Creating a fully developed marketing plan is critically important for your business. The very best marketing plans have a long term strategy that are comprised of many short and mid-range goals. Ideally, a solid plan will have short term goals and complimentary tactics, mid-range goals and complimentary tactics, and yes, you guessed it, long term goals and complimentary tactics.
All three are essential to your success. Put them all together and you create traction and momentum to propel your business forward. Remember consistency (slow and steady) builds the brand, but at the same time you have to be able to respond and sometimes react to the changes or threats in the market place.
Before you Create a Marketing Plan
Creating a marketing plan before you establish your business goals is a bit like climbing into a car without any idea of where you want to end up. You must have an overall destination- where do you want your business or company to end up?
Define your Goals
Do you want to increase sales? If so, how much? Be specific. Writing down some vague, nebulous statement about being successful is meaningless. Make a list. A long, detailed list. Think big but specific. Only then can you break that down into strategies of how best to achieve that.
You Must Engage in Marketing When Business is Great.
Often, we will hear, “our business is going great, we don’t need any marketing.” Nothing can be further from the truth. The reality is you should ALWAYS be marketing for tomorrow, next month, and next year. Executing your marketing in happy, prosperous times can give your marketing dollars a “bounce”, giving you more bang for your buck. If people are already engaged and talking about you, they are already an acquired customer – open and receptive to your marketing. Customer Acquisition is expensive, so take advantage of your current customer base to introduce new products and services, increase sales, while slowly and steadily acquiring those new customers.
We would love to help you with a plan filled with long term and short term goals, and help you with strategies to make them all succeed. Let’s get growing!