best business plan templates 2021

How to Write a Business Plan: Step-by-Step Guide + Examples

Noah Parsons

24 min. read

Updated May 7, 2024

Writing a business plan doesn’t have to be complicated. 

In this step-by-step guide, you’ll learn how to write a business plan that’s detailed enough to impress bankers and potential investors, while giving you the tools to start, run, and grow a successful business.

• The basics of business planning

If you’re reading this guide, then you already know why you need a business plan . 

You understand that planning helps you: 

• Raise money
• Grow strategically
• Keep your business on the right track 

As you start to write your plan, it’s useful to zoom out and remember what a business plan is .

At its core, a business plan is an overview of the products and services you sell, and the customers that you sell to. It explains your business strategy: how you’re going to build and grow your business, what your marketing strategy is, and who your competitors are.

Most business plans also include financial forecasts for the future. These set sales goals, budget for expenses, and predict profits and cash flow. 

A good business plan is much more than just a document that you write once and forget about. It’s also a guide that helps you outline and achieve your goals. 

After completing your plan, you can use it as a management tool to track your progress toward your goals. Updating and adjusting your forecasts and budgets as you go is one of the most important steps you can take to run a healthier, smarter business. 

We’ll dive into how to use your plan later in this article.

There are many different types of plans , but we’ll go over the most common type here, which includes everything you need for an investor-ready plan. However, if you’re just starting out and are looking for something simpler—I recommend starting with a one-page business plan . It’s faster and easier to create. 

It’s also the perfect place to start if you’re just figuring out your idea, or need a simple strategic plan to use inside your business.

Dig deeper : How to write a one-page business plan

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• What to include in your business plan

Executive summary

The executive summary is an overview of your business and your plans. It comes first in your plan and is ideally just one to two pages. Most people write it last because it’s a summary of the complete business plan.

Ideally, the executive summary can act as a stand-alone document that covers the highlights of your detailed plan. 

In fact, it’s common for investors to ask only for the executive summary when evaluating your business. If they like what they see in the executive summary, they’ll often follow up with a request for a complete plan, a pitch presentation , or more in-depth financial forecasts .

Your executive summary should include:

• A summary of the problem you are solving
• A description of your product or service
• An overview of your target market
• A brief description of your team
• A summary of your financials
• Your funding requirements (if you are raising money)

Dig Deeper: How to write an effective executive summary

Products and services description

This is where you describe exactly what you’re selling, and how it solves a problem for your target market. The best way to organize this part of your plan is to start by describing the problem that exists for your customers. After that, you can describe how you plan to solve that problem with your product or service. 

This is usually called a problem and solution statement .

To truly showcase the value of your products and services, you need to craft a compelling narrative around your offerings. How will your product or service transform your customers’ lives or jobs? A strong narrative will draw in your readers.

This is also the part of the business plan to discuss any competitive advantages you may have, like specific intellectual property or patents that protect your product. If you have any initial sales, contracts, or other evidence that your product or service is likely to sell, include that information as well. It will show that your idea has traction , which can help convince readers that your plan has a high chance of success.

Market analysis

Your target market is a description of the type of people that you plan to sell to. You might even have multiple target markets, depending on your business. 

A market analysis is the part of your plan where you bring together all of the information you know about your target market. Basically, it’s a thorough description of who your customers are and why they need what you’re selling. You’ll also include information about the growth of your market and your industry .

Try to be as specific as possible when you describe your market. 

Include information such as age, income level, and location—these are what’s called “demographics.” If you can, also describe your market’s interests and habits as they relate to your business—these are “psychographics.” 

Related: Target market examples

Essentially, you want to include any knowledge you have about your customers that is relevant to how your product or service is right for them. With a solid target market, it will be easier to create a sales and marketing plan that will reach your customers. That’s because you know who they are, what they like to do, and the best ways to reach them.

Next, provide any additional information you have about your market. 

What is the size of your market ? Is the market growing or shrinking? Ideally, you’ll want to demonstrate that your market is growing over time, and also explain how your business is positioned to take advantage of any expected changes in your industry.

Dig Deeper: Learn how to write a market analysis

Competitive analysis

Part of defining your business opportunity is determining what your competitive advantage is. To do this effectively, you need to know as much about your competitors as your target customers. 

Every business has some form of competition. If you don’t think you have competitors, then explore what alternatives there are in the market for your product or service. 

For example: In the early years of cars, their main competition was horses. For social media, the early competition was reading books, watching TV, and talking on the phone.

A good competitive analysis fully lays out the competitive landscape and then explains how your business is different. Maybe your products are better made, or cheaper, or your customer service is superior. Maybe your competitive advantage is your location – a wide variety of factors can ultimately give you an advantage.

Dig Deeper: How to write a competitive analysis for your business plan

Marketing and sales plan

The marketing and sales plan covers how you will position your product or service in the market, the marketing channels and messaging you will use, and your sales tactics. 

The best place to start with a marketing plan is with a positioning statement . 

This explains how your business fits into the overall market, and how you will explain the advantages of your product or service to customers. You’ll use the information from your competitive analysis to help you with your positioning. 

For example: You might position your company as the premium, most expensive but the highest quality option in the market. Or your positioning might focus on being locally owned and that shoppers support the local economy by buying your products.

Once you understand your positioning, you’ll bring this together with the information about your target market to create your marketing strategy . 

This is how you plan to communicate your message to potential customers. Depending on who your customers are and how they purchase products like yours, you might use many different strategies, from social media advertising to creating a podcast. Your marketing plan is all about how your customers discover who you are and why they should consider your products and services. 

While your marketing plan is about reaching your customers—your sales plan will describe the actual sales process once a customer has decided that they’re interested in what you have to offer. 

If your business requires salespeople and a long sales process, describe that in this section. If your customers can “self-serve” and just make purchases quickly on your website, describe that process. 

A good sales plan picks up where your marketing plan leaves off. The marketing plan brings customers in the door and the sales plan is how you close the deal.

Together, these specific plans paint a picture of how you will connect with your target audience, and how you will turn them into paying customers.

Dig deeper: What to include in your sales and marketing plan

Business operations

The operations section describes the necessary requirements for your business to run smoothly. It’s where you talk about how your business works and what day-to-day operations look like. 

Depending on how your business is structured, your operations plan may include elements of the business like:

• Supply chain management
• Manufacturing processes
• Equipment and technology
• Distribution

Some businesses distribute their products and reach their customers through large retailers like Amazon.com, Walmart, Target, and grocery store chains. 

These businesses should review how this part of their business works. The plan should discuss the logistics and costs of getting products onto store shelves and any potential hurdles the business may have to overcome.

If your business is much simpler than this, that’s OK. This section of your business plan can be either extremely short or more detailed, depending on the type of business you are building.

For businesses selling services, such as physical therapy or online software, you can use this section to describe the technology you’ll leverage, what goes into your service, and who you will partner with to deliver your services.

Dig Deeper: Learn how to write the operations chapter of your plan

Key milestones and metrics

Although it’s not required to complete your business plan, mapping out key business milestones and the metrics can be incredibly useful for measuring your success.

Good milestones clearly lay out the parameters of the task and set expectations for their execution. You’ll want to include:

• A description of each task
• The proposed due date
• Who is responsible for each task

If you have a budget, you can include projected costs to hit each milestone. You don’t need extensive project planning in this section—just list key milestones you want to hit and when you plan to hit them. This is your overall business roadmap. 

Possible milestones might be:

• Website launch date
• Store or office opening date
• First significant sales
• Break even date
• Business licenses and approvals

You should also discuss the key numbers you will track to determine your success. Some common metrics worth tracking include:

• Conversion rates
• Customer acquisition costs
• Profit per customer
• Repeat purchases

It’s perfectly fine to start with just a few metrics and grow the number you are tracking over time. You also may find that some metrics simply aren’t relevant to your business and can narrow down what you’re tracking.

Dig Deeper: How to use milestones in your business plan

Organization and management team

Investors don’t just look for great ideas—they want to find great teams. Use this chapter to describe your current team and who you need to hire . You should also provide a quick overview of your location and history if you’re already up and running.

Briefly highlight the relevant experiences of each key team member in the company. It’s important to make the case for why yours is the right team to turn an idea into a reality. 

Do they have the right industry experience and background? Have members of the team had entrepreneurial successes before? 

If you still need to hire key team members, that’s OK. Just note those gaps in this section.

Your company overview should also include a summary of your company’s current business structure . The most common business structures include:

• Sole proprietor
• Partnership

Be sure to provide an overview of how the business is owned as well. Does each business partner own an equal portion of the business? How is ownership divided? 

Potential lenders and investors will want to know the structure of the business before they will consider a loan or investment.

Dig Deeper: How to write about your company structure and team

Financial plan

Last, but certainly not least, is your financial plan chapter. 

Entrepreneurs often find this section the most daunting. But, business financials for most startups are less complicated than you think, and a business degree is certainly not required to build a solid financial forecast. 

A typical financial forecast in a business plan includes the following:

• Sales forecast : An estimate of the sales expected over a given period. You’ll break down your forecast into the key revenue streams that you expect to have.
• Expense budget : Your planned spending such as personnel costs , marketing expenses, and taxes.
• Profit & Loss : Brings together your sales and expenses and helps you calculate planned profits.
• Cash Flow : Shows how cash moves into and out of your business. It can predict how much cash you’ll have on hand at any given point in the future.
• Balance Sheet : A list of the assets, liabilities, and equity in your company. In short, it provides an overview of the financial health of your business. 

A strong business plan will include a description of assumptions about the future, and potential risks that could impact the financial plan. Including those will be especially important if you’re writing a business plan to pursue a loan or other investment.

Dig Deeper: How to create financial forecasts and budgets

This is the place for additional data, charts, or other information that supports your plan.

Including an appendix can significantly enhance the credibility of your plan by showing readers that you’ve thoroughly considered the details of your business idea, and are backing your ideas up with solid data.

Just remember that the information in the appendix is meant to be supplementary. Your business plan should stand on its own, even if the reader skips this section.

Dig Deeper : What to include in your business plan appendix

Optional: Business plan cover page

Adding a business plan cover page can make your plan, and by extension your business, seem more professional in the eyes of potential investors, lenders, and partners. It serves as the introduction to your document and provides necessary contact information for stakeholders to reference.

Your cover page should be simple and include:

• Company logo
• Business name
• Value proposition (optional)
• Business plan title
• Completion and/or update date
• Address and contact information
• Confidentiality statement

Just remember, the cover page is optional. If you decide to include it, keep it very simple and only spend a short amount of time putting it together.

Dig Deeper: How to create a business plan cover page

How to use AI to help write your business plan

Generative AI tools such as ChatGPT can speed up the business plan writing process and help you think through concepts like market segmentation and competition. These tools are especially useful for taking ideas that you provide and converting them into polished text for your business plan.

The best way to use AI for your business plan is to leverage it as a collaborator , not a replacement for human creative thinking and ingenuity. 

AI can come up with lots of ideas and act as a brainstorming partner. It’s up to you to filter through those ideas and figure out which ones are realistic enough to resonate with your customers. 

There are pros and cons of using AI to help with your business plan . So, spend some time understanding how it can be most helpful before just outsourcing the job to AI.

Learn more: 10 AI prompts you need to write a business plan

• Writing tips and strategies

To help streamline the business plan writing process, here are a few tips and key questions to answer to make sure you get the most out of your plan and avoid common mistakes .  

Determine why you are writing a business plan

Knowing why you are writing a business plan will determine your approach to your planning project. 

For example: If you are writing a business plan for yourself, or just to use inside your own business , you can probably skip the section about your team and organizational structure. 

If you’re raising money, you’ll want to spend more time explaining why you’re looking to raise the funds and exactly how you will use them.

Regardless of how you intend to use your business plan , think about why you are writing and what you’re trying to get out of the process before you begin.

Keep things concise

Probably the most important tip is to keep your business plan short and simple. There are no prizes for long business plans . The longer your plan is, the less likely people are to read it. 

So focus on trimming things down to the essentials your readers need to know. Skip the extended, wordy descriptions and instead focus on creating a plan that is easy to read —using bullets and short sentences whenever possible.

Have someone review your business plan

Writing a business plan in a vacuum is never a good idea. Sometimes it’s helpful to zoom out and check if your plan makes sense to someone else. You also want to make sure that it’s easy to read and understand.

Don’t wait until your plan is “done” to get a second look. Start sharing your plan early, and find out from readers what questions your plan leaves unanswered. This early review cycle will help you spot shortcomings in your plan and address them quickly, rather than finding out about them right before you present your plan to a lender or investor.

If you need a more detailed review, you may want to explore hiring a professional plan writer to thoroughly examine it.

Use a free business plan template and business plan examples to get started

Knowing what information to include in a business plan is sometimes not quite enough. If you’re struggling to get started or need additional guidance, it may be worth using a business plan template. 

There are plenty of great options available (we’ve rounded up our 8 favorites to streamline your search).

But, if you’re looking for a free downloadable business plan template , you can get one right now; download the template used by more than 1 million businesses. 

Or, if you just want to see what a completed business plan looks like, check out our library of over 550 free business plan examples . 

We even have a growing list of industry business planning guides with tips for what to focus on depending on your business type.

Common pitfalls and how to avoid them

It’s easy to make mistakes when you’re writing your business plan. Some entrepreneurs get sucked into the writing and research process, and don’t focus enough on actually getting their business started. 

Here are a few common mistakes and how to avoid them:

Not talking to your customers : This is one of the most common mistakes. It’s easy to assume that your product or service is something that people want. Before you invest too much in your business and too much in the planning process, make sure you talk to your prospective customers and have a good understanding of their needs.

• Overly optimistic sales and profit forecasts: By nature, entrepreneurs are optimistic about the future. But it’s good to temper that optimism a little when you’re planning, and make sure your forecasts are grounded in reality. 
• Spending too much time planning: Yes, planning is crucial. But you also need to get out and talk to customers, build prototypes of your product and figure out if there’s a market for your idea. Make sure to balance planning with building.
• Not revising the plan: Planning is useful, but nothing ever goes exactly as planned. As you learn more about what’s working and what’s not—revise your plan, your budgets, and your revenue forecast. Doing so will provide a more realistic picture of where your business is going, and what your financial needs will be moving forward.
• Not using the plan to manage your business: A good business plan is a management tool. Don’t just write it and put it on the shelf to collect dust – use it to track your progress and help you reach your goals.
• Presenting your business plan

The planning process forces you to think through every aspect of your business and answer questions that you may not have thought of. That’s the real benefit of writing a business plan – the knowledge you gain about your business that you may not have been able to discover otherwise.

With all of this knowledge, you’re well prepared to convert your business plan into a pitch presentation to present your ideas. 

A pitch presentation is a summary of your plan, just hitting the highlights and key points. It’s the best way to present your business plan to investors and team members.

Dig Deeper: Learn what key slides should be included in your pitch deck

Use your business plan to manage your business

One of the biggest benefits of planning is that it gives you a tool to manage your business better. With a revenue forecast, expense budget, and projected cash flow, you know your targets and where you are headed.

And yet, nothing ever goes exactly as planned – it’s the nature of business.

That’s where using your plan as a management tool comes in. The key to leveraging it for your business is to review it periodically and compare your forecasts and projections to your actual results.

Start by setting up a regular time to review the plan – a monthly review is a good starting point. During this review, answer questions like:

• Did you meet your sales goals?
• Is spending following your budget?
• Has anything gone differently than what you expected?

Now that you see whether you’re meeting your goals or are off track, you can make adjustments and set new targets. 

Maybe you’re exceeding your sales goals and should set new, more aggressive goals. In that case, maybe you should also explore more spending or hiring more employees. 

Or maybe expenses are rising faster than you projected. If that’s the case, you would need to look at where you can cut costs.

A plan, and a method for comparing your plan to your actual results , is the tool you need to steer your business toward success.

Learn More: How to run a regular plan review

Free business plan templates and examples

Kickstart your business plan writing with one of our free business plan templates or recommended tools.

