Creating a successful marketing plan for your business is an important step in owning your online success. It will help you to create a clear picture of your target audience, assess the competition and gain a better understanding of the costs involved in setting up and running your marketing campaigns.
Step 1: Determine Company Objectives
The first step to creating a winning marketing plan is to clearly outline the company’s objectives. What are your short- and long-term goals? Marketing plans can vary greatly depending on the size and industry of the company, but as a rule of thumb, you should include:
- An overview of the marketing team
- A list of goals and objectives for the next 12 months
- An overview of your company’s pricing model, including how you will price your products or services
- An overview of your target audience(s)
- An overview of your company’s strengths and weaknesses
- A competitive analysis, including comparative product features and benefits
- And financial projections for the next 3 years (at least)
Step 2:Determine Marketing Strategies
After outlining the company objectives, you’ll want to map out a plan that allows you to achieve those goals.A marketing strategy is the direction a company will take in order to achieve their marketing goals. Marketing strategies might include advertising, direct marketing, search engine optimisation,public relations, or social media.Whether you are hiring a marketing agency or taking on the campaign yourself, you’ll still need to know exactly where you’re headed and how you’ll get there with your marketing efforts. When gathering information for your campaign make sure to focus on where your business is now and where it’ll be in 12 months. If you’re starting a new business, then evaluate the long term goals of your new venture.
Step 3: Research your Market
During this step of the marketing plan process, you will conduct detailed research about your business and your target market. Excellent research will not only help you identify your target audience, it will also help you to understand how customers want to receive information, what’s important to them, how they want to be marketed to, and how they want to interact with the brand.
The purpose of this step is to give you the information you need to craft a marketing strategy that will achieve your goals. Here are a few suggestions for conducting research:
Ask your prospective customers. Observe them in their natural habitats (their homes, offices, etc.).
Step 4: Evaluate Your Marketing Needs
In this step, you’ll assess the strengths and weaknesses of your marketing ideas, as well as your general business needs, so you can focus your efforts in the right direction. Start by evaluating your strengths and weaknesses.
Strengths
What is your company’s greatest strength? What is its biggest weakness?
Consider the following areas:
Your industry. Are you in a niche market (for example, a specialty area of law, like immigration law), or do you operate in a crowded field (like law)? Does your business have an advantage over competitors (perhaps because of the image it projects or its location)? Is one of your products more innovative than others on the market?
Step4:Identify Marketing Mix.
Step 3 is the most important single step in your marketing plan. Simply defined, the marketing mix is the set of tools that you will use to get results for your business or nonprofit. It includes the product itself; how it is created and distributed; the pricing strategy; how it is marketed, promoted and branded; how it is sold; how customer care and service are handled; and ultimately, how it is delivered to your customers.
The marketing mix for your business can be as simple as one tool like word of mouth or as complicated as a combination of several tools of promotion such as product placement, event sponsorships and public relations. Each business has its own unique elements when developing a marketing mix—your job is to identify your business’ vital tools and then to craft a strategy around them that makes sense for what you are trying to accomplish.
Step 5:Mark Your Calendar
When you think of the big picture in your business, think about how you want to grow your company through marketing. This is also the time to ask yourself questions like: “How much money do I want to be making in one year?” “Where do I see my company in three years?” “What do I hope to achieve with my marketing plan?”
Mark your calendar for setting aside time for this task. Block out a few days, even a week if needed. It might seem like a lot of time, but it will go by quickly. And when you’re done, you’ll have a plan that will move your business goals forward.
Conclusion
By now, you have assembled all the tools for your marketing plan. You should have identified your target market, identified your competition, defined your product or service and explored the marketing channel options available to you. A carefully crafted marketing plan is key to helping your small business succeed.
