Creating Your Marketing Plan – The Plan of Attack: Part 1
After chatting with a friend recently who wants to begin marketing her small business to retailers, I started to look back into what info I had for a very well-thought-out, comprehensive outline which will ultimately produce a very effective marketing plan for a business, service, or product in the most efficient way possible.
If you can find the book: “Smart Marketing on a Small Budget – Solutions for Canadians” by S.J. Ross, I highly recommend it! I love their ‘worksheets’ in the back of the book too; they’re really helpful for keeping track of everything.
Some of the steps I usually go through (before getting to the fun design stuff) when starting to market or brand a company to the general public, are as follows… You’ve probably done all/much of this already, but it will help to fine-tune what strong points you want to get across to your customers, retailers, and to their audiences/customers.
So here are my own notes, mostly taken from the above-mentioned book… the items I’ve coloured red & marked with an asterisk is what I (or another marketing consultant/designer) would need to know your answers to, to assist in offering marketing suggestions / promotional plan / or actual design work:
The Basic 10-Step Marketing Plan:
- Define your offering
- Know your competition
- Understand your marketplace
- Choose your target market
- Determine your objective
- Select your sales message
- Choose your communication avenues
- Establish your project schedule and budget
- Write and design marketing materials
- Evaluate success and adjust
Getting Started by Doing Your Research:
a) Where to look for your research, and what to look for
- Read newspapers, magazines, websites, television and radio shows
- Look for similar offerings to your own and your industry, target market, and marketplace*
- Look for local offerings/businesses similar to your own and in your industry, their target market, and marketplace*
- Review trade publications – research your competition
- Join internet groups to interact with, target market, and to hear their point of view*
- Examine surveys, polls, and research studies to understand marketplace and industry trends*
b) Research your own company
- Daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly sales figures
- Sales trends (which days have higher sales and which months are busier)*
- Averages sales amount of each transaction
- Average number of items purchased at each sale*
- Average number of customers per day, week, month, and year*
c) Know yourself
- What business am I in?*
- What does my business do well?*
- What are my unique strengths?*
- What does my business do poorly?*
- What weaknesses does my business have, and what unexploited opportunities does my business present that my competition can capitalize on?*
- What is my offering?*
- What is my price?*
- What are the benefits of my offering – what does my target audience gain when they purchase my offering?*
- Am I currently successful? Why or why not?*
d) Know your competition
- What is their offering?*
- What is unique about their offering?*
- What are the benefits of their offering?*
- Who is their target audience?*
- What is their marketplace?*
- What is their price?*
- How do they promote themselves?*
- What is their sales message?*
- Are they successful? Why or why not?*
- What are their strengths?*
- What are their weaknesses?*
(Compare C and D)
I hope you’ve found this helpful. If you would like to send a message to me directly, please use the above ‘Contact’ form.
Stay tuned for Part 2!