Free business plan template

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One-page plan template

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Explore over 500 real-world business plan examples from a wide variety of industries.

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How to write a business plan FAQ

What is a business plan?

A document that describes your business , the products and services you sell, and the customers that you sell to. It explains your business strategy, how you’re going to build and grow your business, what your marketing strategy is, and who your competitors are.

What are the benefits of a business plan?

A business plan helps you understand where you want to go with your business and what it will take to get there. It reduces your overall risk, helps you uncover your business’s potential, attracts investors, and identifies areas for growth.

Having a business plan ultimately makes you more confident as a business owner and more likely to succeed for a longer period of time.

What are the 7 steps of a business plan?

The seven steps to writing a business plan include:

• Write a brief executive summary
• Describe your products and services.
• Conduct market research and compile data into a cohesive market analysis.
• Describe your marketing and sales strategy.
• Outline your organizational structure and management team.
• Develop financial projections for sales, revenue, and cash flow.
• Add any additional documents to your appendix.

What are the 5 most common business plan mistakes?

There are plenty of mistakes that can be made when writing a business plan. However, these are the 5 most common that you should do your best to avoid:

• 1. Not taking the planning process seriously.
• Having unrealistic financial projections or incomplete financial information.
• Inconsistent information or simple mistakes.
• Failing to establish a sound business model.
• Not having a defined purpose for your business plan.

What questions should be answered in a business plan?

Writing a business plan is all about asking yourself questions about your business and being able to answer them through the planning process. You’ll likely be asking dozens and dozens of questions for each section of your plan.

However, these are the key questions you should ask and answer with your business plan:

• How will your business make money?
• Is there a need for your product or service?
• Who are your customers?
• How are you different from the competition?
• How will you reach your customers?
• How will you measure success?

How long should a business plan be?

The length of your business plan fully depends on what you intend to do with it. From the SBA and traditional lender point of view, a business plan needs to be whatever length necessary to fully explain your business. This means that you prove the viability of your business, show that you understand the market, and have a detailed strategy in place.

If you intend to use your business plan for internal management purposes, you don’t necessarily need a full 25-50 page business plan. Instead, you can start with a one-page plan to get all of the necessary information in place.

What are the different types of business plans?

While all business plans cover similar categories, the style and function fully depend on how you intend to use your plan. Here are a few common business plan types worth considering.

Traditional business plan: The tried-and-true traditional business plan is a formal document meant to be used when applying for funding or pitching to investors. This type of business plan follows the outline above and can be anywhere from 10-50 pages depending on the amount of detail included, the complexity of your business, and what you include in your appendix.

Business model canvas: The business model canvas is a one-page template designed to demystify the business planning process. It removes the need for a traditional, copy-heavy business plan, in favor of a single-page outline that can help you and outside parties better explore your business idea.

One-page business plan: This format is a simplified version of the traditional plan that focuses on the core aspects of your business. You’ll typically stick with bullet points and single sentences. It’s most useful for those exploring ideas, needing to validate their business model, or who need an internal plan to help them run and manage their business.

Lean Plan: The Lean Plan is less of a specific document type and more of a methodology. It takes the simplicity and styling of the one-page business plan and turns it into a process for you to continuously plan, test, review, refine, and take action based on performance. It’s faster, keeps your plan concise, and ensures that your plan is always up-to-date.

What’s the difference between a business plan and a strategic plan?

A business plan covers the “who” and “what” of your business. It explains what your business is doing right now and how it functions. The strategic plan explores long-term goals and explains “how” the business will get there. It encourages you to look more intently toward the future and how you will achieve your vision.

However, when approached correctly, your business plan can actually function as a strategic plan as well. If kept lean, you can define your business, outline strategic steps, and track ongoing operations all with a single plan.

See why 1.2 million entrepreneurs have written their business plans with LivePlan

Noah is the COO at Palo Alto Software, makers of the online business plan app LivePlan. He started his career at Yahoo! and then helped start the user review site Epinions.com. From there he started a software distribution business in the UK before coming to Palo Alto Software to run the marketing and product teams.

Table of Contents

• Use AI to help write your plan
• Common planning mistakes
• Manage with your business plan
• Templates and examples

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10 Free Business Plan Templates in Word, Excel, & ClickUp

Praburam Srinivasan

Growth Marketing Manager

February 13, 2024

Turning your vision into a clear and coherent business plan can be confusing and tough. 

Hours of brainstorming and facing an intimidating blank page can raise more questions than answers. Are you covering everything? What should go where? How do you keep each section thorough but brief?

If these questions have kept you up at night and slowed your progress, know you’re not alone. That’s why we’ve put together the top 10 business plan templates in Word, Excel, and ClickUp—to provide answers, clarity, and a structured framework to work with. This way, you’re sure to capture all the relevant information without wasting time. 

And the best part? Business planning becomes a little less “ugh!” and a lot more “aha!” 🤩

What is a Business Plan Template?

What makes a good business plan template, 1. clickup business plan template, 2. clickup sales plan template, 3. clickup business development action plan template, 4. clickup business roadmap template, 5. clickup business continuity plan template, 6. clickup lean business plan template, 7. clickup small business action plan template, 8. clickup strategic business roadmap template , 9. microsoft word business plan template by microsoft, 10. excel business plan template by vertex42.

A business plan template is a structured framework for entrepreneurs and business executives who want to create business plans. It comes with pre-arranged sections and headings that cover key elements like the executive summary , business overview, target customers, unique value proposition, marketing plans, and financial statements.  

A good business plan template helps with thorough planning, clear documentation, and practical implementation. Here’s what to look for:

• Comprehensive structure: A good template comes with all the relevant sections to outline a business strategy, such as executive summary, market research and analysis, and financial projections 
• Clarity and guidance: A good template is easy to follow. It has brief instructions or prompts for each section, guiding you to think deeply about your business and ensuring you don’t skip important details
• Clean design: Aesthetics matter. Choose a template that’s not just functional but also professionally designed. This ensures your plan is presentable to stakeholders, partners, and potential investors
• Flexibility : Your template should easily accommodate changes without hassle, like adding or removing sections, changing content and style, and rearranging parts 🛠️ 

While a template provides the structure, it’s the information you feed it that brings it to life. These pointers will help you pick a template that aligns with your business needs and clearly showcases your vision.

10 Business Plan Templates to Use in 2024

Preparing for business success in 2024 (and beyond) requires a comprehensive and organized business plan. We’ve handpicked the best templates to help you guide your team, attract investors, and secure funding. Let’s check them out.

If you’re looking to replace a traditional business plan document, then ClickUp’s Business Plan Template is for you!

This one-page business plan template, designed in ClickUp Docs , is neatly broken down into the following sections:

• Company description : Overview, mission, vision, and team
• Market analysis : Problem, solution, target market, competition, and competitive advantage
• Sales and marketing strategy : Products/services and marketing channels
• Operational plan : Location and facilities, equipment and tools, manpower, and financial forecasts
• Milestones and metrics: Targets and KPIs

Customize the template with your company logo and contact details, and easily navigate to different sections using the collapsible table of contents. The mini prompts under each section guide you on what to include—with suggestions on how to present the data (e.g., bullet lists, pictures, charts, and tables). 

You can share the document with anyone via URL and collaborate in real time. And when the business plan is ready, you have the option to print it or export it to PDF, HTML, or Markdown.

But that’s not all. This template is equipped with basic and enterprise project management features to streamline the business plan creation process . The Topics List view has a list of all the different sections and subsections of the template and allows you to assign it to a team member, set a due date, and attach relevant documents and references.

Switch from List to Board view to track and update task statuses according to the following: To Do, In Progress, Needs Revision, and Complete. 

This template is a comprehensive toolkit for documenting the different sections of your business plan and streamlining the creation process to ensure it’s completed on time. 🗓️

If you’re looking for a tool to kickstart or update your sales plan, ClickUp’s Sales Plan Template has got you covered. This sales plan template features a project summary list with tasks to help you craft a comprehensive and effective sales strategy. Some of these tasks include:

• Determine sales objectives and goals
• Draft positioning statement
• Perform competitive analysis
• Draft ideal customer persona
• Create a lead generation strategy

Assign each task to a specific individual or team, set priority levels , and add due dates. Specify what section of the sales plan each task belongs to (e.g., executive summary, revenue goals, team structure, etc.), deliverable type (such as document, task, or meeting), and approval state (like pending, needs revisions, and approved).

And in ClickUp style, you can switch to multiple views: List for a list of all tasks, Board for visual task management, Timeline for an overview of task durations, and Gantt to get a view of task dependencies. 

This simple business plan template is perfect for any type of business looking to create a winning sales strategy while clarifying team roles and keeping tasks organized. ✨

Thinking about scaling your business’s reach and operations but unsure where or how to start? It can be overwhelming, no doubt—you need a clear vision, measurable goals, and an actionable plan that every member of your team can rally behind. 

Thankfully, ClickUp’s Business Development Action Plan Template is designed to use automations to simplify this process so every step toward your business growth is clear, trackable, and actionable.

Start by assessing your current situation and deciding on your main growth goal. Are you aiming to increase revenue, tap into new markets, or introduce new products or services? With ClickUp Whiteboards or Docs, brainstorm and collaborate with your team on this decision.

Set and track your short- and long-term growth goals with ClickUp’s Goals , break them down into smaller targets, and assign these targets to team members, complete with due dates. Add these targets to a new ClickUp Dashboard to track real-time progress and celebrate small wins. 🎉

Whether you’re a startup or small business owner looking to hit your next major milestone or an established business exploring new avenues, this template keeps your team aligned, engaged, and informed every step of the way.

ClickUp’s Business Roadmap Template is your go-to for mapping out major strategies and initiatives in areas like revenue growth, brand awareness, community engagement, and customer satisfaction. 

Use the List view to populate tasks under each initiative. With Custom Fields, you can capture which business category (e.g., Product, Operations, Sales & Marketing, etc.) tasks fall under and which quarter they’re slated for. You can also link to relevant documents and resources and evaluate tasks by effort and impact to ensure the most critical tasks get the attention they deserve. 👀

Depending on your focus, this template provides different views to show just what you need. For example, the All Initiatives per Quarter view lets you focus on what’s ahead by seeing tasks that need completion within a specific quarter. This ensures timely execution and helps in aligning resources effectively for the short term.

This template is ideal for business executives and management teams who need to coordinate multiple short- and long-term initiatives and business strategies.

In business, unexpected threats to operations can arise at any moment. Whether it’s economic turbulence, a global health crisis, or supply chain interruptions, every company needs to be ready. ClickUp’s Business Continuity Plan Template lets you prepare proactively for these unforeseen challenges.

The template organizes tasks into three main categories:

• Priorities: Tasks that need immediate attention
• Continuity coverage: Tasks that must continue despite challenges
• Guiding principles: Resources and protocols to ensure smooth operations

The Board view makes it easy to visualize all the tasks under each of these categories. And the Priorities List sorts tasks by those that are overdue, the upcoming ones, and then the ones due later.

In times of uncertainty, being prepared is your best strategy. This template helps your business not just survive but thrive in challenging situations, keeping your customers, employees, and investors satisfied. 🤝

Looking to execute your business plan the “lean” way? Use ClickUp’s Lean Business Plan Template . It’s designed to help you optimize resource usage and cut unnecessary steps—giving you better results with less effort.

In the Plan Summary List view, list all the tasks that need to get done. Add specific details like who’s doing each task, when it’s due, and which part of the Business Model Canvas (BMC) it falls under. The By Priority view sorts this list based on priorities like Urgent, High, Normal, and Low. This makes it easy to spot the most important tasks and tackle them first.

Additionally, the Board view gives you an overview of task progression from start to finish. And the BMC view rearranges these tasks based on the various BMC components. 

Each task can further be broken down into subtasks and multiple checklists to ensure all related action items are executed. ✔️

This template is an invaluable resource for startups and large enterprises looking to maximize process efficiencies and results in a streamlined and cost-effective way.

The Small Business Action Plan Template by ClickUp is tailor-made for small businesses looking to transform their business ideas and goals into actionable steps and, eventually, into reality. 

It provides a simple and organized framework for creating, assigning, prioritizing, and tracking tasks. And in effect, it ensures that goals are not just set but achieved. Through the native dashboard and goal-setting features, you can monitor task progress and how they move you closer to achieving your goals.

Thanks to ClickUp’s robust communication features like chat, comments, and @mentions, it’s easy to get every team member on the same page and quickly address questions or concerns.

Use this action plan template to hit your business goals by streamlining your internal processes and aligning team efforts.

For larger businesses and scaling enterprises, getting different departments to work together toward a big goal can be challenging. The ClickUp Strategic Business Roadmap Template makes it easier by giving you a clear plan to follow.

This template is packaged in a folder and split into different lists for each department in your business, like Sales, Product, Marketing, and Enablement. This way, every team can focus on their tasks while collectively contributing to the bigger goal.

There are multiple viewing options available for team members. These include:

• Progress Board: Visualize tasks that are on track, those at risk, and those behind
• Gantt view: Get an overview of project timelines and dependencies
• Team view: See what each team member is working on so you can balance workloads for maximum productivity

While this template may feel overwhelming at first, the getting started guide offers a step-by-step breakdown to help you navigate it with ease. And like all ClickUp templates, you can easily customize it to suit your business needs and preferences.

Microsoft’s 20-page traditional business plan template simplifies the process of drafting comprehensive business plans. It’s made up of different sections, including:

• Executive summary : Highlights, objectives, mission statement, and keys to success
• Description of business: Company ownership and legal structure, hours of operation, products and services, suppliers, financial plans, etc.
• Marketing: Market analysis, market segmentation, competition, and pricing
• Appendix: Start-up expenses, cash flow statements, income statements, sales forecast, milestones, break-even analysis, etc.

The table of contents makes it easy to move to different sections of the document. And the text placeholders under each section provide clarity on the specific details required—making the process easier for users who may not be familiar with certain business terminology.

No business template roundup is complete without an Excel template. This business plan template lets you work on your business financials in Excel. It comes with customizable tables, formulas, and charts to help you look at the following areas:

• Highlight charts
• Market analysis
• Start-up assets and expenses
• Sales forecasts
• Profit and loss
• Balance sheet
• Cash flow projections
• Break-even analysis

This Excel template is especially useful when you want to create a clear and visual financial section for your business plan document—an essential element for attracting investors and lenders. However, there might be a steep learning curve to using this template if you’re not familiar with business financial planning and using Excel.

Try a Free Business Plan Template in ClickUp

Launching and running a successful business requires a well-thought-out and carefully crafted business plan. However, the business planning process doesn’t have to be complicated, boring, or take up too much time. Use any of the above 10 free business plan formats to simplify and speed up the process.

ClickUp templates go beyond offering a solid foundation to build your business plans. They come with extensive project management features to turn your vision into reality. And that’s not all— ClickUp’s template library offers over 1,000 additional templates to help manage various aspects of your business, from decision-making to product development to resource management .

Sign up for ClickUp’s Free Forever Plan today to fast-track your business’s growth! 🏆

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Free Business Plan Template (With Examples)

August 3, 2022

Have you ever found it difficult to get other people to agree to your entrepreneurial ideas? If so, consider writing a business plan. We’ve created a business plan template to help you meet your business goals, but it makes sense to give some background information.

I (Brandon Boushy) grew up in a unique family. I was the oldest of six kids and my parents are highly successful. One of the things I had to do growing up was write business proposals for anything that was different from the standard operating procedure. (Yes, our family ran like a business.)

That made me pretty proficient at creating a business plan format. We’re going to share some of the lessons I learned growing up with a dad that managed a multi-billion dollar merger and a mom that had a double major in psychology and philosophy. Along the way, we hope to help you understand what people look for in a business plan.

What makes a good business plan template?

A business plan template should be based on your audience. If it’s just you, then it needs to be enough to keep you honest and focused on your goals, but if there are other people who will be viewing it, it should give them enough information to buy into the business plans.

