Your marketing plan never has to be on the best seller list, but it does have to be written well enough that you have a clearly drawn roadmap to guide the marketing side of your business. It is an integral part of your overall business plan, an essential component in getting your company from a “good idea” to a profitable operation, and evidence to funding sources, both lenders and investors, that you have thought about how. You will sell your product or service and make money doing it.
No two marketing plans are exactly the same, but the ones that work contain the same fundamental elements. Follow this basic structure:
– Define your product. You need to know precisely what your product or service is and what it will do for your customers. Be very specific. Successful marketing requires a solid understanding of the features and benefits of every aspect of your product.
– Identify your customers. Who will buy your product and why? Again, be specific. Where do these people live and work? How much money do they earn? How often will they buy? Understand various purchasing sensitivities, such as the importance of brand, location, warranty, and price.
– Identify your competition. Know your competition as well as you know yourself. Who else sells what you sell? Where are they? How do they market? How similar are your products? What are the comparative advantages and disadvantages between what they do and what you plan to do? What is your pricing structure? What do your customers like and dislike about them? What would make your customers buy from you instead?
You may believe that you have no direct competition, that is, no one else in your market is doing exactly what you are doing. But if that’s the case, how do you know there is a need for your business? And how are your potential customers meeting that need today?
– Set your prices. The amount you charge affects both your profitability and your position in the market. Understand what your costs are, what competitors charge, and how your price relates to your overall marketing strategy.
– Explain how you will interact with your customers. This includes the general promotion of your business, as well as the actual sales process. How will potential customers find out about you? What will lead to you? Will you advertise? Make personal calls? Put up smart signs? Do you use the Internet? Will you have a retail store front, will it be in an office complex or industrial park, or will it be in your home? Once a potential customer realizes what you have to offer, how will you turn them from a potential customer to a buyer? How will they actually receive the product? Will they come to you or will they deliver it to you?
Develop a very specific plan and put it in place at least a year in advance. Incorporate what you will do during the holidays and other events with special dates, such as trade shows. Consider the waiting time required; For example, if a yellow page ad or a special directory ad is important to your overall marketing plan, what is the deadline for placing the ad and when will the new directory be distributed?
Along with what you are going to do, figure out how much it will cost and what you expect the result to be. Although you can’t always accurately predict outcomes, you must have a solid foundation for spending money before doing so. The cost of marketing will vary by industry, but an overall average is five percent of sales. Regardless of how much you spend, spend it on the methods that will give you the highest return on your marketing investment.
As you develop your plans, keep in mind that this is not a linear process. For example, you can start with a particular product, then as you study your market demographics, you will find that you can capture a larger share of that market with a few product tweaks. What you learn from studying your competition may prompt you to make changes to your plans for interacting with your market. You also need to incorporate your production capacity into your marketing plan – do you have the ability to produce a sufficient quantity of product to meet your sales projections?
This is why you need to give yourself plenty of physical space while developing your marketing plan. Even if you are using a business plan program on your computer, take notes on large sheets of paper and stick them on the wall so that you can easily see how each part of the marketing plan interacts with the other. Although these software products vary in depth and quality, many are excellent, the basic physical limitations of a computer monitor force you to focus on one item at a time and do not allow you to see the big picture without printing your plan.
