Writing a simple marketing plan

Step 1 - Understand Your Market and Competition

A big mistake that many business owners make is to latch on to a product or service which they would like to offer without first understanding the market and what it wants (not necessarily what it needs). If you try to sell something that people don't want, they won't buy it. It really is that simple.

A profitable market consists of people who have dire wants that are not being met, so much so that they will jump to buy your solution (product or service).

To gain an understanding of your market you should ask yourself questions like:

Step 2 - Understand Your Customer

Knowing your customer intimately is the first step to easy sales. Until you are sure of some of the following, you can't prepare an effective marketing plan.

1. who your customers are
2. what they want
3. what motivates them to buy

To really get to know your customers you'll need to ask yourself questions such as:

• How does my potential customer normally buy similar products (i.e. in a store, on the web, door-to-door)?
• Who is the primary buyer and the primary buying influencer in the purchasing process (i.e. husband or wife, purchasing agent, project leader, secretary)?
• What kind of habits does my customer have? For instance, where do they get their information (i.e. television, newspapers, magazines)?
• What are my target customer's primary motivations for buying (i.e. look good, avoid pain, get rich, be healthy, be popular etc.)

Step 3 - Pick a Niche

Don't make the mistake of trying to include everyone in your market. You will never be able to offer a product or service which appeals to everyone. The marketplace is packed with competition. You'll have more success jumping up and down in a small puddle than a big ocean.

Carve out a specific niche and dominate it, then you might consider moving on to a second niche. Specialising in one area allows you to relate far more closely to a specific target group. Make sure to choose a niche that interests you and that is easy to contact. Picking a target group that is difficult or expensive to contact could be your biggest mistake, so ensure that you are able to communicate with your chosen audience.

Step 4 - Develop Your Marketing Message

Your marketing message not only tells your prospect what you do, but persuades them to become your customer. You should develop two types of marketing messages. Your first marketing message should be short and to the point. Some may call this your elevator speech or your audio logo. It's your response to someone who asks you, "So, what do you do?" The Americans call it an elevator speech as you should be able to encompass what you do in the time it takes to get from the 8th floor to the ground!

The second type is your complete marketing message that will be included in all your marketing materials and promotions. To make your marketing message compelling and persuasive it should include the following elements:

• A suggestion that you understand your target prospect's problem.
• Proof that the problem is so important that it should be solved now, without delay.
• An explanation about why you are the only person/business that can solve your prospects problem.
• An explanation of the benefits people will receive from using your solution.
• Examples and testimonials from customers you have helped with similar problems.
• An explanation about prices, fees, and payment terms.
• Your unconditional guarantee.

Step 5 - Determine Your Marketing Medium(s)

Arriving at this stage will make you understand why it was suggested that your niche should be easy to contact.

Your marketing medium is the communication vehicle you use to deliver your marketing message. It's important to choose a marketing medium that gives you the highest return on your investment (ROI). This means that you want to choose the medium that delivers your marketing message to the most niche prospects at the lowest possible cost.

The following is a smattering of tools you have at your disposal to get your message out:

The trick is to match your message to your market using the right medium. It would do you no good to advertise your retirement community using a fast-paced, loud radio spot on a hip-hop radio station. This is a complete mismatch of the market, message, and medium.

Success will come when there is a good match of these three elements.

Step 6 - Set Sales and Marketing Goals

Goals are critical to your success. A "wish" is a goal that hasn't been written down. If you haven't written your goals, you're still just wishing for success. When creating your goals use the SMART formula.

Ensure that your goals are SMART:

1. Sensible
2. Measurable
3. Achievable
4. Realistic
5. Time specific.

Step 7 - Develop Your Marketing Budget

Your marketing budget can be developed several ways depending on whether you want to be more exact or develop just a quick-and-dirty number. It's good to start out with a quick-and-dirty calculation and then to support it with further details.

First, if you have been in business for over a year and tracked your marketing-related expenditures you could easily calculate your "cost to acquire one customer" or "cost to sell one product" by dividing your annual sales and marketing costs by the number of units (or customers acquired) sold.

The next step is to take your cost to sell one unit or acquire one customer and simply multiply it by your unit sales or customer acquisition goal. The result of this simple calculation will give you a rough estimate of what you need to invest to meet your sales goals for the next year.

Conclusion

There you have it, The Seven-Step, One-Day Marketing Plan. It's simple really. Of course you'll need to study up a bit more about your marketing medium(s) of choice, their appropriateness for your message, and their associated costs. But try not to make the development of your plan a laborious, drawn-out task. Remember the 80-20 rule. 80% of your results will come from 20% of your effort.

My final word of advice is to make sure you set aside uninterrupted time to develop your marketing plan. It could very well be the most important document to which you and your team members will ever refer.

Based on an article by David Frey, the founder of Marketing Best Practices

For further information about anything in this factsheet, email us at create@azuremarketing.com. To view a complete range of factsheets, go to our Resources section at www.azuremarketing.com.

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