Whether you use ours, someone else’s, or make your own template, you’ll want to make sure a business plan template includes the following:

• An executive summary

Your mission and goals

• Your strategies 
• Your strengths and weaknesses

How you fit in the external environment

Call to action.

• Documentation

If you’re interested just in a template, you may download it here .

This outline is partially inspired by the book Writing Winning Business Plans by Garrett Sutton, Esq.

If you prefer YouTube videos, check out our interview with Mike about how to create a business plan :

Let’s look at how each of these plays into a great business plan template.

The Executive Summary in a Business Plan Template

A good business plan should start with a story. All stories have three major parts:

That’s what your executive summary will be. It will be your story. It will basically tell why your company exists. The sole purpose of the executive summary is to get your audience to say:

“I want to know more.”

If you look at UpFlip’s YouTube page, you can see our story right at the top.

When you write a business plan, you want the executive summary to be as easy to digest as possible. If this were in an actual business plan, it would look something like this:

We’ve all heard the statistics that eight out of 10 businesses fail in the first five years. Can you imagine what the world would be like if we flipped those numbers?

That’s our goal at UpFlip. Make it where 80% of businesses succeed. To do that, business owners need the best information possible in the format that they prefer. That’s what we’re doing.

UpFlip is a team of business owners who believe in educating and inspiring people to achieve success. UpFlip does this by using content marketing best practices, case studies, and data analysis to bring business owners content that helps them succeed.

Do you want to hear more? 

You might want to include a couple of paragraphs about the team, the market, where the business is now, and how you are going to accomplish the goals. At this point, it’s just high-level ideas to get them interested.

You also want to include what you’re asking for in the executive summary. That will change based on the viewer. Here are some common requests:

• Looking for funding : How much? Do you want a loan or to sell equity?
• Looking for employees : What do you want from them? What values should they hold dear to their hearts?
• Looking for a partnership with another company : Why would the two be a good fit?
• Just for you : An executive summary might be enough.

While this will be the first thing the viewer sees, it will normally be the last thing you write.

• Company Description

The next section of our business plan template is the company description. It covers the following:

• Your company mission and goals : Why does your company matter?
• Your product and target market : What are you selling and to whom?
• Your team : Who is going to help you succeed? You might want to create an organizational chart with your management team, including their skill sets and the gaps you need to fill.
• Your legal structure : Will how you’re structured lead you to succeed? Don’t even bother applying for financing if you are a sole proprietorship. They won’t take you seriously. Register as an LLC or a Corporation.

These are the high-end goals of a business. The mission statement is simply what you want to achieve. For instance, Boxabl has the mission to, “Significantly lower the cost of homeownership for everyone.”

Your goals should be highly measurable. They should be focused on accomplishing your mission and should be:

• S pecific: What are you trying to achieve? In Boxabl’s case, it is lowering the cost of homeownership for everyone.
• M easurable: How can you measure it? With Boxabl, you might measure against HomeAdvisor’s estimate to build in an area and the median home sale price in the area.
• A chievable: Can it be done? For Boxabl, their factory claims to have a production capacity of 30,000 homes annually for $50,000 each (plus land costs). That’s a substantial savings, but it only covers .5% of the US housing sales in 2021 .
• R ealistic: Can you actually do what needs to be done? In Boxabl’s case, it could reduce the costs in a single city based on current capacity. 30,000 sales would be equal to 60% of Las Vegas home sales in 2021 . 
• T ime-Oriented: How long will it take? With Boxabl’s design, it could dramatically lower rates in Las Vegas in a year but would need to ramp up production to meet the nationwide levels. It would need to ramp up 120X capacity to reach 60% of all home sales. That means years down the road.

You might want to have a roadmap or graphics in this section to help people visualize them. Here’s an example of what a good roadmap looks like:

You can see the rest of it on Presearch’s website . 

Notice how many references I have in this section. A well documented business plan will be full of references because you have to prove all assumptions are reasonable.

With a business plan someone views online, you can use hyperlinks. Otherwise, you’ll want to include your links in an appendix or as footnotes. I recommend using IBIS World for most of your statistics because many banks use them to analyze how accurate your reports are. I’ll cover this more in the section on documentation.

This section of our business plan template focuses on the industry. You’ll want to start at the highest macroeconomic level and work your way down to the company level. This will include aspects like:

• Whole Economy : Consider GDP growth or shrinkage, interest rates, consumer spending, and anything else that has the ability to impact your business from the highest market analysis standpoint.
• Industry : What is the industry outlook over the next five to 10 years? How many total businesses are in your industry (both nationwide and locally)? Who are the major players? What percent of the market do the major players service? How much is left for smaller players? How is the industry changing?
• Individual Companies : What are they doing? What gaps are they leaving? What can you do better? What do their 401K and quarterly reports show?

All this data matters; it shows whether you know what you are talking about or whether you are just chasing dreams. Don’t get me wrong it’s fun to chase dreams, but it’s better if your management team knows what it is talking about.

If you’re focused on local work, you might want to include a map of all your competitors in this section, for instance, the picture below is a map from Gas Buddy of all the local gas stations in a city. You’ll want to update it with opportunities for locations in the next section on strengths and weaknesses. 

Next, you’ll want to compare your experience with this information.

Include strengths and weaknesses in a business plan template

You’ll want to perform a SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats) analysis. This section of our business plan template includes questions about:

• Your team : Include an organizational chart that outlines your management team, their skill sets, and the gaps you need to fill.
• Divisions : Do you have divisions that are really strong or weak? How are you going to fix this?
• Funding : How are your monetary or cash flow scenarios?
• Vendors: Do you have special vendor scenarios that give you an advantage or disadvantage?
• Industry : Do you have competitive advantages or disadvantages that other companies don’t have? Does that leave holes for you to fill a service area? Check out the map below for potential holes in the market for gas stations:

Opportunities For Gas Stations

Check out this video by Project Manager to understand SWOT analysis better.

Your strategies (Operations)

This section details how you plan to meet the goals you have set. The business strategies section includes concepts like:

• Risk Management
• Mergers and Acquisitions

Logistics show that you’ve really thought about how you plan to achieve your goal. I think the history of Ford, ExxonMobil, Tesla Motors, and previous electric vehicles really shows how the logistics of something matter.

Before the Model T, the majority of cars were electric vehicles. Unfortunately, it was far easier to go to a gas station than to have to charge your electric car. It still is, but part of Elon Musk’s plan to make electric vehicles achievable was nationwide charging stations . 

He had to start by strategically placing them so that a Tesla wouldn’t have to risk running out of power while traveling along major highways. If his business plan hadn’t included over 3,000 superchargers, do you think they’d have sold over 3.23 million vehicles ?

Of course not. You have to think about what can go wrong and how you’ll address it. That’s how logistics work in your favor––before you have a problem.

This section of the business plan should be focused on what you’ll be doing to get word out about your products and services. This section should include:

• Target market data
• Brand assets like logos
• How you’ll be communicating with potential customers
• Your marketing channels and budget
• Examples of your ads if they are truly impressive

Financial History and Projections

Lenders, equity providers, and governments offering you relocation initiatives will care about the financial prospects. They’ll want to know the following:

• Your assumptions

Your past performance

• Your current year forecast 
• Longer-term outlook (three, five or ten-year outlook)

Even if you’re not trying to make a deal, these can help you plan better. Let’s look at each.

Assumptions

You’ll want to start the financial projections section with a list of assumptions that are backed by valid resources. Assumptions are everything that could go wrong. They may include:

• Wage growth
• Industry growth
• Market share growth
• Financing rates
• Production timelines
• Marketing metrics

Anticipating everything that could go wrong helps you be prepared and shows your willingness to problem-solve. In Writing Winning Business Plans, the author recommends reviewing the SEC forward-looking statement guidelines because investors are used to reading them. I’d also recommend reading some 401Ks on EDGAR .

If you’re an existing business, you’ll also want to show the past history according to your tax returns for at least two years, but three to five years is better. This lets others see whether growth is steady, accelerating, or slowing.

Don’t try to minimize your taxes if you are trying to get a loan. Try to maximize your net income and cash flow. Think ahead and make it easy for the people to approve you. Also, remember that asset-light businesses have higher profit margins than if you have a billion-dollar plant (it might help with secured loans, though).

Your current year forecast

Create financial projections for the current year. These will show whether or not you have a solid business plan that can actually take on business loans or get equity investors. You’ll want to include at least:

• Profit & Loss Statement : This is similar to a Net Income Statement but is made up. It’s for a one-year minimum and may be called a P&L statement.
• Cash Flow Statement : Here you will show the annual flow of funds in and out of the business.
• Balance Sheet : Give a comparison of the assets and receivables to the liabilities and owners’ equity.

I normally start with monthly spreadsheets because it makes it easier to predict where cash flow imbalances will occur.

Longer-term outlook (three, five, or ten-year outlook)

In addition, you may want to create three-year, five-year, or ten-year projections. Be careful with these, though. The economic environment can change fairly quickly, and in 30 to 90 days a lot of economic reports are released.

This part should change based on who will be viewing it, but it should stay similar. A call to action may be:

• A request for financing for equipment, inventory, or other business needs
• An offer to schedule a meeting to discuss equity purchases
• Linking to employment applications for applicants
• A link to a quiz to make sure employees processed the information
• A request for a tax subsidy from a government

Each of these should stay true to the rest of the document, but you’ll only want to include a call to action for that specific goal. I would suggest saving a separate copy of the template for each type of action.

Here’s what the Appendix will look like for APA-style references. You can use online citation-creating sites like Purdue Owl to create them. 

About Us . (n.d.). Retrieved May 17, 2022, from https://www.boxabl.com/about-us

A Better Search Engine for We the People. (n.d.). Retrieved May 17, 2022, from https://presearch.io/roadmap

Brewer, R. (2022, January 06). Record number of homes sold in 2021 in Las Vegas Area. Retrieved May 17, 2022, from https://vegasinc.lasvegassun.com/business/real-estate/2022/jan/06/record-number-of-homes-sold-in-2021-in-las-vegas-a/

Business Plan Template. (2021, April 19). Retrieved May 17, 2022, from https://www.upflip.com/learn/business-plan-template

Published by Statista Research Department, & 4, A. (2022, April 04). Total home sales in the United States from 2011 to 2021 with a forecast for 2022 and 2023. Retrieved May 17, 2022, from https://www.statista.com/statistics/275156/total-home-sales-in-the-united-states-from-2009/

Research and Documentation

Now that we’ve covered the sections of our business plan template, let’s discuss how to research and document your findings. We can all use Google search, but will it give you the best answer? 

Maybe, maybe not.

You have to use real data, and there are two ways to get it. You can either go directly to the source or you can buy it. 

Get the Primary Data Set

For anyone on a budget or who might prefer to do data analysis themselves, this section is for you. You’ll need the data for many of the sections of your business plan, primarily the industry analysis and the financial modeling.

If you’ve never downloaded a massive dataset, you should try it sometime. They are huge and hard to process. Start by downloading the 50.4 MB spreadsheet to analyze your NAICS code from census.gov . It’s a pain. I’ve had one nearly crash my computer.

After you get the data, you’ll have to process it, create graphs, and cite it in your Appendix. If you have time to do all that, awesome! You’ll want to get data from .gov sites or major organizations. Check out this list of free datasets .

If that sounds like a lot of work, try buying the data from trusted sources instead.

Buy the Processed Data from a Trusted Source

Fortunately, there are plenty of great resources that make it easy to document your statistics in a business plan. You have to pay for them, but they are worth it. Two of the ones I really like are IBIS World and Statista. 

They do the research for every NAICS code and all you have to do is buy their report. It even comes with sourced charts for you to use. If you think you’ll need the data long-term, I suggest getting one of their subscriptions.

You’ll be able to pull everything you need out of it and package it nicely in your business plan. Be sure to add your citations into our business plan template, though.

Add Citations to the Business Plan Template

There are a variety of ways to add citations to a business plan, but the most common are:

• Appendix : Save the documents and add them at the end of your business plan. Make sure you label them well. You might want to use this in combination with footnotes to mark which citation goes with which statement.
• Footnotes : You’ll want to add a footnote, then put the reference at the bottom of the page using The Chicago Manual of Style . Check the footnote below for how it looks.
• Hyperlinks : These only work for digital copies, but they send the reader right to the website where the information was retrieved. Just make sure it’s not pay protected. Use these in conjunction with an appendix so you can use the same business plan for both print and digital.

I’ve put all the references to this blog in the Appendix section to give you an easy example.

In addition to The Chicago Manual of Style , you can also use:

• American Psychological Association Style
• Modern Language Association Style

I personally like the APA style, but everyone has their preferences. Just make sure you stay consistent throughout your business plan. Use Purdue Owl if you aren’t familiar with research and citation rules.

Free Business Plan Templates

There are a lot of places where you can get a business plan template. Some of the best places are:

• UpFlip : Download the  template that follows this blog.
• Score : View three Score templates .
• Oprah : Oprah offers three templates for business owners.
• My Own Business Institute : (That’s the name; I don’t own it.) Other than ours, I like this free business plan best. Check it out .
• BizGym : Want a lean business plan, BizGym is a good one.

In any of them you’ll want to make sure it has something comparable to the parts in our list. All of them do, but rearrange the order.

80% of businesses fail... Learn how not to.

Learn from business failures and successes in 5 min or less. The stories, frameworks, and tactics that will make you a 10x better founder.

Brandon Boushy

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How to Start a Business With No Money (In 2024)

• Coming up Small Business Ideas

Market Research

• Business Plan
• Name the Business
• Structure the Business

Preparing for Opening Day

• Tips on how to start a business without money

Step 1: Come up with Small Business Ideas

• Looking at what other industries do and how it can be applied to yours.
• Looking at what other countries do and how it can be applied to yours.
• Observing a problem and finding a way to solve it.

Look at what other industries do

Look at what other countries do

Observe a problem and solve it., what is the easiest business to start with no money, how to start an online business with no money.

• 11 more freelancing sites
• Development jobs
• Graphic Design jobs
• Blogging and other writing jobs
• Digital Marketing

Business Idea: Software Development jobs

Business idea: graphic design jobs.

Blogging and Other Freelance Writing Jobs

• 1-2 hours watching videos
• 1 hour finding and reading links
• 1 hour editing
• 2.5 hours writing ( I only type about 30 words per minute)
• 1 hour back and forth with the client
• 1-2 days struggling to figure out what story I want to tell (insert laughing crying face emoji)

Business Idea: Digital Marketing

• Google- Check out Google Digital Garage to learn how to maximize the utility of their platforms.
• Facebook-Check out Facebook Blueprint to learn how to maximize the utility of their platforms
• Amazon- Check out Amazon Advertising Learning Console to learn how to maximize the utility of their platforms
• LinkedIn- Check out LinkedIn Marketing Labs to learn how to maximize the utility of their platforms

What are demographics?

• Other Interests
• Marital Status
• Do they have kids?

How do I find out who my potential customers are?

Identifying your target market, a business plan for how to start your own business with no money.

• Business Plan Cover Page
• Table of Contents
• Executive Summary
• Description of Products and Services- This section should only be a product or a service. It's hard to offer more than one until you have more money. Focus on one great minimum viable product
• Marketing Plan
• SWOT Analysis
• Competitor Data
• Competitive Analysis
• Marketing Expenses Strategy-This section should probably have an original strategy based on low cost or free alternatives, then plans on how to expand based on extra cash flow.
• Pricing Strategy
• Distribution Channel Assessment- At first, this will most likely be yourself, print-on-demand, or electronic distribution models. Business models that let you make more money each time you sell a single unit of work are the most scalable. Then build to a more complex distribution.
• Operational Plan- You'll be doing everything at first. Specify the division of your time and how the work will be delegated later
• Management and Organizational Strategy- Current-you, future-provide chart.
• Financial Statements and/or Financial Projections- Without any money whatsoever, you'll probably be starting a business slowly. Don't put insane projections like making $100k profit in the first year if you don't have clients. You might aim for that, but you'll have to invest in the business and keep up with your living expense
• Funding- start with what you can do without funds, then what means you'll be able to pursue funding once your business idea starts generating more revenue.

