By Barrett Niehus http://www.4mysales.com

The steps to creating an effective marketing plan begin with identifying who you are going to be targeting, what you are going to spend, and how many sales you are going to receive as a result of your efforts. By identifying this information in initial stages of your market plan development, you will significantly increase your return on investment and substantially increase your sales. Below is a step by step process to help you lay framework for your own marketing plan:

Step 1) Identify your budget. Identify how much you are planning to spend on your marketing endeavors in order to maximize your investment. How much are you planning to spend on your marketing? How many prospects are you planning to reach, and how many sales do you expect to close? Include your time investment in this analysis as well. Many inexpensive marketing tools take an enormous amount of time and subsequently have a significant cost.

Step 2) Identify your ideal customer. In order to target your customer effectively, you must know what they look like. This process is generally known as “stick figuring” and identifies key traits of your ideal customer. Who are they? What do they do for a living? What do they read? Where do they shop? What do they value? How do they entertain themselves? Where do they spend their time? What does their family look like? What is their income level? Answer these questions as specifically as possible to determine best way to target them.

Step 3) Identify medium. List all of possible mediums to touch your customer. Arrange list from most specific way to target customer to broadest way to touch your prospect. On same list, list prices per piece and specific price per prospect. This will give you an idea of where to best spend your money and where you will receive greatest return on investment. . Step 4) Allocate your budget. Identify top five mediums that touch your prospects in a cost effective manner and allocate 80% of your budget across those pieces. Reserve remaining 20% to use for unique or targeted follow-up marketing pieces.

So, they try to make a difference...and a profit.

But, running your own business is very hard. We all hear statistics...one in five don't make it, every third small business fails, one out of two flop and on and on and on. Plus, small business owners have to wear a lot of hats: sales person, marketing manager, accountant, janitor, customer service representative, human resource department, etc...

You name it, small business owners do it.

The learning curve is great. And business owners make many mistakes. Some mistakes are just part of growing process, while other mistakes may cost only a few bucks or thousands of dollars. But one mistake I am about to describe can be MOST expensive mistake you can make in running a small business.

What's mistake?

It is very simple, but VERY costly mistake of having your logo, stationery, brochures, web site and all other marketing materials for your small business look cheap, poorly designed, thrown together and unprofessional.

Every single week, I see a multitude of small business owners who are making this very mistake. They just don't get it. They don't realize cost of this mistake. They don't realize how much damage they are doing to their business and brand by using these unprofessional and poorly designed marketing materials. Essentially, what they are doing is creating a sub-par first impression that is burned into mind of new prospects forever.

The old adage is true...you never get a second chance to make a first impression. In running a small business, you cannot afford to look thrown together, cheap and unprofessional.