Our Top Five Marketing Plan Tips

When you ask Siri for driving directions to Disney World – she’ll get you there. It’s simple: follow the steps from Point A to Point B and voilà! You are at the gates of the Happiest Place on Earth.

With the holidays on the verge of being a sugary and festooned memory; where are you on your marketing plans for your business next year? Have you promised yourself not to repeat the mistakes of 2015? Have you vowed you are going to stop winging it, stop the vicious reactive cycle, and stop the insanity? If so, it’s still not too late.

Are You a Man or a Mouse? Squeak Up!

If you have never constructed this business framework, try not to over-complicate it for yourself. It may deter you. If you can outline the answers to these five questions then you will have drilled down to the core essentials of what your business is, and what it needs to do to thrive. The rudiments of your marketing plan:

What is our unique selling proposition (USP)?

1. Whom do we want to reach? (Your target market.)
2. What are the benefits our products and services offer?
3. How will we position our products or services?
4. What methods must we use to promote them?

Tips for a Clear and Present Plan

1. Don’t Be Intimidated.
   It’s not a term paper, nothing here will be on the final exam. You can keep your marketing plan simple. It needn’t be elaborate and it isn’t chiseled in granite. Simply edit the document as you make adjustments. Just never take your eye off the fact that this is your company’s tactical concepts blueprint. It should include the activities and timelines that get you to your goals.
2.  Set Steps and Schedules
   Your company’s objectives need deadlines. Because it is easy enough to fall behind working on your business when you are working in it, you need to assign realistically by considering contingencies carefully. If for example there are outside resources upon which these tasks rely, factor in their timelines when projecting the end dates. Maintain a consistent momentum and you will enjoy progress.
3. Remain Accountable
   Whether you are training for a marathon or growing a business, a workout or accountability partner will make you liable. Keep yourself held responsible by reviewing the marketing plan in every weekly meeting, assigning pieces to employees, adding each item to a marketing plan calendar so it’s in your face. Typing up a plan, saving it as a file you can’t find in a couple of months is a waste of time. You will also feel incredibly defeated when you come across it by accident.
4.  Set Your Budget
   If you are a start-up with several thousand dollars launch money in your brand new business account, you aren’t going to spend half of it on a massive mail out to an unidentified target market. Spending money with no possibility of ROI is a sure way to Entrepreneurial Hell. Make wise choices about how you disburse your marketing dollars both in the beginning and even when your enterprise turns a profit. Wasting those dollars is a deadly sin.
5. Your Year in Review
   Know your numbers. Where did your business come from last year? What was your return on investment? This may sound simple, but stick with what works. You can covet another company’s high-end press kit, but if your attendance at industry networking events proved the source of 60% of the prior calendar year’s revenue, then don’t fix what is not broken. You must learn not to argue with your own success – who cares what the other guy is doing?

The limelight at the end of the tunnel? A list of goals, the means to achieving them and a way to measure their success is the only way to find the Magic Kingdom and stay there.