• Personal funds
• Loan from family or friends
• Business partner(s) –  inc.com  has a great blog on considerations about a partnership
• Business loans- Check out our  partners

How much money does it take to start a business?

• 198 used personal savings
• 90 reinvested revenue
• 69 got support from friends and family
• 63 got a personal loan
• Operations:  10%–15% - Software for managing business. This can be fairly low. For instance, Quicken is $100/year and will make keeping track of accounting easier. Cloud based services normally have free trial periods to get started.
• Product:  28%–36%: When selling goods divide the cost by.28 to get the price you should sell for. Use Printful to make this process easier.
• Shipping:  8%–12%=should be covered by the customer unless they spend over a certain amount.
• Online:  9%–10%=Cost of software directly attributable to selling product
• Marketing:  7%–12% =You or outsourced
• Team:  14%–30%=You starting off.

Can I start a business with no money?

How to start a business with no money or experience, how to start a successful business with no money and bad credit, how to start a business with no money or credit, structure the business.

Business Formation

• Getting an EIN from the IRS
• Getting a state/local business license

Unemployment Insurance

• Workman’s Comp

Licenses, permits, and tax forms

Sole proprietorship, limited liability corporation (llc).

Partnerships and corporations

Apply for an ein, state/local business licenses.

Workman’s Compensation

• Social Media Platforms -Your social media presence can help you find clients by creating a Facebook page . You can then share info from your Facebook page
• Free Websites - Wix has a 100% free website , but top10best compares other options .
• Free CRM - Check out this list of Free CRMs for the one that will work best for your new business venture
• Free Accounting Software- Fundera has a list of 8 Free Accounting Software Providers .

Tips on How to Start a Business with NO Money

• Don't spend a lot of time on a registered trademark. It's a waste of money until you drive revenue.
• Avoid merchant cash advances and other forms of credit with interest higher than your profit margin. They are slowly driving losses.
• You'll probably be able to get personal loans or business cards before a small business loan. Small business loans need to be spent wisely because they aren't earned.
• Online courses are so essential to learning business skills in today's society.

406 Creative Nail Salon Names (2024)

Did you know there are over 56K nail salons in the U.S.? You need a great nail salon name to make your business stand out.

We’ve compiled a list of over 400 nail salon name ideas to help you find inspiration for your nail business name. In addition, we provide naming tips and information about how to register your nail salon business name once you’ve chosen one.

[su_note note_color="#dbeafc"] Click on any of the links below to jump straight to the nil salon name ideas you want to see.

What Makes Good Nail Salon Names?

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• Next Steps After Naming Your Nail Salon [/su_note]

Good nail salon name ideas normally include some or all of the following:

• Use a memorable name: The easier it is for potential customers to remember your nail salon name, the more people are likely to contact you.
• Make it personal: Choose names that appeal to your client base and how their nails will make them feel.
• Include keywords: Including words like nail , salon , studio , gel , boutique , and other words relating to your nail business can help with SEO and an immediate understanding of what your company does.

Keep reading for lots of nail business name ideas.

Consider some of these nail salon name ideas before you name your nail business.

1. Perfectly Polished 2. Artistic Touch Nail Salon 3. Glamourous Nails Studio 4. Whimsical Nail Wonderland 5. Elegant Tips & Toes 6. Beautifully Buffed Salon 7. Enchanting Nail Boutique 8. Chic & Unique Nails 9. Radiant Nail Reflections 10. Blissful Nail Haven 11. Divine Nail Creations 12. Serene Nail Sanctuary 13. Lavish Nail Oasis 14. Opulent Nail Emporium 15. Charm’s Nail Art

16. Majestic Tips 17. Exquisite Nail Salon 18. Gel Nails on the Square 19. Allure Nail Atelier 20. Flawless Nails Salon 21. Sassy & Classy Nails 22. Vivid Nail Dreams 23. Dreamy Nail Escape 24. Sparkling Nails 25. Royal Nails 26. Delicate Nail Delights 27. Dazzling Nails 28. Posh and Pampered 29. Enchanted Nails 30. Blissful Nails

Pro Tip: Using an adjective like perfect , artistic , glamour , whimsical , elegant , or beautiful along with nail , nails , or salon can be a great way to come up with good nail business name ideas.

There are plenty of other nail business name ideas. Consider some of these.

1. Polished & Poised 2. Gilded Tips & Toes 3. The Painted Palette 4. Mani Matchmaker 5. Blissful Digits 6. The Buff & Polish Bar 7. Bubbly & Beautified 8. The Polished Peacock 9. Glitter & Grace 10. Serene Sips & Tips 11. Brushstroke Brilliance 12. The Nailing Project 13. Bohemian Bliss Nails 14. Wink & a Mani 15. Classy Claws

16. The Tipsy Touches 17. The Quirky Cuticle 18. Polished to Perfection 19. Luxe & Lacquer 20. The Nail Foundry 21. The Pampered Paw 22. Fingertip Fantasy 23. The Art of Manis 24. The Royal Mani 25. Zen Polish 26. Vibrant Varnish 27. The Polished Posse 28. The Nailery 29. Nails, Chromified 30. Brushed with Brilliance

Pro Tip: Once you find nail business names you like, make sure they are available as web domains and trademarks.

The best nail business name will also work well with a logo. Think about what the logo would look like for each of your potential nail salon names.

Your nail business name and logo will be used on everything from your website to invoices and will help potential customers remember your company. 

You might want to choose a good nail salon name idea from the list below.

1. Rose Nail Lounge 2. Azure Nails & Spa 3. Willow Nail Studio 4. Sunbeam Nail Salon 5. Ocean Breeze Nail Retreat 6. Crimson Nail Boutique 7. Silk Nails & Beauty 8. Moonlit Nail Haven 9. Golden Nail Palace 10. The Nail Sanctuary 11. Pearl Nail Bar 12. Vixen Nail Emporium 13. Midnight Nail Lounge 14. Serendipity Nails & More 15. Sapphire Nail Oasis

16. Emerald Nail Studio 17. Ruby Red Nails 18. Aura Nail Atelier 19. Lavender Nail Boutique 20. Crystal Nail Creations 21. Mystic Nail Spa 22. Coral Nail Paradise 23. Diamond Nail Haven 24. Enchanted Nail Escape 25. Charm Nail Studio 26. Secret Nail Hideaway 27. Orchid Nail Emporium 28. Ruby Nail Artistry 29. Siren Nail Sanctuary 30. Aurora Nail Boutique

Nail salons can sprinkle some humor into the name for their nail services. Consider some of these funny nail salon business name ideas.

1. Punny Nail Shack 2. Nail it or Bail it Salon 3. The Nailinator 4. No Pain, No Polish 5. Nailed It! 6. The Fingernail Follies 7. Funny Fingers & Twinkle Toes 8. The Nail Nerd 9. Tipsy Tips Nail Bar 10. Claws for Celebration 11. The Mani-Mirth Manor

12. The Polish Parody 13. Snip ’n’ Snark Nail Salon 14. Whiskers Nail Den 15. Hilarious Hands 16. Nails & Nonsense 17. Cuticles Nail Club 18. Chuckle Nail Chalet 19. Tickled Pink Nail Bar 20. Puns & Polish Parlor 21. The Cuticle Cabaret 22. Sweet Feet Nail Boutique

Pro Tip: Nail business name ideas can incorporate some humor by using puns or alliteration. Figuring out what works for you and your clients’ senses of humor can make picking a name an even more exciting venture.

When your nail business is a pressing matter, you might consider a company name from this salon name ideas list.

1. Press-On Perfection Boutique 2. Instant Glamour Press-Ons 3. The Quick Fix 4. Ready-to-Wear Nail Haven 5. Snap & Go Nail Emporium 6. Press-On Paradise Salon 7. Insta-Nails & More 8. Elegance Press-On Studio 9. Pop & Press Nail Oasis 10. Fast & Fabulous Nails Inc. 11. Click & Stick Nail Bar 12. Peel & Play Press-Ons 13. Nail It Easy 14. Instant Chic Press-On 15. Peel, Press & Wow

16. Ready in a Snap 17. The Quick Press-On Studio 18. Click & Chic Nail Boutique 19. My Pop-On Polish 20. Insta-Glam Nailz 21. Simply Press-Ons 22. Click & Go 23. Snap-On Nail Shack 24. Click & Charm 25. Ready, Set, Glam! 26. Press-On Perfection 27. Click & Carry 28. Quick Glam Nail Quarters 29. Snap & Show Nail Retreat 30. Insta-Chic Nail Club

Pro Tip: Including keywords related to press-ons in your nail names is a great way to let people know that your nail artists focus on providing quick service.

Nail art is one of the most complex types of nail services in the competitive beauty industry. Consider some of these unique nail salon names to let people know you specialize in artistic nails.

1. Artistic Touch Nail Gallery 2. Creative Canvas Nail Studio 3. Masterpiece Manicures Salon 4. Vibrant Nail Atelier 5. Brush & Blush Nail Artistry 6. Palette & Polish Haven 7. Artistic Aura Nail Emporium 8. Canvas & Color Nail Lounge 9. Chromatic Creations Nail Spa 10. Brushstroke Nails Sanctuary 11. Artisanal Nails & More 12. Dreamy Nail Oasis 13. Eclectic Elegance Nail Gallery 14. Muse & Manicure Nail Chalet 15. Abstract Nail Retreat

16. Bohemian Nail Boutique 17. Kaleidoscope Nails & Spa 18. Serene Nail Emporium 19. Fusion of Colors Nail Atelier 20. Artistry Avenue Nail Sanctuary 21. Chromatic Canvas Nail Lounge 22. Vivid Visions Nail Gallery 23. Dreamy Designs Nail Spa 24. Enchanted Easels Studio 25. Palette Nail Haven 26. Rainbows Nail Chalet 27. Whirls Nail Boutique 28. Imagi-NAILS Oasis 29. Brush & Bling Nail Emporium 30. Abstract Nail Atelier

Pro Tip: Nail businesses specializing in nail art should use a unique nail business name that includes words relating to art like artistic , brush , canvas , or whatever style of art you specialize in.

French nails provide an elegant look, and you should have an equally unique nail salon name, especially if you specialize in French tips. Consider some of these nail company names for your French nail services.

1. Chic Clous Nail Salon 2. Elegance en Blanc Nail Parlor 3. Parfait Poli Nail Lounge 4. Ooh La La Nails & Spa 5. Belle Beauté Nail Boutique 6. L'Art de L'ongle Nail Studio 7. Blanc Brillant Nail Atelier 8. French Finesse Nail Haven 9. Rêverie de Roses Nail Retreat 10. Charme Château Nail Chalet 11. Magnifique Manicures Salon 12. Lueur de Luxe Nail Emporium 13. Parisian Perfection Nail Sanctuary 14. Beauteous Blanc Nail Gallery 15. Douceur de Diamant Nail Spa

16. Élégance Éternelle Nail Lounge 17. La Beauté Blanche Nail Boutique 18. L'Éclat d'Argent Nail Oasis 19. Doux Douleur Nail Atelier 20. La Fleur Fleurie Nail Pavilion 21. Charmant Ciel Nail Hideaway 22. Belle et Bien Nail Studio 23. Delicate Digits Nail Salon 24. Joie de Vivre Nail Emporium 25. La Lune Lumineuse Nail Boutique 26. Finesse Française Nail Retreat 27. L'Amour en Blanc Nail Chalet 28. Lumière de Lune Nail Lounge 29. La Vie en Rose Nail Spa 30. Doux Désir Nail Atelier

Pro Tip: Everything sounds just a little sexier when you use the French language. Consider beautiful French words to give your nail salon name some mystique.

Nail business names can reflect class to help present a high-end reputation. Consider some of these classy nail business names.

1. Classique Couture Nail Salon 2. Opulent Obsessions Nail Atelier 3. Sophistique Salon & Spa 4. Eclat Elite Nail Lounge 5. Regal Reflections Nail Boutique 6. Luxe Legacy Nail Studio 7. Prestige & Polish Nail Parlor 8. Grandeur Nail Emporium 9. Decadence Nail Retreat 10. Noble Nails & Spa 11. Haute Heritage Nail Chalet 12. Majestic Manicures Salon 13. Refined Radiance Nail Haven

14. Timeless Temptations Nail Oasis 15. Exquisite Elegance Nail Gallery 16. The Nail Pavilion 17. Elegant Edge Nail Boutique 18. Polished Panache Nail Studio 19. Sovereign Styles Nail Atelier 20. Elite Nail Lounge 21. Regency Refinement Nails 22. Magnificent Manicures & More 23. Royal Ritz Nail Retreat 24. Grandiose Nail Emporium 25. Prestige & Panache Nail Studio 26. Elegant Nails

Pro Tip: Once you have the perfect cute nail salon name, consider how you will make the atmosphere a match.

Unique nail salon names should stand out from the pack. Consider some of these catchy nail salon business names.

1. Glam Pop Nail Studio 2. Sparkle & Shine Nail Bar 3. Chic Flicks Nails 4. Trendy Tips & Toes 5. Sizzle & Spark Nail Lounge 6. Lush Luxe Nails 7. Bliss & Bling Nail Haven 8. Dazzle Drive Nail Emporium 9. Radiant Nail Retreat 10. Urban Edge Nail Boutique 11. Vivid Vibes Nail Palace 12. Funky Fingers & Toes 13. Groove & Glam Nail Club 14. Pizzazz & Polish Nail Spot 15. Mod Manicures & More

16. Pop & Polish 17. Hip Hop & Nails 18. Glitz & Groove Nail Junction 19. Flash Nail Studio 20. Fab Fusion Nail Oasis 21. Snazzy Nail Salon 22. Bold & Beautiful Nails 23. Verve & Vogue Nail Plaza 24. Funky Nail Chalet 25. Bounce & Bling Nail Salon 26. Snazzy Nail Lounge 27. Finesse Nail Retreat 28. Chic Clicks Nail Boutique 29. Groove & Glisten Nail Emporium 30. Trendy Tints & Tips

Pro Tip: The best nail salon names are colorful and catchy. Think about your brand identity and brand values when considering nail name ideas. Then use fun adjectives to make the name unique and memorable.

1. Frostbite Nails 2. Rebel Polish 3. Ice Cold Tips 4. Razor’s Edge Mani 5. Urban Matrix Nails 6. Neon Pulse Nails 7. Chrome Crush Nails 8. Arctic Aura Manicures 9. Stiletto Nails 10. Electric Elegance Nails 11. Midnight Mirage Manicures 12. Thunderbolt Tips 13. Cosmic Nail Creations 14. Tropical Wave Nails 15. Nova Nail Studio

16. Quantum Quirk Nails 17. Blaze & Ice Nails 18. Cyber Chic Nails 19. Aurora Borealis Nails 20. Nail Palette 21. Eclipse Elegance Nails 22. Celestial Sleek Nails 23. Zenith Nail Pro 24. Stellar Shimmer Mani 25. Ignite & Inspire Nails 26. Enigma Nails 27. Supernova Nails 28. Matrix Manicures 29. Pulse Perfection Nails 30. Sleek Nail Story

1. Chromatic Nail Odyssey 2. Kaleidoscope Nail Nirvana 3. Celestial Mani Universe 4. These Whimsical Nails 5. Voyage Nail Escapade 6. Friends, Family, Nails 7. Euphoria Nail Soiree 8. Illusionist's Nailscape 9. Artisanal Nail Fantasia 10. Surreal Salon Odyssey 11. Mirage Manicures & More 12. Ethereal Nail Adventure 13. Fantasia Fingers & Toes

14. Symphony of Style Nail Soiree 15. Divine Digits 16. Enchanted Nail Extravaganza 17. Reverie Nail Soiree 18. Mirage Magic Mani 19. Surreal Nail Nirvana 20. Artful Nail Voyage 21. Dreamy Delight Mani Adventure 22. Radiant Reverie Nail Oasis 23. Whimsy & Wonder Nail Gala 24. Celestial Canvas Nail Odyssey 25. Ethereal Essence Manicures & More 26. Surreal Nail Serenade

1. Elite Nail Creations Co. 2. Premier Nail Innovations Company 3. ProNails Solutions Inc. 4. Eminent Nail Artistry Co. 5. Signature Nail Designs Company 6. Apex Nail Studio 7. Prime Polish Pro Co. 8. Paramount Nail Solutions Company 9. Apex Artisan Nails Co. 10. Vanguard Nail Crafters Company 11. Executive Edge Nail Designs Co. 12. Noble Nail Studios Inc. 13. Precision Nail Art Co. 14. Sovereign Nail Coatings Company 15. Regal Nail Aesthetics Co.

