Singing the Marketing Song

It's the start of fall, and to me, the beginning of the business year again. This actually happens to me several times a year; January, when the year is shiny and new, and the fall, after a refreshing break over the summer. But there's a price to pay for this time of summer relaxation -- I've now got to get myself going and start a marketing campaign to make up for the lax days I've just gone through. Thankfully, I have a marketing plan that allows me the time to take off and play during a couple of months of summer and helps me to ramp back up in September. Do you have a marketing plan?

A marketing plan is, like a business plan, an effort to put down on paper various items of your business. While a business plan looks at several parts of the business, such as location, revenues, equipment, and all the other important aspects of starting, running and growing a business, a marketing plan focuses on the different things to be done in order to get the customers in the door, buying what you're selling.

The first thing you need to do is decide what your objectives for marketing are -- do you want to sell, educate, get people to walk in the door? When you have objectives and motivations, then you can start the work of the marketing plan.

There are some very important sections to a plan: you need to know your customer base. Who is going to be the most likely to buy from you? Young, old, male, female? Are they local or is this a wider ranging clientele? Who else is selling the same items (services) and what about their product appeals to their customers? Market research is very important here. You need to know the competition -- their prices, their marketing mix, how do they get their customers in the door?

Then you need to know what advertising venues are going to work the best: TV, radio, yellow pages, etc. What are the things people like the best about your product/service? What do they like least? By knowing this information, you are better able to market to the good parts while working on changing those areas that are not as well appreciated. At the same time, you can create marketing materials that bring to the forefront the best while downplaying the not so good.

Finally, you need to put a budget together so that you have an idea of what to spend and how best to spend it. What are the various costs? What is the most cost-effective? Where do you get the best ROI? When you have those answers, you will know what is the best, most efficient method of advertising.