Marketing Plan Creation – Mission Critical for Small Business Success
I’m sure you have heard how important it is to create a thorough business plan. Setting goals, writing them down and creating a detailed plan on how to achieve your goals increases your chance of success at least 10 fold. The same small business success principles apply for a comprehensive marketing plan.
The problem is that most entrepreneurs have common challenges. It’s not just our local Folsom or Sacramento area business owers, but common pitfalls everywhere!
First of all, they have never sat down, taken the time to do research, strategize and write down a comprehensive marketing plan. The second is that many marketing plan books, guides and even MBA programs leave out some key elements. Then there are some of us who did create a great plan, but haven’t looked at it in 5 or so years …
What do you REALLY want from your marketing plan? You want the same thing we all want. Most entrepreneurs I work with are tired of what I call dartboard or “spaghetti” marketing … keep on trying things and see what sticks. This is exhausting, frustrating, time consuming, and expensive. What we all really want is a predictable marketing plan and system that works and gets high return on our time, energy and money investment [ROI]. For you visual people, it’s like simply turning up the volume dial on the radio – when you want more clients, more income, more profits, simply turn up the dial on your proven marketing tactics.
Let’s start with some common entrepreneurial marketing plan pitfalls:
Not having a comprehensive marketing plan.
Not knowing how to create a thorough, effective marketing plan.
Not having an industry standard marketing budget.
Not narrowing down your target market enough, and not including psychographics and geographics with your demographics.
More than one target market – huge costly mistake.
Reducing your marketing budget during slow times – ugh, please don’t do this!
Not testing marketing at small scale before risking big ad spend.
Not doing adequate keyword and market analysis.
Jumping to tactics before strategizing.
Hiring someone to do your marketing that doesn’t know how to get results – example admin doing social media with no education.
Competing on price or using discounts – this will kill a small business fast!
Trying to make sales and money rather than helping and serving your market from your highest good (heart).
Not having a marketing tactic calendar and action plan – marketing inconsistently.
Multiple calls to action.
Talk about themselves too much or features rather than what’s in it for the client.
What’s in it for you to create a comprehensive marketing plan?
A plan that creates BAM! [Business Acceleration Marketing]
Less frustration and stress.
Less waste of time, energy and money.
At least 10-fold increase in marketing ROI and effectiveness.
Predictable results for your business success.
What are the key elements to a comprehensive entrepreneurial small business marketing plan?