16. Superior Nail Art Company 17. Pinnacle Nail Artistry Co. 18. Empyrean Nail Creations Company 19. Distinctive Nail Innovations Co. 20. Supreme Nail Solutions Company 21. Eminent Nail Atelier Co. 22. Vanguard Nail Artisans Company 23. Prominent Nail Crafters Co. 24. Illustrious Nail Designs Company 25. Noble Nails Co. 26. Paramount Nail Artistry Company 27. Sterling Nail Solutions Co. 28. Royal Nail Studios Inc. 29. Top Tier Nail Designs Co. 30. Premiere Nail Artisans Company

If you never intend for your nail business to expand beyond yourself, your name might be the best nail salon name. Alternatively, you could name your salon after a loved one or person who’s inspired you. Consider some of these examples:

1. Bella’s Lavish Nails 2. Lily’s Beauty & Nail Boutique 3. Olivia’s Elegant Nail Lounge 4. Emily’s Opulent Nail Oasis 5. Ava’s Sophisticated Nail Salon 6. Sophia's Artistic Mani 7. Amelia's Magnificent Manicures 8. Mia’s Artisanal Pedi 9. Artistic Nail Salon by Gloria 10. Evelyn's Haute Nail Haven 11. Harper’s Exquisite Nail Designs 12. Chloe’s Stylish Nail Studio 13. Scarlett's Chic Nail Creations 14. Grace's Nail Stop 15. Nora's Nail Retreat 16. Riley’s Noble Nails

17. Cherry’s Nail Zenith 18. Zoe's Lush Nail Lacquer 19. Aurora’s Nail Spa 20. Kaylee’s Luxe Nail Lounge 21. Hanna’s Lavish Nail Locale 22. Bonnie’s Nail Garden 23. Violet's Polished Toes Nook 24. Pen’s Vivid Nail Varnish 25. Hazel’s Nail Design Emporium 26. Eleanor’s Nail Hideaway 27. Luna's Luminous Nail Nook 28. Brooke’s Stylista Nail Salon 29. Savanna’s Blissful Nail Boutique 30. Carly’s Nail Palace 31. The Nail Pallete by Muriel 32. Bobby’s Manicure Addicts

Pro Tip: Nail shop names with your first or last name in them might create an expectation that you’ll be working with all the clients. If you intend to sublet to other nail technicians, you might not want to use your own name.

Good names for nail salons can be as simple as providing a location indicator. Just be careful when choosing a name for nail business operations. If you get too specific you might have to change the name if your shop front moves to another location.

1. Central Park Nails 2. Sunset Strip Salon 3. Broadway Beauty Co. 4. Golden Gate Glamour 5. Beverly Hills Nails 6. Magnificent Mile Manicures 7. Hollywood Hills Nail Studio 8. Times Square Tips 9. Rodeo Drive Nails 10. Mile High Mani-Pedi 11. Miami Beach Manicures 12. Vegas Strip Salon 13. SoHo Chic Nails 14. Napa Valley Nail Retreat 15. Santa Monica Shoreline Salon

16. Sunset Boulevard Nails 17. Alamo City Artistry 18. Windy City Nails 19. Bourbon Street Beauty Co. 20. Silicon Valley Salon 21. Riverwalk Nail Studio 22. Music City Manicures 23. Emerald City Elegance 24. Rocky Mountain Retreat 25. Key West Kanvas 26. Palm Beach Polish Co. 27. Ocean Drive Oasis 28. Liberty Bell Nails 29. Painted Lady on the Promenade 30. Hollywood Boulevard Beauty

Pro Tip: Including the city, county, or references to local landmarks can be a good way to indicate your new nail salon is a local business. Make sure to check keyword volumes to see what people are searching for before choosing the best local indicator.

After you have found some unique nail business names, you’ll need to:

• Perform a Name Check: Check for available domain names, trademarks, and social media accounts.
• Get an LLC: You’ll want to register your creative name as an LLC.
• Get Your Business License: Your business will need a license to operate legally.

Learn more about starting a business .

Next Steps After Naming Your Nail Salon

There’s still a ton to do after brainstorming and choosing from your favorite nail names. You’ll want to make sure you’re licensed and insured, find a great location, and start marketing to your target audience.

What kind of nail name ideas do you like?

27 Best Business Ideas For Women 2024

3 Best Business Ideas For Women

3 manufacturing business for ladies ideas, 3 online business ideas for women, 3 best small business ideas from home for ladies, 3 self-employed ideas for females, 12 unique business ideas for ladies.

• FAQs [/su_note]

#1. Real estate

#2. restaurants, #3. human resources, #1. build custom sheds.

#2. Make your own beauty products

#3. start your own shoe or clothing line, #1. start an online store, #2. make and sell online courses, #3. social media management, #1. photography business, #2. in-home childcare business, #3. wedding planning business , #1. freelance writing business, #2. graphic design business.

#3. Data entry

#1. interior design, #2. virtual bookkeeping business.

#3. Resell shoes or vintage clothes

#4. professional organizer, #5. start a farm, #6. dropshipping business, #7. open a bakery business.

#8. Personal trainer

#9. home, office, or airbnb cleaning business, #10. life coach, #11. laundry business, #12. baby equipment rental business, faqs about what is a good business to start for a woman, what is the best business for a woman to start, what percent of women own businesses.

How to start a business as a woman

Where can i find women in business scholarships.

What is the best way to get a business loan for women?

Which business idea will you choose.

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Simple Business Plan Template for Startups, Small Businesses & Entrepreneurs

Why use growthink’s business plan template.

Growthink’s business plan template is the result of our 25+ years of experience and research into the business plans that help entrepreneurs, executives and small business owners attract potential investors and lenders, and build successful companies.

We designed it so you can create the best business plan for your company!

What is a Business Plan Template?

A business plan template is a document that allows you to quickly write a detailed business plan. Among other things, it includes all key business plan sections: an executive summary, company description, industry and market analyses, competitive overview, marketing and operations plans, management team and five year financial projections. Get started writing your business plan today by using our simple business plan template.

First Section: Executive Summary >

• Business Plan Template Home
• 1. Executive Summary
• 2. Company Overview
• 3. Industry Analysis
• 4. Customer Analysis
• 5. Competitive Analysis
• 6. Marketing Plan
• 7. Operations Plan
• 8. Management Team
• 9. Financial Plan
• 10. Appendix
• Business Plan Summary

Writing a Business Plan and Business Plan Template FAQs

How can i access growthink’s ultimate business plan template.

Download Growthink’s Ultimate Business Plan Template and complete a solid business plan and your financial statements in hours.

Does Word Have a Business Plan Template?

Our startup business plan template includes an outline of each of the 10 key sections to help you write a plan to start a new business, grow your existing business, and/or help you secure funding such as a business loan from the Small Business Administration, local bank, grants, angel investors, venture capitalists, or from other financial institutions.

Unlike our premium version, our free templates do not include all the key sub-sections, the questions that walk you through step-by-step, the professional cover page designs, nor the financial projections template that allows you to create a professional financial plan in minutes.

Click here to learn more about the World’s #1 Best Business Plan Template. (Rated 4.9 Stars on Reseller Ratings)

Where Can I Download a Free Business Plan Template PDF?

You can access our business plan pdf download here.  This is a pdf version of our basic   business plan template .

Our free business plan template pdf includes everything you need to include in your plan- executive summary, company overview, industry analysis, customer analysis, competitive analysis, marketing plan, operations plan, management plan, financial plan and appendix- and the key questions that each must answer. This free business plan template pdf will definitely get you started in the right direction.

We do offer a premium version of our business plan template. Click here to learn more about it. The premium version includes numerous features not available in the free template . Its most touted feature is its financial projections template which allows you to simply enter your estimated sales and growth rates, and it automatically calculates your complete five-year financial projections including income statements, balance sheets, and cash flow statements . Here’s the link to our Ultimate Business Plan Template.

What are Some Examples of Business Plans?

It can be helpful to review sample business plans before starting your own business planning process.  You can download our sample business plan pdf here to help you get started.

Remember, a critical part of your plan is to explain why your company is uniquely qualified to succeed, so resist the urge to copy a business plan sample completely. Also, importantly, a business plan is a living document that should be updated annually as your company grows and changes.

We also have over 300 business plan examples and free business plan templates available for you to develop a professional business plan.

How Can I Write a Simple Business Plan?

Use the simple business plan template below and answer the questions in each section to create a simple business plan for your company.

How To Write a Simple Business Plan

• Describe Your Business and Business Goals in the Executive Summary

Company Overview

• What type of company are you operating (e.g., a software company, a bakery, etc.)?
• Are you offering a product or a service?
• What is the legal structure of your company (e.g., sole proprietorship, limited liability company (LLC), corporation, etc.)?
• What is your mission statement and value proposition?
• What is the company’s history?
• What is your business model and business idea?
• Is there a market pain that your business solves?

Success Factors

• What is it about your company that makes it (or will make it) uniquely qualified to succeed?
• What milestones has your company achieved to demonstrate success?
• Conduct Market Research To Develop a Comprehensive Industry Analysis

Market Analysis

• In what market are you competing (e.g., the fast-food market, the running shoe market)?
• How big is the industry and is that size big enough?
• Are there positive or negative trends affecting the market (e.g., is it growing/shrinking, is government regulation on the horizon that could change the market analysis)?
• Better Understand Your Target Customers Through a Customer Analysis

Target Market

• Who are your target customers?
• What are their primary needs when choosing a product/service provider such as your company?
• Identify Strengths and Weaknesses of Your Competitors Through a Competitive Analysis

Competitive Advantage

• With whom will your company compete and how will your company better serve customer needs than your competitors?
• How else will you “beat” your competition? What are your key points of differentiation and your value proposition?
• How does your product or service compare to those offered by the competition?
• Describe How You Will Reach Your Potential Customers Through a Targeted Marketing Plan

Marketing Strategy

• What is your product or service offering?
• What marketing and sales strategies will you use to attract customers? and what promotional methods will you employ (e.g., radio advertising, pay-per-click ads) ?

Pricing Strategy

• How will you price your product or service?
• What discounts or promotions will you offer?
• Describe Your Management Team and the Experience They Bring To the Table.

Key Members of the Team

• Who is on your management team?
• What experiences, relationships, etc. do they possess that will help your venture succeed? Have they ever run other businesses?
• Are there key employees that you must hire in the future to improve your company’s odds of success?
• Do you have any business partners that take part in developing the business strategy?
• Calculate Realistic Financial Projections to Develop Your Business’s Financial Plan

Financial Model

• What is the main financial information about your company (revenue and expense projections)?
• How much outside funding (if any) do you need? What are your specific needs? (equipment, supplies,e etc.)
• What are your revenue streams? How much revenue can you really generate each year over the next five years?
• Are the profit margins high enough to sustain the company?
• What are your loss projections?

Completing this simple business plan template will provide a road map to completing your business plan and force you to answer key questions about your company which will help in determining its feasibility and likelihood for success.

For example, in choosing the ideal promotions strategy to attract new clients, you will be able to estimate the cost of acquiring new customers. This will allow you to compare that cost to your estimated customer lifetime value and ensure healthy profit margins are possible (or not).

Likewise, a competitive analysis might alert you to stiffer competition than you imagined and prompt you to opt for a new business idea or creatively come up with ways to outmaneuver competitors.

On a similar note, in completing this lean business plan, you might realize the market size isn’t big enough to support the large, thriving enterprise you’d like to create. Or perhaps market trends are moving away from the problems your company’s products and services solve.

Yet another example of the importance of this exercise is that it forces you to really think about your target customers. The better and more narrowly you can define your target customers, the more cost-effectively you’ll be able to attract them and the more successful you can be in developing a value proposition that appeals to them.

In any case, a simple business plan template allows you to better understand your venture and what it will take to make it successful.

Two additional types of simple business plan templates:

• One-page business plan- A one-page business plan is a compressed version of a traditional business plan that fits neatly into a single page. It usually includes only high level information about your business. Looking for a one-page business plan? Learn more and download our free one-page business plan template.
• Lean Business plan- A lean startup is supported by a one-page business plan that does not require extensive financial information, market research and/or business development plans. The lean startup needs to focus on factors that present immediate opportunities in order to gain a competitive advantage. Looking for a lean business plan? Learn more about the lean business planning process .

How Do I Write a Business Plan For a Small Startup?

A startup business plan is nearly identical to writing a business plan for an established business. The main difference between a startup business plan and business plans for an existing company is that established businesses should focus more on discussing past accomplishments and rely on historical data in their financial forecasts. In a startup business plan, the company needs to spend more time validating future forecasts since there’s no hard data on which to base them and proving that you will be a successful business owner.

A startup business plan template provides a road map to long-term success and business growth. It should include the same 10 key components of all business plans:

• Describe your business, mission and long-term goals in the executive summary.
• Explain the structure of your business, the physical location, and other basic business information in the company overview.
• Research your industry to explain current trends and influential factors for your business through a complete industry analysis.
• Identify the demographics and purchasing habits of your ideal customer in a detailed customer analysis.
• Better understand what your business is up against with a competitive analysis to identify their strengths and weaknesses.
• Develop a marketing plan that will help you reach your ideal customers, drive traffic to your website, and increase conversions.
• Create an operations plan that describes your day-to-day processes and procedures that make your business successful.
• Describe the management team that will be responsible for the success of your business.
• Create a comprehensive financial plan with realistic projections of where your business will be in the next 3-5 years.
• Attach supporting documents, financial statements, etc. in the appendix.

Learn the step-by-step writing process for how to write a comprehensive business plan and get a startup business plan template.

How Can I Write My Own Business Plan?

Anyone can write a business plan following the traditional business plan template, it’s important to remember that the most important part of your plan is to explain why your company is uniquely qualified to succeed and have strong financial data to support your business idea. This is why it’s important to do your market research to have a clear understanding of your industry, market analysis, target customer, and competitive landscape.

If you have a complex business or need help writing a professional plan, it can be helpful to use business plan software, hire an expert business plan consulting firm, or a business plan writer.  So, while you may want to write your business plan, the experience of a consultant can help you develop a more thorough and achievable business plan for you to attract investors, secure funding and/or grow your business. They will also be able to provide helpful tips to help navigate the business planning process.

Learn more about Growthink’s expert business plan consultants and how we have helped develop winning business plans for countless happy customers .

How Can I Get a Printable Business Plan Template?

A business plan is a very important document for any business. It helps you to outline your goals and business objectives, as well as how you plan to achieve them. If you’re looking for a printable business plan template, there are a few different options available to you.

One option is to download a free business plan template . Be aware that free business plan templates are often generic for any type of business, so while it will help you write your business plan, you may need to do some additional editing before using them.

Another option is to purchase a template from a business planning company. These types of business plan templates are of higher quality and include a range of features that can help you to create professional-looking business plans and financial model including the income statement, balance sheet, and cash flow statements.

Ultimately, the best option for you will depend on your needs and budget. If you’re looking for high-quality, printable business plan templates that are easy to edit, then a purchasing a business plan template is the best option. If you’re on a tight budget or you don’t need a lot of features, then a free, simple business plan template may be a better choice. Whichever option you choose, make sure to take the time to customize the template to fit your specific business.

Is a Business Plan Required For Funding?

