Does Your Business Have a Marketing Plan?

Marketing is crucial for small business owners. But all too often, we approach marketing in a haphazard fashion, adding a new element to our marketing mix “on the fly” without stopping to think about whether it makes sense for our overall business goals.

It’s great to keep your marketing fresh and up-to-date by marketing your business in new avenues. But if you don’t take the time to assess each part of your marketing mix and how it fits into the larger scheme of things, you could be wasting time and money—and not getting the results you desire. 

Creating a marketing plan for your business can help ensure that you’re maximizing each marketing dollar you spend and that your marketing message is truly getting across to your target customers. So how do you get started?

Think of your marketing plan as kind of a “business plan” for your marketing. In fact, if you are a startup, a marketing plan should be part of your overall business plan. If you’re beyond the startup stage, you still need a marketing plan to set the stage for your efforts throughout the year. 

Here are the essential elements your marketing plan should cover. 

The marketing message you want to convey. What image of your business are you trying to get across in your marketing efforts? In other words, what’s your business “brand”? Think about your product or service’s features and benefits. What makes your company unique and better than the rest? Craft a marketing message that sums up that point of differentiation in one sentence. Then, keep that message in mind when developing all of your marketing materials and strategies. 

Your target customers. Consider your target market. Information you need to know includes how big the target market is, its demographics and its buying habits. How much money do your target customers spend on products or services like yours? Finally, include the media your target customers use. Knowing which magazines, newspapers, websites, social media sites and other media outlets your target market uses will help you determine where to most effectively market your business. 

Specific marketing methods. Once you know where your target customers are and have an idea how to reach them, your marketing plan should specify which marketing methods you will use. For example, you might want to use any or all of the below: 

• Your website
• Online advertising 
• Email newsletters
• Social media such as Twitter or LinkedIn 
• Public relations
• Direct mail such as postcards or letters
• Advertising (print, radio, cable, out-of-home)
• Marketing materials (business cards, flyers or brochures)

When, where and how much. Break your methods down further to detail where you will use each marketing method (that is, the specific website/newspaper/media outlet you will use), how frequently you will use it (monthly, weekly, daily during a certain time period), and how much that will cost (both per instance and in total). Be sure you consider one-time costs, such as developing a business website or getting business cards printed, in addition to the ongoing costs of placing ads.

Goals for your marketing. It’s critical to measure the results of your marketing methods so you know what’s working and what isn’t. However, in order to measure results, you need to know what results you want. For instance, if you’re placing a Facebook ad, your goal might be to get 100 new “likes” in one month. If you’re running an ad in your email newsletter, your goal might be to get 5 percent of the readers to click through and 2 percent of those to actually purchase.  

Create goals that you think are reasonable based on past experience, information about your industry and norms for the specific marketing tool you’re using. Track your results and make changes to your marketing plan accordingly. If you see that one method is generating more actual sales than others, focus on the method that’s getting results and put more of your marketing budget there.

A marketing plan is traditionally created for a 12-month period so you can forecast your marketing costs for the year and plan in advance how you will market during peak seasons, such as the holidays. But be sure to review your plan quarterly to make changes as needed and ascertain if you’re heading in the right direction.

A marketing plan is a tool not just for you, but for everyone in your company who’s involved with marketing. Get your team involved in creating the plan and reviewing the results. Working together on a marketing plan will give everyone a sense of ownership in the sales process, which always leads to better results.

About the Author

Rieva Lesonsky is CEO and President of GrowBiz Media, a media company that helps entrepreneurs start and grow their businesses. Follow Rieva at Twitter.com/Rieva and visit SmallBizDaily.com to sign up for her free TrendCast reports. She's been covering small business and entrepreneurial issues for more than 30 years, is the author of several books about entrepreneurship and was the editorial director of Entrepreneur magazine for over two decades