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2. Small Business Marketing Plan Revised
The importance of strategically marketing your business cannot
be overstated. Find out how you can create value for your
clients, improve your brand, retain existing customers, attract
new customers and ultimately increase the profitability of your
business. Click here
Creating a small business marketing plan as a
subcategory of your overall business plan is vital for
evoking and accelerating business growth. When
you have a plan, you are able to focus on the right
things at the right time and measure your progress
toward a goal.
Many business owners are resisting planning. When
you're running a business, you can easily be
consumed by your day to day responsibilities. But
failing to plan can be a great mistake.
Now, what is the essential function of marketing? To
generate qualified sales leads. There are any
number of methods that can be used to do that but
3. Small Business Marketing Plan Revised
how do you know which methods to use if you don't
have a plan?
And how do you know what your lucrative marketing
activities are? How do you invest in those activities if
you don't know how big your budget is, or know what
results you are trying to produce?
A marketing plan doesn't need to be a huge
document. First, start with your business goals for
the next six months. You should already have these,
for example your target revenue, if nothing else.
Now, what marketing goals align with those business
goals? Ok, you want to make 100k. How many leads
do you need to generate in order to allow your
selling activities to close the deals necessary to
reach this revenue target?
4. Small Business Marketing Plan Revised
Next, what marketing strategies are necessary to
meet your business goal? Will you need to get more
publicity? Expand into a new market? Reach more
people in your current market? Create a direct mail
campaign? Create sales partnerships?
You must pick one or two that deliver on what you
are aiming for and hit your target revenue. Now,
determine what specific activities will achieve your
strategies.
At this point it gets a little bit tricky. You must choose
from a vast pool of marketing options/activities and
you must choose the activities that will work best for
the potential customer you want to reach. You might
need to participate in trade show events where you
get face to face with your market.
5. Small Business Marketing Plan Revised
You might need to launch a new website, you might
need to implement a referral program for current
customers. The list goes on and on.
Whatever your activities are, put them together into
your plan and create target metrics (e.g. number of
leads collected, number of prospects you talked to,
etc).
Finally, you end up with your marketing plan.
The next step, your sales plan, tells you how the
leads generated by marketing will be converted to
customers, and how back end sales will be made to
those customers. Sales metrics include conversion
rates, overall revenues, or revenue per customer/per
square foot/per time spent in the store, etc.
6. Small Business Marketing Plan Revised
The great thing is that now you have something to
measure against and you can review things
periodically to see if you are on track or if something
needs to be adjusted.
This process or call it small business marketing plan,
doesn't need to take a lot of time but the benefits to
your business can be huge. Having a plan will give
you a lot more insights into your well oiled business
machine or parts of your business that need some
tweaking.
The importance of strategically marketing your business cannot
be overstated. Find out how you can create value for your
clients, improve your brand, retain existing customers, attract
new customers and ultimately increase the profitability of your
business. Click here
7. Small Business Marketing Plan Revised
Marlene Dewitte makes it easy for small business owners to attract more customers without
more staff or advertising budget. For more small business marketing and income producing
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