Yes, a written business plan is nearly always required when seeking financing.  You need a business plan whether you are a small business, a startup, an existing business looking to grow or a seasoned business owner. Business plans fall into three common categories: business plans for funding, those used for strategy, and business plans for both fundraising and strategy.

Regardless of their business model, many business owners use their business plans to raise bank loans to grow. The funding request allows them to acquire additional business resources and improve their financial health. New business owners often seek bank loans and  SBA Loans as well as funding from angel investors and/or friends and family.

Importantly, regardless of the source of funding you desire, a good business plan will stand out to a potential investor by showing compelling reasons why you will achieve financial success. A successful business plan must clearly highlight the business opportunity and want investors to buy in.  Investors will recognize a well researched business plan. A winning business plan will help you achieve long-term success, business growth and secure funding.

What are the 10 Key Elements of a Business Plan?

10 key elements of a winning business plan.

Most business plans have the following 10 key components:

Executive Summary

Industry analysis, customer analysis, competitive analysis, marketing plan, operations plan, management team, financial plan.

A professional business plan will also include a table of contents and a nicely designed cover page. Business plans should also be customized with your specific information and designed to fit with your business concept.

For What Types of Businesses Can I Use this Business Plan Template?

This business plan template can and has been used by businesses in every imaginable sector. We created this template to be highly flexible and have seen entrepreneurs use it with great success in numerous business types.

This being said, we have also developed many sector-specific templates. Some of our more popular ones are as follows.

Our brewery business plan template has helped numerous breweries launch and grow. 

Our medical practice business plan template has been used by doctors and other health practitioners to start new practices. Also in the medical field, our pharmacy business plan template has allowed numerous pharmacists to start their own businesses.

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5 Best Business Plan Software in 2022

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When you’re starting a business, developing a strong business plan will be one of the first steps you take. Your business plan will cover everything from a detailed explanation of your products or services and pricing model to at least three years of financial projections—plus much more. Therefore, whether you’re not sure how to get started or you’re just looking to make the process easier, you may want to turn to business plan software for help.

In this guide, we'll break down five of the best business plan software options—discussing their pros, cons, features, pricing, and more—so you have all the information you need to decide which solution is right for your small business.

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The 5 best business plan software options

The right business plan software will make the process of writing your business plan much simpler. Like many business software solutions, however, there are a number of different business plan software options out there—each of which has a unique set of features, user experience, and price.

This being said, if you're looking for a place to start your search for the best business plan software, you can explore the five top options below:

How much do you need?

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We’ll start with a brief questionnaire to better understand the unique needs of your business.

Once we uncover your personalized matches, our team will consult you on the process moving forward.

1. LivePlan

Best overall business plan software.

If you want template-rich, modern-feeling business plan software, then LivePlan may be the right pick for you. LivePlan excels with their user interface, which feels updated and slick, and also offers intuitive, easy-to-use features and options.

Their step-by-step instruction will help you kick things off from the beginning, and you can take advantage of their online learning center to continue to gain business skills.

Affordable plans, including pay-as-you-go option

No long-term contracts or cancellation fee; 60-day money-back guarantee

Modern, intuitive interface; cloud-based, can be used on Mac, PC, as well as tablets

Ability to create unlimited plans in one account; over 500 customizable templates

Variety of business resources including video tutorials, step-by-step instruction, and general customer support

Limited integration options

Challenging to enter your own financial modeling projections

Can be difficult to learn

Ability to create an unlimited number of business plans on one account

More than 500 business plan templates spanning various industries

Integration with Xero and QuickBooks Online

Real-time tracking of financial data with accounting integrations

Ability to export your business plan to Word or PDF

Expert advice and step-by-step instruction included

Performance dashboards for tracking against budgets and sales goals

Ability to create and export a one-page pitch executive summary

Annual plan: $15 per month, billed every 12 months

Six-month plan: $18 per month, billed every six months

Pay-as-you-go plan: $20 per month, billed once every month

2. GoSmallBiz

Best for multiple business management tools in one platform.

Next on our list of the best business plan software options is GoSmallBiz, which is much more than just a business plan software. With GoSmallBiz, you have access to business continuity planning software with features that cover creating a roadmap, working through business and legal forms, building a website, and more.

In this way, GoSmallBiz is great for startups or newer businesses looking to access multiple business management tools through one platform.

Unlimited business consultation and extensive library of online resources

Multiple business tools in one software

Website consultation analysis and business assessment

Industry-specific business plan templates with emphasis on financial projections and statements

Expensive monthly cost compared to alternatives

Limited business plan features

Entire business plan can only be exported to Microsoft Word

Outdated interface

Industry-specific business plan templates with step-by-step building wizard

Ability to create financial statements and projections

Free website hosting and website builder

Customer relationship manager with integration with MailChimp

Digital marketing dashboard with social media and Google Analytics integrations

HR document builder

Corporate minutes writer

Business documents library

Business courses library

Unlimited business consultation

$39 per month, no contracts, free cancellation

Best for simple, fast business plan creation.

If you're looking for free business plan software, Enloop will be one of your closest options—they offer an all-inclusive seven-day free trial, no credit card required. Additionally, unlike some of the other options on our list, Enloop is strictly dedicated to business plan creation, including automated text writing, financial forecast comparisons, and a real-time performance score that tracks your progress.

This being said, if you'd prefer the most straightforward, fast, and simple way to write your business plan, Enloop will be a platform worth considering.

Simple and straightforward software, solely dedicated to business plan creation

Seven-day free trial

Automatic text generation available to streamline the writing process

Affordable plans with annual discount option

Limited additional educational resources

Only one template option

No integration options

Ability to create three business plans with customizable text, images, tables, charts, and over 100 currency symbols and formats

Includes automatic text generation for each plan section that you can then customize

Automatically generated financial statements

Includes financial performance comparison analysis (using three ratios with Detailed plan and 16 with Performance plan)

Real-time performance score to track your progress

Ability to invite users to edit (two with Detailed plan, five with Performance plan)

Pass/fail report and certificate to help you identify issues with your plan

Free plan: Seven-day free trial with no credit card required

Detailed plan: $19.95 per month or $11 per month, paid annually

Performance plan: $39.95 per month, or $24 per month, paid annually

Best for startups looking to acquire funding or find investors.

Part of the Startups.com suite, Bizplan gets top marks for their user interface—it’s intuitive, easy to use, and modern. You’ll work with a step-by-step business plan builder to get exactly what you’d like from your business plan. It may remind you of a modern website builder, since it has drag-and-drop tools to build templates.

Moreover, for one subscription fee, you have access to all of the tools in the Startups.com network, including self-guided courses, how-to guides, masterclass videos, and more. All in all, with a direct connection to Fundable, Bizplan is a top business plan software option for startups looking to acquire funding and find investors.

Subscription gives you access to all Startups.com tools

Lifetime access subscription option

User-friendly drag-and-drop business plan builder

Excellent educational resources

Connection to Fundable great for businesses looking for capital

No free trial

No templates based on industry

No mobile access

Drag-and-drop templates for business plan building

Financial command center to track all business financials in one place

Unlimited account collaborators

Ability to share business plan online with investors

Online resources including self-guided courses, masterclass videos, how-to guides, mentorship access

Unlimited software use for Fundable, Launchrock, and Startups.com

Monthly plan: $29 per month

Annual plan: $20.75 per month, billed at $249 per year

Lifetime access: $349 one-time fee

5. PlanGuru

Best for financial planning and budgeting.

Finally, for some of the strongest financial features among business plan software options, including budgeting and forecasting, you might check out PlanGuru. Whereas the other solutions we've reviewed were first and foremost focused on writing a business plan, PlanGuru is dedicated to business financial planning —providing the tools you need to create budgets, financial forecasts, reports, and more.

Therefore, if you need a software solution that can streamline the financial piece of your business planning processes, PlanGuru will certainly have the most to offer.

Extensive financial tools and detailed forecasting, budgeting, and reporting capabilities

Substantial library of resources

Cloud-based and desktop options

14-day free trial and 30-day money-back guarantee

Expensive, especially for additional users

Only focuses on the financial aspect of business planning; no templates or tools for basic business plan writing

Difficult to use without prior financial knowledge

Cloud-based version of software, as well as locally installed Windows version (desktop version has a few more features)

Works with QuickBooks Online, Xero, and Excel

Budgeting and forecasting for up to 10 years

Over 20 standard forecasting methods

Formula builder to create custom methods

Ratios and KPIs

Dashboard and reporting tools

Help guides, video tutorials, knowledgebase, and live U.S.-based customer support

14-day free trial

$99 per month (additional users $29 per month)

$899 per year (additional users $299 per year)

What to look for in business plan software

Ultimately, it's up to you to decide, which, if any, of the best business plan software solutions on our list is right for your business.

So, if you're trying to figure out how to choose between the various options out there, it might be helpful to compare your top choices based on the following criteria:

Features: As we've seen different business plan software solutions offer different features. You'll want to look carefully at the feature list of any software and determine what features are most important for your business needs. Do you need an extensive library of templates with detailed customization? Would you prefer software that includes an online learning center for business skills? Are you looking for a solution that combines business plan writing with other tasks? It may be useful to list out your ideal feature set, so you can compare individual software plans to that list.

Price: Although you might be able to find some free business plan software options (or at the very least, free trials), in most cases, you'll need to pay a subscription fee to access the platform you choose. Therefore, you'll want to think about what your budget is for this business tool and what type of software is most cost-effective for your needs.

User experience: User experience can vary widely among different business plan software options. You’ll find some programs that are newer or have been recently updated. Others might have the kind of interfaces that felt new years ago but are now pretty out of date—and, subsequently, make them a little harder to use. The right user experience for your needs is genuinely a matter of opinion and comfort—nevertheless, it's worth testing thoroughly testing out a platform to ensure that it can truly work for you before investing in a monthly or annual subscription.

The bottom line

There's no doubt that properly crafting your business plan is important for the future growth and success of your small business. Luckily, the right business plan software should make the process much simpler.

This being said, whether you opt for one of the best business plan software options listed here, or another platform entirely, you'll want to take the time to compare multiple solutions and ensure you choose the one that's right for your business.

As we mentioned, it can be helpful to think about the features you're looking for, your budget, and your user-experience preferences ahead of time—that way, you'll have a set of criteria in mind as you explore different solutions.

Ultimately, perhaps the best thing you can do to find the right software is to actually test out the platforms themselves—either by using a free trial or a money-back guarantee.

This article originally appeared on JustBusiness, a subsidiary of NerdWallet.

On a similar note...

Best Business Plan Template

Show stakeholders or potential investors why working with you is the right choice. create your business plan, update your goals, financials, competitive analysis, detail market research, pricing, and more—all on one board..

Integrate with your favorite tools

Tips for writing your business plan with our template

Summarize the plan, organize assets, collaborate with ease, business plan template key features.

• monday Workdocs Create your marketing strategy on a collaborative document where stakeholders can add input without disrupting your work.
• Views See and manage your business idea from various angles. Choose from views such as Gantt charts, Calendar, Kanban, Table, and others.

Lay the groundwork for your business plan with monday.com

Related templates.

Client management template

Value proposition template

Startup budget template

Frequently asked questions.

• Plan Buildr's Step-By-Step Plan
• What are the 7 steps of a business plan? While plans can vary according to your business, in general, most plans include theses 7 steps: 1. Executive Summary 2. Company Description 3. Products and Services 4. Market analysis 5. Strategy and Implementation 6. Organization and Management Team 7. Financial plan and projections
• How do I make a simple business plan template? You can make a simple business plan template by following steps such as creating an executive summary, adding a company overview, providing the problem and solution, and so on. Or for a foolproof template, you can use the free Business Plan Template from monday.com.

13 Free Business Plan Powerpoint Templates To Get Now

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Are you looking for business plan PowerPoint templates to grab right away and blow your audience away? In this selection, we’ve gathered 12 modern and completely free business plan PowerPoint templates designed according to the latest trends . The templates include everything you need in order to impress your potential partners with your business planning. They are easily editable, certainly memorable, and completely free to download.

You may also be interested in The Best Free PowerPoint Templates to Download in 2022

1. Strategic Business Free Powerpoint Template

An attractive template for Powerpoint made to help you present your business plan and strategies. The template comes with 25 handy slides that can be edited according to your needs. Plus, you have over a hundred business icons and high-quality vector graphics to depict your concepts and ideas.

• 25 different slides
• PPT file format
• 16:9 aspect ratio
• 100 business icons and high-quality vector graphics

2. Voodoo 2.5 Free Powerpoint Template with Animations

• 10 slides in the free version: 5 presentation slides and 5 infographic slides
• a modern, clean business design with smooth animations
• fully editable graphic elements and free fonts
• includes a dark version, as well

3. Investment Business Plan Template for Google Slides & Powerpoint

A minimalist business plan Powerpoint template made in a modern style and a classy grayscale color theme. The template includes 30 different slides with super useful layouts. Pretty much, you’ve got all you need to present your business overview, market analysis and competition, marketing, management, operating, and financial plans, and more.

• 30 different slides for various purposes
• 16:9 widescreen format
• compatible with PowerPoint and Google Slides
• graphics, maps, and over 1000 icons
• attribution is required (in the final slide)

4. Insurance Business Plan Template for Google Slides & Powerpoint

A business plan presentation template is available with versions for PowerPoint and Google Slides. This template is made in a modern corporate style and is suitable for serious topics. With 30 different templates and customizable assets, you can easily include your business overview, present your sales, management, and financial plans, and more.

• 30 slides in a modern corporate style
• PowerPoint and Google Slides compatibility
• graphics, maps, and 1000+ icons for customization

5. Clean Corporate Biz Free Powerpoint Template

A clean Powerpoint template with 10 different slides for professional business presentations. In this short template, you will find all you need to present your business objectives, business plan, key features, and more. Loaded with useful graphs and charts, you will easily visualize your data, as well.

• 10 unique slides with a corporate feel
• 16:9 widescreen layout
• includes charts, graphs, maps, and more

6. A Free PowerPoint Template “Investor”

• a professional corporate design
• 15 free slides in 16:9 widescreen aspect ratio

7. Marketing Plan Free Powerpoint Template

A tastefully prepared business-themed presentation template for Powerpoint in a blue-and-green color scheme. This template is available in two aspect ratios: 4:3 and 16:9. It also contains useful data visualization tools like charts, graphs, tables, and more.

• 26 business-themed slides
• 4:3 and 16:9 aspect ratios
• includes tables, flowcharts, graphs, and more

8. Business Idea Free Powerpoint Template

A rich business plan template consisting of 31 unique and useful slides. The design is available in 27 color schemes, so you can customize it according to your brand. You will find all kinds of charts, graphs, infographic slides, SWOT analysis slides, and more useful content.

• 31 useful slides
• 27 color options

9. “Nook” Minimalist Pitch Deck Powerpoint Template

This template will allow you to make a quick overview of your company and business plan. With 12 attractively designed slides, made in a gold, white, and black color scheme, you will definitely impress with style and modern vision. Easy to edit with high-quality vector graphics included.

• 12 different slides with modern designs

10. Free Simple Business Plan Presentation Template

A simple and practical business plan template suitable for presentations in most PowerPoint versions, Keynote, and Google Slides. The 8 slides included are designed to be useful and effective in presenting your company data. You will find high-quality vector shapes, diagrams, charts, and infographics. The slides are versatile and can serve various purposes.

• 8 slides that can be edited easily
• compatible with PowerPoint, Keynote, Google Slides
• design with modern gradients
• free to download (requires your email)

11. Free ‘Xe’ PowerPoint Modern Business Minimal Template

• 42 unique free slides with a modern, relaxing design
• includes animations, transitions, and video placeholders
• PPTX file format

12. Free Modern Business Powerpoint Template

A two-color design choice of light or dark including charts, maps, diagrams, and other useful slides for multipurpose presentations. a smooth, consistent, well-ordered look.

• Resolution – High 16:9
• Number of slides – 2 color versions of 34
• Color themes – white/light blue or dark/blue

13. Corporate Presentation Free Template

Clean and classic design suitable for presenting your business. The pack has 85 different slides for you to customize and adapt to your brand.

