Marketing: how you attract clients and promote your business is an important part of your recipe for success and profitability. Developing a strategic marketing plan will ensure your success and allow you to not spend time and money in
wrong places. Don't hit pavement or floors until you have taken time to do some thinking and planning for next 12 months. The clarity and focus that results from creating a strong strategic marketing plan will bring you what you are looking for with more ease and more certainty. Use these marketing principles when creating a plan to ensure you will be in an even stronger place this time next year. These marketing principals will allow you to make your mark.Do an Assessment Before you jump into this new business climate access your marketing efforts from last year. Review all your expenses from last year. Evaluate if you have more or less to spend this year and review success or failure of each of your expenses and efforts individually. Once you have done that identify where you can improve on last years efforts and then incorporate those changes into your strategic marketing plan for coming year.
In subsequent months throughout year take time at end of each month and quarter to assess your efforts and make midcourse corrections where necessary to incorporate what you have learned along way.
Establish Objectives Create business objectives for coming year. Your strategic marketing efforts will serve you best if they do more for your business than simply turn a profit. Consider including these important objectives
- Establishing yourself or your company an expert or leader in industry you serve.
- Retain your current client base while gaining additional business from them.
- Increase new prospect referrals from current clients and your sphere of influence.
Market Only to Your Niche Unless everyone on planet is a potential client you must limit your marketing efforts to be effective. Decide who your ideal client is and focus your marketing efforts on that potential client population. Ask yourself; Who are they? Where are they? What are they interested or involved in? For example if your ideal client is a homeowner in northern California figure out how you can make contact with them, not with everyone in town.
Use a Multifaceted Approach Your strategic marketing plan must be multifaceted, making only phone calls, only sending out direct mail or only getting out there and meeting people will not make it easy for you to achieve your goals. Use several different kinds of marketing efforts to fill your objectives. A multifaceted strategic marketing approach may include: advertising, networking, phone contact, internet marketing, electronic marketing, direct mail, hosting events, sponsorships, cross promotional marketing, strategic alliances, mass media coverage, placing articles, delivering presentations, special offers, a referral program and possibly a whole lot more.
