart/image of the timeline. You can be as creative as you like to create the timeline.