• Auto-animated
• Font file included

That’s all!

Fingers crossed that this collection helped you find the right free business plan Powerpoint tutorial for your needs. With their modern design and fully editable content, you are on the way to success for sure.

Would you like to browse even more freebies? Check out these suggestions:

• The Best Minimalist Powerpoint Templates for Free Download
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Premium: MultiSplash PowerPoint Templates

A professionally designed PowerPoint template with 77 slides for every type of presentation – report, marketing, educational, product introduction, plans, and more.

• 77 multipurpose presentation slides
• 120 Icons and illustrations included

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Iveta is a passionate writer at GraphicMama who has been writing for the brand ever since the blog was launched. She keeps her focus on inspiring people and giving insight on topics like graphic design, illustrations, education, business, marketing, and more.

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60+ Best Business Plan PowerPoint (PPT) Templates 2024

So you’re starting your own business, and one of the many steps in your exciting journey is putting together a business plan, which you’ll then be presenting to investors, clients, lenders, and other stakeholders. Sounds daunting, right? Wouldn’t it be great if you didn’t have to worry about putting together an incredible presentation from scratch, and could simply use your time to focus on the stuff that matters?

Your wish is our command – we’ve curated a list of the best free and premium business plan templates for PowerPoint, all available for instant download, and all fully customizable in PowerPoint with no technical design knowledge required! Simply choose your favorite design and then replace the content with your own, and boom – a stunning business plan presentation, ready to go.

Let’s take a look at the business plan presentation templates we’ve chosen for you.

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The X Note Template

Analysiz Powerpoint

Ciri PPT Template

Bolo PPT Template

Agency Portfolio PPT

Clean Business PPT

Yellow purple business plan powerpoint template.

This PowerPoint template will allow you to design business plan slideshows for various brands and companies. It comes with a modern and stylish design that will effectively highlight your content. There are 30 unique slide layouts in this template.

Gescaft – Business Plan PowerPoint Template

The clean and professional design of this template makes it a great choice for making business plan presentations for agencies, small businesses, and even startups. The template lets you choose from 36 slides that are available in 3 different color themes.

Simple Business Plan PowerPoint Template

If you prefer PowerPoint slideshows with simple designs, this one is for you. It includes more than 30 different slides with fully customizable layouts. There are device mockups, infographics, and vector icons all across the slideshow.

Examine – Business Plan Presentation Template

This is one of the most professional-looking business plan templates on our list. Each slide in this presentation features a clean design with modern layouts. There are 30 editable slides in the template. And it comes in Google Slides and PowerPoint formats.

Multipurpose Business Plan PowerPoint Template

You can use this PowerPoint template to make business plan slideshows for all kinds of businesses and companies. It includes more than 50 unique slides featuring infographics, charts, graphs, and much more.

Buladiq – Business Marketing Plan PowerPoint Template

With this PowerPoint template, you can design colorful and creative marketing plans for your business. It can also be customized to create business plans as well. There are 30 unique slides in this template with editable graphics and free fonts.

LEBON – Business Strategy Plan PPT Templates

You can use this PowerPoint template to design business plans and strategy presentations to showcase your plan for growing your company. The template comes with many useful items such as data charts, gallery slides, and 26 unique slide designs to choose from.

Simple Business Plan Presentation Template

The simple and clean design of this PowerPoint template will allow you to design more professional-looking business plan presentations. There are 24 different slides included in this template with easily editable colors and graphics.

Verzus – Minimal Business Plan PowerPoint Template

This PowerPoint business plan template is ideal for modern brands and agencies. It features a highly visual and colorful design with a minimalist content layout. The template has more than 30 unique slides, which you can customize however you like.

Business Plan PowerPoint Presentation Template

With 33 unique slides to choose from, this business plan template is ideal for crafting presentations for modern brands and startups. It lets you customize the design of the slides using 20 color themes and an icon pack featuring over 4K icons.

Clean PowerPoint Business Plan Template

Looking for a business plan template with a clean and minimal design? Then this PPT template is for you. It includes 30 unique slides with easily editable layouts. You can even add colors if you want to.

Creative Business Plan PowerPoint PPT

This PowerPoint template will allow you to design a colorful slideshow to showcase your business plan. There are 30 unique slides in this template with editable graphics, mockups, vector icons, and a few infographics.

Fritz – Dark Business Plan PowerPoint Template

The dark and bold design of this business plan template makes it a great choice for crafting presentations for technology brands and businesses. The template has 30 slides with modern designs that you can easily customize to your preference.

Minimal Business Plan PowerPoint PPT Template

Looking for a business plan template with a minimal design? Then start with this PowerPoint template. This template uses fewer colors and elements to give full attention to the content of each slide. Of course, you can edit to change colors as well.

Business Plan – Modern PowerPoint Template

A business plan presentation has to be bold and unique to attract the attention of your audience. With this PowerPoint template, you can easily achieve that goal. The template features 25 different slide layouts with a dark color theme and fully customizable designs.

Modern Business PowerPoint Presentation Template

If you want to use a minimal and clean layout for your business plan slideshow, this PowerPoint template will come in handy. It features 30 unique slides with modern and minimal designs. The template also includes image placeholders and editable vector graphics.

Marketing Plan – PowerPoint Business Plan Template

This PowerPoint template is perfect for making a marketing plan presentation for brands and businesses. The template comes with 25 different slide layouts with changeable colors, editable shapes, fonts, and much more.

Clean Business Plan PowerPoint Presentation Template

Whether you want to create a business plan or company profile presentation, this PowerPoint template can handle them all. It includes more than 20 unique slides with multipurpose layouts. You can edit and customize them to create many different types of presentations with ease.

Planr – Business Plan Workflow Powerpoint Template

This is a unique PowerPoint template you can use to outline the workflow of your business plan in a very detailed and visual way. It lets you choose from 30 different slide layouts to create a compelling presentation to showcase your business plans.

Modern Business Plan PowerPoint Template

If you are looking for a professional and modern business plan template, you’re in for a treat. It comes with 100 unique slides and a wealth of features that should really be seen in order to be fully appreciated.

Arunika – Business Plan PowerPoint Template

Arunika is a versatile business plan template that is an ideal choice for virtually any corporate or industry under the sun. It offers 30 editable slides and a range of features for you to take advantage of.

Point Plan PowerPoint Template

Check out this beautifully designed business plan template that is perfect for a professional presentation. It contains 30 neat and uncluttered slides, free fonts, editable icons, graphics, and colors.

ICO Business Plan PowerPoint Template

One of the best business plan ppt examples for a minimal and stylish presentation is the ICO theme from Envato Elements, a collection of 40+ modern and creative slides with a simple and elegant design that offers 10 premade color schemes and a range of high-quality vector-based graphics.

Classic Business Plan PowerPoint Template

Next in our lineup of the best business plan templates for PowerPoint is an ultra-modern design that’s ideal for a corporate firm or professional services company. It comes with more than 100 unique slides and includes vector icons and free fonts for your use.

B-Plan PowerPoint Template

Our next business plan template for PowerPoint is a series of 250 modern slides in a high definition widescreen size format with thousands of icons and hundreds of vector shapes included. It also features an impressive set of 5 different color schemes to choose from!

Basic Business Plan Template PPT

If you’re looking for a simple, easy to edit base for your business plan PowerPoint presentation, consider this template of basic slides featuring clean, modern design elements, easy to use customization options, and a range of icons, fonts, and animations to help you add a bit of interest.

Modern Business Plan Template PPT

Here we have an ultra-modern and professional-looking set of slides that are super easy to customize and offer a clean, creative aesthetic with a strong focus on typography and usability, plus a range of prebuilt slide layouts. It’s a great business plan PPT for any product or business idea.

Multipurpose Business Plan Template PPT

The next in our premium selection of business plan PowerPoint templates is this modern, multipurpose option that’s fully editable, easy to customize, and comes with a total of 150 slides to choose from, including five different color schemes and a clean, minimal design.

Minaski Startup Business Plan Template PPT

Next up is Minaski, a beautifully crafted business plan template for PowerPoint that’s been specifically designed for startup companies to use for their business plan presentation. It includes 100 unique slides with two color variations, and image placeholders with drag and drop functionality for easy editing.

UpTwo Business Plan Template PPT

Looking for colorful, eye-catching business plan PPT examples? This modern and engaging option is a brilliant choice, and offers three premade color themes, dark and light backgrounds, widescreen and standard sizing formats, animation settings, and drag and drop picture placeholders, making it super easy to adapt for your own needs.

Creative Business Plan Template PPT

This highly professional and creative PowerPoint template has been designed based on real-life business plans and includes all of the slides you’d need when documenting your startup or company plan. It comes with an incredible total of 700 slides, including 10 color variations and a library of 4000 vector icons to help you customize.

Dots Business Plan Template PPT

The Dots business plan template PowerPoint is a great choice for any kind of modern business. It comes with 250 unique slides, 20 premade color schemes, light and dark backgrounds, and a comprehensive range of purpose-built layouts, as well as fully editable graphics and drag and drop images.

Bold Business Plan Template PPT

One of the most versatile business plan PPT examples, our next template features 30 unique slides in a high definition 16:9 aspect ratio format, with free fonts and icons and a range of customization options to help you add your own personal touch. It also includes a range of useful layouts and slide styles.

Corporate Business Plan Template PPT

Looking for a business plan PowerPoint that’s suitable for a corporate presentation? This template is perfect – it comes with a huge range of 350 purpose-built slides, offering 5 color schemes to choose from and a variety of slide layouts that are all ready for you to populate with your own text and images.

Vision Business Plan Template PPT

Ideal as a business plan PowerPoint template for a startup company or new business, our next option features 40 unique slides with 10 color schemes, dark and light variations, editable vector graphics, and image placeholders that make customization a breeze.

Lumeta Business Plan Template PPT

Another to add to your list of amazing startup business plan PPT examples, the Lumeta template is a professionally designed set of 100 unique slides that require little customization and includes a range of high-quality vector graphics and a high definition widescreen format for a polished look.

Clean Business Plan Template PPT

Here we have a great business plan PPT for any product, featuring a clean, simple design with minimal distraction, ensuring that the focus is entirely on your pitch. It includes a comprehensive selection of prebuilt slides that are ideal for putting together a professional and detailed business plan presentation that’s sure to impress.

Octave Business Plan Template PPT

The Octave business plan template for PowerPoint is a 60-slide series of highly functional layouts that will help you create the perfect business plan presentation within any industry. It offers drag and drop images, 10 premade color schemes, and fully editable graphics for complete control over your design.

Papiere Goldy Business Plan Template PPT

Next up, we have Papiere Goldy, a stylish, minimal template that combines modern, professional design elements with a subtle vintage vibe that’s brilliant for presenting a business plan for any creative or offbeat business. It includes 50 unique slides that can all be fully customized.

Canopoly Business Plan Template PPT

Bright, bold, and ready to impress – that’s what the Canopoly business plan PowerPoint template is all about. With 80 different layouts, 15 color schemes, light and dark backgrounds, and free fonts to choose from, it’s never been so easy to create a professional-looking business plan presentation.

Infographic Business Plan Template PPT

If you want to include infographics in your business plan PowerPoint presentation, consider this impressive template that’s super flexible and easy to edit. It offers a total of 400 slides, with vector icons, elements, and maps at your disposal, as well as free fonts and five different color options.

Stylish Business Plan PowerPoint Template

This multipurpose business plan presentation deck not only grabs the attention of your audience but also effectively communicates the information you’re sharing.

Coreplan – Business Plan Template PPT

The Coreplan Presentation Template for Microsoft PowerPoint is a modern and sleek professional presentation that will give a boost to your business meetings and lectures. It contains 42 beautifully designed slides that can be easily edited and adjusted to suit all of your professional and business needs.

Biz Plan Business Plan Template PPT

The Biz Plan template is the last premium business plan PowerPoint in our list and offers a total of 150 slides with 5 color variations, section break slides, handcrafted infographics, and pixel perfect illustrations, ideal for new businesses in any industry or sector that are needing to gain traction.

Croners – Business PowerPoint Template

Consider Croners for a clean and elegant presentation. This PowerPoint template while having a minimalistic design, will surely leave a long-lasting impression on your clients, and help you seal the deal you have worked extremely hard for.

Expertize – Professional PowerPoint Template

Expertize is a modern and sophisticated PowerPoint template for businesses wanting to emphasize more on the content and less on the design. The template although oozes simplicity in each of its 36 slides, manages to engross the audience in an instant.

Danu – Business PowerPoint Template

Danu is a clean, professional, and multipurpose PowerPoint template that can be put to use for a variety of purposes from pitch deck and company profile, to startup investment presentation and personal portfolio.

Blast Business PowerPoint Template

The “Blast” is one of the most stylish professional PowerPoint templates we’ve seen and features modern, minimalistic design elements laid out in a professional and visually appealing way. With 30 unique slides and five different colorways included, however, you’ve got plenty of room to be creative.

3D Diagram Business PowerPoint Template

If you’re looking for an infographic presentation that really stands out, check out this modern and professional 3D diagram ppt containing 30 unique slides that can be completely edited to your heart’s content.

Bonus: Free Business Plan PowerPoint (PPT) Templates

We will now feature some more B-plan PPT templates. All these themes are absolutely free for you to download. Let’s dive in:

Free Startup Business Plan PowerPoint Template

This free PowerPoint template features a modern and minimal design for crafting professional business plan slideshows on a budget. It’s ideal for startups, small businesses, and agencies in the in various industries. There are 37 slides in the template.

#1 Business Plan Free PowerPoint Template

If you want to design a more colorful and creative business plan presentation, this free PowerPoint template is for you. It comes with 35 unique slide layouts with colorful designs. You can also edit and change the colors as well.

Free Interior Studio Business Plan PPT Template

This free PowerPoint business plan template is designed with architecture firms and interior design studios in mind. But, you can repurpose it to create presentations for other businesses. It has 20 unique slide layouts.

Free Modern Business Plan PowerPoint Template

You can design highly visual and attractive business plan presentations using this free PowerPoint template. It comes with 20 slides featuring content layouts full of image placeholders.

Free Sales Account Business Plan PPT Template

You can use this free PowerPoint template to design a business plan related to your company sales accounts. There are 36 unique slides in this template with beautiful gradient colors and editable graphics.

Free Business Financial Plan PowerPoint Template

This free PowerPoint template is also ideal for making financial plans for your business and brand. It has modern and stylish slide layouts featuring free fonts and editable vector graphics. The template includes 35 slides.

Inspire – Free Business Plan PowerPoint Template

Get your hands on Inspire, a captivating business plan template that you’ll be hard-pressed to not consider. It consists of everything you’d expect in a professional and eye-catching template. It’s free and up for grabs!

Free Business Plan PowerPoint Template

Here we have a flexible and multipurpose business template that fits right into your needs. It provides you with a range of slides and amazing options that will make customization a breeze. With this template in your resource kit, the only limit you have for creating a stunning presentation is your creativity!

Free Strategic Business Plan PowerPoint Template

Our next business plan template for PowerPoint is the Strategic business plan theme, featuring 25 modern and simple slides that are fully customisable and easy to edit, and includes a 16:9 widescreen layout and premade slides for images, tables, flowcharts and graphs to help you present your case.

Investment Free Business Plan PowerPoint Template

Here we have another super professional option that’s suitable for a corporate audience, particularly in the finance and investment industries. This template consists of 30 unique and fully editable slides with five businesslike colour schemes, and is available as a free download from SlidesGo.

Free Colourful Business Plan Template PPT

Here we have a business plan template for PowerPoint that offers 48 slides with a bright, colorful design that’s ideal for any type of business, and can be customized accordingly. It’s available as a free download from Free PowerPoint Templates Design.

Free Voonex Business Plan Template PPT

Next up, we have Voonex, a professionally designed business plan template that’s incredibly easy to customize, and features a versatile color scheme of blue, grey, and white. This template can be downloaded for free from PresentationGO.

