Guest post by Mo Kanwischer
Marketing plans are vital tools to ensure the success of all businesses. A complete marketing plan contains a thorough competitive analysis, pricing reviews, target market focus and product overview.
A quick marketing plan can be developed in three steps and should not replace a complete marketing plan but can be very useful for launching a new product.
Step 1 – Set a Goal for your Business
What is your overall goal for the next 12 months? What are you trying to achieve with this marketing plan?
- Do you want more customers?
- Do you want to increase your revenue?
- Do you want to sell more products?
Whatever you define as your overall goal will be the foundation for your plan. It is important to start with the goal because then you have something to aim for. Knowing the end game (goal) will help you make decisions as you determine strategies and tactics to implement in your plan.
It should be specific. Such as:
- Our goal is to increase our revenue by $500,000 with the launch of product X with an average selling price of $5,000 which equates to about 100 new customers.
Step 2 – Define your Strategies
With your goal in mind, define the strategies you are going to use to reach that goal. A strategy is the method you use to market your products or services. Most businesses only need a few strong strategies in place to achieve their goal. When you consider your strategies, or methods, be sure they will help you reach your goal and don’t be tempted to implement a strategy just because you think you ought to have it in your plan.
Examples of strategies might include methods such as:
Strategy #1 – Increase exposure of product X
Strategy #2 – Prepare sales people for product X launch
Step 3 – List your Tactics
Tactics are the “To Do” list for each strategy. Based on each strategy, list the tactics you must execute to fulfill that strategy and achieve the goal.
Tactics for Strategy #1
Tactic #1 – Update website with new content, benefits, graphics and photos of product X
Tactic #2 – Add key words for SEO reflecting product X
Tactic #3 – Create new brochure for product X
Tactic #4 – Create a Facebook page for product X
Tactics for Strategy #2
Tactic #1 – Create training for sales people on competitive advantages and benefits of product X
Tactic #2 – Prepare leads for sales to address
Tactic #3 – Develop online demo of product X
Most people leap directly to the tactics part of a plan, but if you do that you do not have a structure for making sure that your tactics feed up to your strategies and thus will achieve your goals.
About the Author
Maureen (Mo) is an experienced facilitator and enjoys helping business owners, executives and leaders reach their full potential and realize their own definition of success. Committed to life-long learning, she thrives when challenged with an issue and enjoys the process of defining a problem, shaping solutions and executing a plan of action.
Learn more about Mo at www.MomentumBC.com