Marketing Plan

A comprehensive marketing plan is important to your company. Maybe you think things are moving too fast. But you need to write it down and follow up on what you said. You will make more money if you do.

• Does your Marketing Plan identify your customers and how they view you and your competitors? Does it contain action plans to improve your standing? Does it include a budget? Do you measure the effectiveness of each action? For most small to medium sized companies a plan at this level is just a dream. If your company is spending 10%, 15% or even 20% of revenues on marketing it could be a nightmare.

• Your plan should be the focal point of your marketing efforts. It should include measures for each activity and should lead you to fact based management. A plan will help whether your sales model is direct, retail, internet, or something else.

• Technology offers new ways to communicate with your customers and encourage repeat business. Lots of companies have tried a website and given up when nothing happened. We can show you effective techniques that will really reach your customers. Pay per click can be expensive. Is your site optimized for the search engines and cross-linked with your suppliers, partners and customers? Have you identified the keywords and phrases that your customers will use to find your site?

• What about your customer and prospect lists?Are they current? Do you try to stay in touch? Is targeted email a part of your plan? Do you send notices of specials and sales? Do you know which products your customers are interested in? Do purchasers get to see related products, options and upgrades? Do you send maintenance bulletins or recall notices? How do customers and prospects find your business?

	Action Programs
	Every action plan in your program requires a time frame for action, someone responsible to make it happen, and some measures to see if it is getting done and how effectively it is producing results. By the way this is just another example of a pattern at work. We've done plenty of action plans and know that if you leave out this information the plan either won't get done, you won't know if it was done, and it will cost you more whether it gets done or not.
	Analysis of Current Market Situation
	Who buys your products? How do they buy? How much do they buy?
	Analysis of your company's Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats
	This is such a standard technique that it is frequently ignored. Identifying, analyzing and ranking internal and external factors that are affecting your company's performance right now is critical to any planning process.
	Competitor Analysis
	Where do you stand in each of your markets? How do the others compete? Are you the market leader, a major player, or a new entrant.
	Controls / Metrics
	What you measure happens. When you spend money on marketing, you need to determine if the expense has produced a positive impact on your business. It is a balancing act between effort and impact.
	Financial Projections
	Put it all in a big spreadsheet. Time across the columns, programs in the rows, cost in the cells.
	Marketing Strategy and Objectives
	This is the payoff. The information you have gathered will lead you to conclusions about what will work for your situation.
	Target Market Definition
	Who do you sell to? Who do you want to sell? Make a list....we know lists are boring, but this is how it works. You make a list with the right entries. One of them pops big and you are making money.