Free Tech Startup Business Plan Template PPT

Our last business plan template PowerPoint is a free download from SlidesGo, and as the name suggests, it’s perfect for a tech startup. It includes several stunning color schemes and a futuristic, flat design that’s ideal for a communications and technology business.

And with that, we’ve just made your business planning journey slightly easier, by providing a range of free and premium business plan template PowerPoint for you to download and customize straight away, ready for those all-important business plan presentations!

Free Marketing Plan Examples: Real-World Samples & Templates

By Joe Weller | April 27, 2024

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A  marketing plan  is a comprehensive document that outlines a company’s marketing strategy and tactics, and ensures that its marketing goals align with its overall objectives. Effective marketing plans include detailed analysis of the market along with roadmaps for upcoming campaigns. Inside this article, you’ll find the  elements of a marketing plan , 10 real-world examples of marketing plans with commentary from experienced marketing professionals, free marketing plan templates and samples , and a  chart to help you determine which template suits your needs .

Marketing Plan Elements

Typical marketing plans begin with an executive summary and include audience demographics, company objectives, situational analysis of the business, and marketing strategies and tactics. Market research and analysis provide campaign direction, and the budget and timeline offer practical parameters. A marketing plan can provide an overview of all strategies and campaigns to be executed in a certain time frame, or it can focus on a specific product, channel, or strategy. The level of detail and the sections included might vary, depending on the organization’s needs. The nine main elements of a marketing plan are:  

Executive Summary and Mission Statement:  A concise, high-level summary conveys the purpose of your marketing plan, introduces key strategies and research insights, and highlights the most important takeaways for stakeholders. For example, an executive summary might outline your brand’s identity, its place within the competitive landscape, and the major opportunities that upcoming marketing campaigns will target. Longer plans might include a separate mission statement or vision statement to align marketing efforts with your company’s larger goals. Discover more  examples of executive summaries with templates to help you write one effectively.  

Situational Analysis:  One of the most crucial elements of your marketing plan, a situational analysis is an assessment of the internal and external factors affecting a business’s performance. It should include research-based insights into market trends and dynamics, customer demographics and pain points, and internal resources.  A strong situational analysis often includes a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats) analysis, which provides a foundation for an effective marketing strategy. Learn more about  how to perform a SWOT analysis .  

Competitive Analysis:  Understanding the competition is key to developing a compelling marketing plan. This analysis should consider recent marketing campaigns from similar brands to identify successful ways to reach a shared target audience. Being aware of the competitive landscape can also help your business develop a unique selling proposition and stand out in the market. The competitive analysis might be included in the larger situational analysis, or it might be a stand-alone section. For example, a marketing plan could include data on how competitors rank on keywords, or it could evaluate the performance of competitors’ recent social media campaigns. One common framework for understanding market dynamics is a Porter’s five forces analysis, which identifies the forces that contribute to industry rivals. Learn how to evaluate the competitive landscape with  free industry analysis templates .  

Target Audience: In order to implement marketing strategies that engage consumers and drive conversions, businesses need to know who their audience is, what they want, and how they behave. A marketing plan should define a specific, segmented target audience with demographic, geographical, psychographic, and behavioral data.  This section often includes customer profiles or buyer personas — fictionalized representations of ideal customers or audience segments — which help marketers typify consumer behaviors. These profiles should include media habits and most-used platforms to ensure that your marketing plan selects the right channels for each campaign. Learn how to analyze your target market with  free customer profile templates .  

Goals and Objectives:  Marketing plans typically include both long-term goals, which provide broad direction for the company’s marketing strategy, and short-term objectives, which focus on more immediate tactics and campaigns. Goals should be SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, time-bound) and include corresponding key performance indicators (KPIs).  The goals and objectives in a marketing plan often focus on conversions, market share, brand awareness, or engagement. Clearly defined goals ensure strategically aligned marketing initiatives with measurable results. Take a look at  real-world examples of SMART goals for more insights.  

Marketing Strategy:  This section of a marketing plan details the business’s unique value proposition and the channels that will communicate it. A robust marketing strategy addresses the touchpoints in a consumer’s buying cycle and breaks down the 4 Ps (product, price, place, promotion) of the marketing mix. Channels might include digital marketing, advertisements, social media, and influencer partnerships. To develop an overarching marketing strategy, consider using a  marketing strategy template . To learn more about the 4 Ps, read this  product marketing guide .  

Tactics and Action Plan:  A marketing plan is not an abstract strategy document, but a concrete roadmap for executing specific campaigns with specific tactics. Your plan should detail the messaging for each campaign and the corresponding methods for communication — such as email newsletters, social content, targeted ads, and public relations.  This section provides KPIs and actionable steps such as resource allocation, deliverables, and distribution plans. It might also include the expected outcome for each campaign. To plan individual campaigns, consider using a  marketing project plan template .  

Budget:  Marketing expenses might include the cost of advertising, content creation, website maintenance, or promotional materials; no marketing plan is complete without a budget that breaks down the costs of such initiatives. A clear, comprehensive budget ensures that marketing efforts are financially feasible and resources can be allocated for maximum impact. The budget also enables the marketing team to track the return on investment (ROI) of each campaign. To create a comprehensive budget, try our  free marketing budget templates .    

Timeline:  Finally, a marketing plan includes a clear schedule for implementing its initiatives and tactics. This timeline details the start and end dates of each campaign, deadlines for deliverables, and key events or milestones. It keeps the marketing team aligned and initiatives on track, ensuring that marketing objectives can be achieved within the set time frame. Organize dates and deadlines with the help of a  marketing timeline template .  

Marketing Plan Examples

Real-world marketing plans show how businesses utilize effective planning documents. These 10 examples from various industries exhibit unique strengths and weaknesses. With insightful commentary from marketing experts, these plans offer practical takeaways any marketer can use.  

Delmarva and the Ground for Change This  in-depth marketing plan for a documentary produced by the USDA Northeast Climate Hub includes audience profiles, competitive analysis, and a distribution plan. Along with a detailed breakdown of its digital marketing strategy, it considers how different tactics will affect the viewer’s content journey.   

John Dinsmore , a marketing consultant and professor at Wright State University, praises this plan for its attractive design and thoughtful, thorough content: “They do a nice job of extrapolating on who the target market is and tying their tactics to achieving specific goals.”  He appreciates the inclusion of a SWOT analysis, but feels it could be done more effectively. “‘Opportunities’ is not a place for business ideas. It’s a place to identify external, positive trends that can help your initiative. In this context, an opportunity could be ‘Rising concern for and awareness of climate issues.’ Similarly, ‘threats’ is not a place to list things that are difficult. It’s for negative external trends such as ‘Increased skepticism over ability to combat climate change.’” 

Dekker Fraser , former Global Marketing Manager at Sony PlayStation, adds that this plan includes a strong focus on collaborations with media and influencers: “Many marketing plans place too much emphasis on target customers and not enough on target collaborators.”  

Minnesota Tourism This  marketing plan by Explore Minnesota , the state’s Department of Tourism, showcases Minnesota’s beauty with vivid imagery. It uses a variety of demographic information to identify priority audience segments and includes well-designed infographics that analyze audience and competition. As a result, the campaigns are clearly targeted at specific audiences and objectives. 

John Rarrick , Head of Marketing at Movius Corp., admires the strength of the message behind the strategy. “This plan has a very well-developed ‘why,’” he says. “You’ll see that often when the plan is to repair or save something that has undergone a time of great loss — such as a loss of revenue or reputation. The audience personas, goals, tactics, and budget are all detailed and measurable.” 

Gold Coast Transit District  

A  short, high-level marketing plan for Gold Coast Transit highlights key campaigns and includes the most important details, such as timelines, budgets, and tactics. It begins with a bulleted overview of the most important takeaways and takes into account general marketing efforts that don’t fit under a specific campaign umbrella. Fraser notes that this plan includes year-round marketing initiatives, with an effective “emphasis on strong offers, such as youth-free fares.” However, he points out that its brand awareness goals could be more specific. “Instead, use context-specific awareness goals such as ‘When commuting to work, residents first think of Gold Coast Transit’ or ‘When coming home from the library at night, I think of taking the bus,’” he says. “In other words, peg awareness to specific category-entry points.”  

University of Arizona College of Engineering This  marketing, branding, and communications plan for the University of Arizona College of Engineering sets out a long-term vision, high-level goals, and strategies for achieving these goals. It has a section for methodology — including promotional videos and email newsletters — and segments its audience to align with its strategies. This plan “demonstrates a clearly defined audience,” according to Rarrick. That said, not every section of the plan includes the same level of specificity. “The KPIs are vague,” he adds. “I would expect to see something more measurable, rather than ‘increase’ or ‘improve.’” 

Timberland Regional Library This  library's two-year marketing plan sets initiatives in motion with a clear schedule for action. It includes both promotional and production calendars for effective planning, which is especially important for campaigns pegged to external events.  Dinsmore cites this plan’s “professional and elegant graphic design” as a strength. It also offers a roadmap for tackling several marketing campaigns on different timelines. However, he suggests that the plan needs more measurable goals and defined strategies. “There’s no overarching strategy that ties all of these tactics and initiatives together,” he says. “It’s just a laundry list of dates and actions.” 

Safe Haven Family Shelter Nonprofit organizations need creative marketing strategies to reach their targets and use funds efficiently. With specific objectives and actionable steps, this  marketing plan for Safe Haven Family Shelter delineates high-level goals and details the path to achieving them. It identifies the roles and responsibilities of individual team members to ensure alignment. Rarrick commends this plan for its “clearly defined audience and very clearly defined goals.” The plan showcases the differences between strategic business goals and measurable marketing objectives.  

Visit Myrtle Beach This  destination marketing plan by the Myrtle Beach, South Carolina Chamber of Commerce  incorporates detailed information about target markets, audience personas, and key behaviors. It includes an infographic that illuminates the touchpoints in a traveler’s journey and shows the marketing team how each tactic contributes to conversions.  Overall, Dinsmore praises this plan as a “very smart and thoughtful presentation.” It outlines a distinct media mix for each target audience, defines its objectives clearly, and ties these objectives to success metrics. He continues, “I want to thank the Myrtle Beach folks for planning to measure their efforts. Measurement is often anathema to marketing people, but if you’re not measuring, you don’t know how to improve.”  With so much information to cover, the plan would benefit from an executive summary to introduce key takeaways. “The bigger the scope, the harder it is to make everything feel connected, and that’s a bit of an issue with this plan,” Dinsmore adds.  

Tropical Avocados This  example of a no-frills plan was commissioned by the nonprofit Improving Economies for Stronger Communities (IESC) to help brand and launch tropical avocados in the U.S. market. It shows the importance of making branding decisions backed by market and consumer research. A detailed SWOT analysis and competitive analysis provide essential insights that enable the company to determine the best unique selling proposition.  A key strength of this plan is its detailed research into its audience. Fraser cites its “excellent identification of consumer objections — e.g., concern over how natural the avocado size is — and consumer behavior.” As a result, the brand can adopt effective messaging in its marketing campaigns. As with USDA Northeast Climate Hub’s Delmarva and the Ground for Change documentary, “target collaborators — e.g., food writers, organizations, and chefs — are included in the target audience. Collaborators are often more critical to the marketing plan than the consumers themselves,” Fraser adds.  

Rochelle Community Hospital This  case study of Rochelle Community Hospital in Rochelle, Illinois, shows how a targeted marketing plan can be used to achieve significant results. The report by Legato Healthcare Marketing showcases the importance of reevaluating an existing marketing strategy — in this case, shifting the emphasis from print to digital. External marketing agencies often have more tools at their disposal, particularly if the business has not had a strong digital presence. With targeted ads and website updates, the agency employed tactics with direct metrics in order to track its impact.   

Visit Concord This  example from the Concord Tourism Improvement District marketing plan is concise and includes streamlined insights on the audience and market. It details each marketing channel with specific tactics and measurable KPIs.  The overall strategy, according to Fraser, offers “an excellent emphasis on social proof and word-of-mouth marketing,” as well as a “good balance of awareness and activation marketing.” In order to improve, he suggests, “the plan should factor in the following critical quantitative factors to help drive the media strategy: reach, frequency, and the total-addressable market.” 

Marketing Plan Templates

Using a template takes the guesswork out of organizing a marketing plan document. These customizable templates include essential elements and options for specific industries or marketing channels, and they range from one-page plans to comprehensive, presentation-ready reports.

Microsoft Word Simple Marketing Plan Template

Download the Simple Marketing Plan Example Template for Microsoft Word Download the Blank Simple Marketing Plan Template for Microsoft Word

This example of a simple, customizable plan focuses on key strategies and prioritizes readability. This one-page marketing plan template includes space to summarize marketing strategy and overarching business objectives, along with an action plan to highlight responsibilities and deadlines.

Microsoft Word Annual Marketing Plan Template

Download the Annual Marketing Plan Example Template for Microsoft Word Download the Blank Annual Marketing Plan Template for Microsoft Word  

This comprehensive marketing plan template includes a number of key sections — such as goals, target market, marketing channels, and performance standards — that can be customized to suit a variety of businesses. In the situational analysis, you can find space for both a 5C (company, collaborators, customers, competitors, climate) analysis and a SWOT analysis. The blank template begins with a table of contents, a business summary, and a mission statement to allow for easy readability. The sample focuses on marketing strategies for one fiscal year, but you can modify this plan for any time period. 

Microsoft Word Small Business Marketing Plan Template

Download the Small Business Marketing Plan Example Template for Microsoft Word Download the Blank Small Business Marketing Plan Template for Microsoft Word

A strong marketing plan is essential for small businesses looking to stand out from larger competitors. This small business marketing plan template provides an outline for a detailed marketing strategy, including a unique selling proposition, the 4Ps marketing mix, and marketing channels. It builds its strategy on situational analysis and identification of the business’s core capabilities. Find  more marketing plan templates  for different industries.

Microsoft Word Nonprofit Marketing Plan Template

Download the Nonprofit Marketing Plan Example Template for Microsoft Word Download the Blank Nonprofit Marketing Plan Template for Microsoft Word

This example marketing plan for a nonprofit incorporates information on the funding climate into its situational analysis, as well as a detailed organizational summary. With sections for short- and long-term goals, marketing strategies and channels, and stakeholder profiles, the template is comprehensive and customizable. Find  more nonprofit marketing plan templates here .

Excel Product Marketing Plan Template

Download the Product Marketing Plan Example Template for Excel Download the Blank Product Marketing Plan Template for Excel

When integrating a new product into existing marketing strategies, it’s important to take into account all the elements of the marketing mix. This product marketing plan template is organized by product, price, place, promotion, process, people, and physical evidence. In these sections, you can find space to consider market research, consumer behaviors, and marketing channels.

Excel Social Media Marketing Plan Template

Download the Social Media Marketing Plan Example Template for Excel Download the Blank Social Media Marketing Plan Template for Excel

For planning specific campaigns, this social media marketing action plan template begins with the campaign goal, highlights important promo dates, and separates actions by platform. It’s useful for executing targeted social media campaigns within a larger marketing strategy. Find  more marketing action plan templates here .

Excel Digital Marketing Plan Template

Download the Digital Marketing Plan Example Template for Excel Download the Blank Digital Marketing Plan Template for Excel

Focusing on digital marketing channels is an effective way to organize strategies into a streamlined and actionable plan. This strategic digital marketing template highlights important audience behaviors and access channels to ensure messaging reaches consumers. Customizable for a variety of digital marketing projects, the template includes space for keywords, goals, and tasks. Find  more digital marketing plan templates here .

Which Marketing Plan Format Is Right for You?

To choose the right marketing plan format for your needs, consider the plan’s role in your marketing strategy. Do you need a comprehensive plan to provide an overview of tactics that will take place over a long period of time? Or are you looking for a plan to focus on specific channels, campaigns, or product launches? 

Each template in this article offers space to detail market research, strategies, and access channels. The longer plans include more sections for in-depth situational analysis and audience demographics, while the shorter plans focus on the marketing mix and action plan. This chart highlights the key elements of each marketing plan:  

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