Has your once well-organized marketing plan come to resemble
jumble of stuff in your closet (not to mention garage and attic)? If you are like most people, each time you come across a new marketing idea you try to adopt it and add it to your existing approach.Strategies and tactics tend to accumulate and linger even when they may not be working as well as you'd like. Like ill-fitting clothes that accumulate in your closet or broken tools still in garage, they are hard to get rid of, whether because of habit, emotional attachment or just plain not getting around to cleaning them out.
To improve your marketing, you'll need to clean out some old ways of working. While I don't want to get anywhere near your closet, and in fact I could use some help with mine, I can show you how to clean up your marketing plan so you're ready to take advantage of New Year to grow your business.
Cleaning Up Your Marketing Plan Every morning my friend Michael Angier of SuccessNet.org sits down at his desk and asks himself following three questions about his business.
1. What's working? 2. What's not working? 3. What can I improve? You may not want to review your marketing plan five times a week, but it is a good idea to do it at least once a year. So take out your pencil or fire up your computer and assess your marketing plan:
Your Marketing Plan 1. Is your plan working? 2. Do you have a well defined marketing strategy that helps you achieve three phases of marketing: Getting Attention, Positioning, and Selling? 3. Do you need to write or rewrite your marketing plan? 4. Do you need additional information or coaching to complete your marketing plan? 5. What are you going to do to improve your marketing plan?
