Over to Nicole for her suggestions on how to write an effective marketing plan for SME’s…
Marketing is everything you do to get your market to know you, like you, trust you with the intention of getting them to buy from you.
At its most basic, the components of a simple marketing plan can be boiled down into five categories:
1: Know your business goals
You need to be clear on what you are trying to achieve.
Reflect on why you started your business and what makes your business unique.
2: Understand your customers
Knowing your customers and your competitors will give you great insight into how you fit into the market place and what your point of difference is.
Your point of difference will give you your clear and consistent message.
3: Know your market
It is important to spend time looking at the environment that you operate in to find opportunities for growth.
This includes looking at the factors that may impact your business in relation to political, economic, social or technological changes.
In addition you need to consider factors such as consumer trends, suppliers, distributors and competitors that may impact your business.
4: Consider all the elements of the ‘marketing mix’ and what needs to be actioned to achieve your goals
This is where you look at the areas including your price, products, promotions, positioning amongst other key area and get the best activities for your situation.
5: Your brand
It is key to spend time looking at your brand and really distilling how you want to be perceived by your customers and if this is currently how your brand is seen.
Marketing is all about your customers, your market and how you engage with them to grow your business.
Creating a marketing plan doesn’t have to be complex or time consuming.
Here are five questions to help you develop your own marketing plan:
Remember try not to think about individual activities; where you would advertise or who you might send fliers to. Instead, think big picture.
So this more about your vision, your goals and your journey to get there.
The marketing activities will come later, they will be obvious, more targeted and cost effective once you’ve spent a few minutes on a marketing plan.
By each question is an example from a client of Tactix in the web design industry.
1: What are your business objectives?
To continue to drive business growth from finding new customers and by increasing our revenue from our existing customers by offering new online services
2: Who are you customers?
Business owners who operate in industries where their customers look for them online and where driving online sales is important to keep costs down
3: Who are your competitors and why do people choose to do business with you?
We have the experience in creating great websites that not only look great but are simple to use and result in sales
4: What is your point of difference?
Our customer service is amazing so we are easy to work with and our clients always know where their projects are at and can easily get hold of us if there are any problems.
5: How do your customers want to interact with you?
Most wanted phone contact as they required immediate answers but email was the preference for none urgent contact as long as it was answered in a timely fashion.
Time invested in planning your marketing is time well spent and will give you the direction and focus that will invigorate your team and drive your business forward.
