Does your business have a strategy for marketing? Do you lay out a plan for weekly, monthly and yearly marketing campaigns? Or is yours more of a hit-and-miss, do it when you think of it kind of event?
Do you find yourself looking at the calendar and suddenly realizing that you haven’t done anything to attract more business in the last six months? If so, it’s time to rethink the direction you want your business to go. It’s time to take charge and chart a course for success. While your sales may have been OK, think of how much better they might have been if you had implemented a well-thought-out plan – a plan designed especially for your business.
What does a marketing plan look like? It doesn’t have to be long and complicated. Small businesses rarely need more one page that quickly summarizes what you want to accomplish. If you have employees, it gives everyone a chance to see what part they will play in the proposed plan. If your operation is smaller than that – maybe you are the only person involved – it is still important to put everything in writing. Putting it in writing makes it more official, and you will be better able to remember all the important points when you need to remember why you are doing things a certain way.
In fact, you should have notebook – I prefer a 3-ring binder – just for this purpose. I like to have a version in pencil, so I can make additional notes, as well as a typed version.
Include a Situational Analysis. This is just a sheet that tells where your company is at that very moment. It can also include information on past sales, competitors, and any explanations of profit results. It should conclude with a forecast for where you want the business to be in one year, five years or ten years.
You should have a list of Objectives – what do you want to do, where do you want to be, and when do you want to get there. Think of this as a more short-term version of what you put in the Situational Analysis.
You have to decide the Purpose of your Marketing Plan. Is it to increase your market share in the next six months? Have 1,000 backlinks to your web site or blog? Rank on the first page of Google – and all the other search engines? Be very clear on what you want.
Now we come to your Strategies. Strategies are what you need to do in order to accomplish your Objectives. For example, if your Objective is where you want your company to be a year from now, your Strategy is the route you need to take in order to get there.
The next step is to decide on the Tactics you will use. Strategies establish a broad outline of how you want to achieve your Objectives. Tactics are specific actions you will take. Example: “Increase awareness among potential clients and customers” would be a Strategy. “Develop a new brochure to send to new prospects” is a tactic you will use to implement that strategy.
Just remember that each tactic may have a price tag attached, so be sure to add up the costs – whatever they may be – such as printing, postage, graphic design, etc. – and include them in your Budget.
Are there low-cost strategies you can use and still implement your Marketing Plan? Of course, there are, and we will discuss those in another article.
- Teresa –