To get your business to where you want it to be from where it is now, you need to bridge the gap by planning in four key areas - marketing, operations (or your day-to-day business activities), human resources, and management control.
Your marketing plan should cover five key areas:
- Your marketing objectives. It’s necessary to set very clear and measurable goals when drafting your marketing plan which dovetail into your overall business plan and ensure you get to where you want to be. For example, your marketing goals might be to double your turnover, increase the number of customers by 25% or to increase your average $ sale by 50% to maximise the spend by each of your customers.
- Your background marketing material. It’s a good idea to write down exactly what background marketing material you’re going to maintain so you can build this into your plan. By background, I mean things like your web-site, your brochure, your testimonials, case studies and success stories, your presentation folder, your presentation script, handouts and FAQ’s about your business.
- Your marketing strategies. These are the actual marketing campaigns you undertake to reach your marketing objectives. They may include things like networking, your newsletter, direct mail, piggy-backing on other businesses in related fields with the similar customer bases to tap into their customer base, and referral strategies (a must). Each strategy should be “costed” and planned to a strict timetable so that it fits into your overall marketing budget and you know exactly what you’re doing and when, leaving nothing to chance. After you’ve tested each strategy (and tweaked these a bit if required) you’ll know the level of activity required e.g. if you find your prospect conversion rate is 33% you’ll need to get in front of three times as many customers.
- The way you will monitor your marketing performance. How will you know whether your marketing is working? You need to build-in some simple reporting systems to ensure your marketing is on track and you’re not falling behind in meeting your objectives.
- Who will co-ordinate the plan. One person should take overall responsibility for the marketing plan. Given the importance of marketing, you as business owner should fulfill this role.
If you need help to draft an effective marketing plan contact Nick today.
