Skip even one of these
marketing plan template steps and you are on shaky ground
By: John Jantsch
www.ducttapemarketing.com
Creating a marketing plan template for your business is the most
important exercise you can engage in if you ever intend to grow your
business. Every business owner knows this, but few take the time to do
it.
Pick up any book on marketing planning and you can see why. These
books are usually written by business professors and are aimed at the
Fortune 500 types instead of the typical small business owner.
Below you will find seven simple steps that, if followed, can provide
your business with an essential marketing framework.
1.)
Know your market
Look at your current customer list and get a feel for what they look
like. Are they businesses...if so, how big, what industry, how many
employees, who does the purchasing. If they are consumers, are they
male, what income level, what level of education, where do they live?
Think of someone you know that fits your target market perfectly and
then describe them or their company in the greatest detail that you
can.
Describe what bugs them, what they like to do, where they get their
information, how they view their place in the world.
2.)
Find something that matters to them
As you create your marketing plan template ask yourself what your industry does that frustrates your target
market. If you can find some area of your business that they put up
with or some gap in service that everyone in your industry just
accepts as the standard, then you have a real opportunity to meet a
need.
This gap is where you will position your company. In other words you
will send a message to the world that your firm knows how to solve
this particular frustration in ways that no one else in your industry
ever thought of doing.
3.) Create a compelling offer
The next step is to determine what offer your target market needs to
hear in order to start to pay attention to your firm.
The first step in building your firm is to come up with a consistent
way of generating leads. You must be able to take some percentage of
your target market and get them to ask to know more about your firm.
You must create a compelling offer that will stop them and make them
consider that you might have something different to offer than others
who say they do the same thing as you.
This offer is the basis of any mass advertising that you do to your
overall target market.
4.) Redefine your products and services
More than ever your small business must stand above a very cluttered
crowd. The best way to create a brand or create buzz about your brand
is to make a better product or service. No amount of marketing can
make up for a bad product or bad service.
Your marketing says you're different, does your product?
If you make or sell a product, look for ways to add a service to your
offering, look for ways to repackage your product and either bundle it
with helpful services or create hybrid products.
If you are in a service business, look for ways to simplify your
service and add products or turn some aspect of your service into a
product. Give it product features that make it easy to buy, easy to
understand, and easy to use.
As you move your prospects from becoming 1st time buyers to loyal
referral machines, you must have a plan to offer them more and more.
In the end, the most successful businesses are those who can help
people, their clients, make some inner transformation.
Do you need to alter the way you think about what it is that your firm
really sells in order to do this?
5.) Wake up their senses
People will pay their last dime to be entertained. When creating your
marketing plan template, look for ways to
engage your prospects. Package your products in ways that are
interactive. Make your sales presentations fun. Make the ways your
firm goes about work entertaining, look at every contact point with
your client and ask yourself if you are delivering an engaging
experience. Are you making a difference in their lives?
6.) Build beautiful systems
You have systems for accounting and systems for shipping and systems
for production but no systems for marketing?
Systems are essential if your firm is to deliver consistent results
for your clients, but the firms that stand out, the firms that
entertain, the firms that help their clients fulfill their ultimate
aspirations are the firms that build systems that ensure the
experience is in line with the overall theme
and positioning of the firm. Don't build boring system.
7.) Keep score
The things that you pay attention to will grow. Set goals and keep
score of the things that matter to your marketing effort. Number of
leads, number of appointments, number of referrals, sales. Also try to
identify the intangible things that impact your marketing efforts. If
you can identify an
indicator or two that will help you measure how engaged your clients
are, you will be able to focus on creating systems that make sure they
stay that way.
Even if you scratch your answers to the following on a napkin and
share those thoughts with everyone in your organization your business
will be well on its way to the next level.
