The book aims to provide a comprehensive, holistic and practical framework for readers who are interested or involved in developing a marketing plan so that they can appreciate various marketing concepts and put them together in an easy to read guide. Demanding and savvy customers along with a turbulent marketing environment, require marketers to be highly sensitive to the environmental monitoring systems capable of identifying the latest marketing trends and opportunities and threats at an early stage. In response to these issues, the proposed manuscript covers the themes of planning, implementing and controlling marketing activities, which will provide guidance to marketers and non-marketer alike, in undertaking a marketing plan. The latest research findings in the marketing area are included. This book is written for marketing students and it is the intention of the authors to make this manuscript as basic, straightforward and to the point as possible. Business practitioners will also find this book useful.

Now in its 7th edition, Marketing Plans is a highly renowned international bestseller. The book has been thoroughly revised, and every chapter has been carefully updated with special attention to the latest developments in marketing. To accomplish this, Professor Malcolm McDonald has been joined in this edition by Professor Hugh Wilson, a leading expert on CRM and multichannel strategy as well as marketing planning. Major changes to this edition include new chapters based on the very latest research on: Planning for integrated marketing communications and digital marketing Developing multichannel strategy Developing the CRM plan Marketing effectiveness and accountability Marketing Plans is designed as a tool and a user-friendly learning, resource. Every point illustrated by powerful practical examples and made actionable through simple, step-by-step templates and exercises. The book is established as essential reading for all serious professional marketers and students of marketing, from undergraduate and postgraduate to professional courses for bodies such as CIM. Above all it provides a practical, hands-on guide to implementing every single concept included in the text. "It is clearly and powerfully written and is probably the best book on the theory and practice of marketing planning ever written. It is a best-seller in Europe and I strongly recommend the book to anyone with an interest in marketing planning." —Warren J. Keegan, Professor of International Business and Marketing Director, Institute for Global Business Strategy, Pace University, New York "I am extremely impressed by the step lucidity of what is presented." —Dr D. H. Eaton, North Carolina University "A book reaching the quantities sold of Marketing Plans must be a book that is really used. It is not difficult to see why. Malcolm McDonald writes about what to do in marketing and how to do it. Unlike many academic marketing writers, he will never let you forget that marketing ends with –ing." —Kenneth Simmonds, Professor of Marketing and International Business, London Business School "Malcolm McDonald is clearly one of the most respected Professors of Marketing in Europe and the author of a number of outstanding books. The fact that Marketing Plans has been such a massive seller offers testimony of this. McDonald writes with clarity and insight that is becoming increasingly rare today. It is powerful, up to date and has proved that it works. I recommend it to you!" —John D. Ryans, Jr, Bridgestone Professor of International and Professor of International Marketing, Kent State University, Ohio

This practical step-by-step guide to successfully preparing and executing a marketing plan combines the very best of current practice with necessary theoretical and technical background.