As well as an element of luck, good judgement and fate, planning your marketing tactics will have a huge part to play in achieving your business goals and visions for 2011.
In last month’s blogs, we looked at setting business visions and what you would like to achieve in 2011 for you, your business, your customers and your market. How you plan to achieve your visions through efficient planning is the focus of this blog.
If you haven’t set any objectives for your company and your marketing activities, how can you decide at the end of the year if you have achieved what you set out to do?
The best way to implement marketing successfully into your company is to create a marketing plan.
So, what is a marketing plan?
There are 7 stages to a comprehensive marketing plan:
1Objective Setting
defining the business purpose
setting objectives and goals
assessing the market situation
2 Defining the messaging
messaging, branding and positioning
3 Defining a strategy
mission and vision
4 Defining the target audience
by demographics, behaviour and profiling
5 Developing the tactics
covering advertising, PR, personal selling, direct mail, online and sales promotion
6 Implementing the plan
suggested timelines and tips
7 Measuring and evaluation
tips on how to measure success
The purpose of your marketing strategy should be to identify and communicate the benefits of your business offering to your target market. What are you offering to whom and why should they buy it? You then create a marketing strategy that makes the most of your strengths and matches them to the needs of the customers you want to target.
As a small business, you will probably need support with your marketing in terms of advice, resource, time and budget.
Fail to PLAN and plan to fail
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