22 Aug 7 Tips to Make Your Marketing Plan Pay Off Big
A marketing plan is an essential component in helping increase the odds of success in your business. They take a lot of hard work and time to create, so we’re providing you with some key tips, 7 to be exact, to help your marketing plan pay off big and make the most of your efforts!
Marketing Plan Tip #1– Find Your Fit
To begin, ask yourself some straightforward questions. Who is buying my service or product? How and where is my business going to fit into their lives? These questions are the tip of an iceberg that makes you pay attention to who you are trying to reach. Take the time to figure out who your customer is because knowing your key demographics will make a big difference to how successful your plan is going to be.
Marketing Plan Tip #2 – (Ful)Filling the Need
A successful marketing plan follows the idea that your business offers a solution to your customers. In other words, you’re providing a product or service that satisfies or fulfills a need that they have. Take a moment (actually, take a day!) for a no-holds-barred brainstorming session to map out what solutions you are offering or what needs you hope to fill. Adding this information to your plan will make it more effective, potentially identify multiple customer benefits, and give it more focus and direction.
Marketing Plan Tip #3 – Check Out Your Competitors
An important piece of your marketing plan is researching other businesses who are competing for the same customers. Look at the solutions they’re offering and make notes about the differences and similarities in products or services compared to your business. Competitor analysis is often overlooked but it shouldn’t be. Obviously, you don’t want to obsess over what the competitions is doing and you need to focus on making your business stand out BUT checking out what the competition is doing helps you figure out how to keep your customers and where to focus your efforts. This will give you a huge boost to the overall success of your plan!
Marketing Plan Tip #4 – Goal Setting, Objectively Speaking
In life, goal setting plays a big part in success and with marketing plans, there’s no exception. When you are making goals related directly to your marketing efforts, put in extra time and energy to make them relevant. Don’t skip out on the details here, be sure to add in your measurable objectives that will help plot your course to obtaining your goals. Achievable, detail-oriented goals will bring your plan more success than vague goals that might not be attainable. Benefits of effective goal setting can include increased ROI, more customers, or introducing more people to your brand. Sounds like you should set some goals ASAP- we agree!
Marketing Plan Tip #5 – Set Your Budget
For the love of spreadsheets! Setting a budget is one of the best ways to receive a big pay-off on your marketing plan. Think of it this way: if your plan is big, but you don’t have enough money set aside to finish it, your efforts are wasted. Alternatively, if you plan too small because you don’t know how much money you have available, it might not make a big enough splash for your needs. Set your budget before you set your strategy. This will save you some time and make sure that your strategy fits with what you can afford.
Marketing Plan Tip #6 – Set Your Strategy
Now that you have a better handle on what your business is fulfilling, who your customers are, what your competition is doing, where you want to end up and how much it will cost to get there, now comes the fun part- setting up your game plan! All of the research you’ve conducted can now be used to help hone your marketing strategy or better yet, strategies! Now you get to decide where you can reach your customers, when you can reach your customers, and how you can attract them to your business. Having that research done ahead of time actually makes a social media marketing strategy better (and easier!) too.
Marketing Plan Tip #7 – Review, Revise and Re-write!
A marketing plan has greater pay-off potential when it is consistently updated. Businesses and customers can change, but perhaps more importantly, strategies change. Set regular times to review and revise your plan, strategies, and goals. What works one time might be less successful the next. Sometimes a goal that seemed relevant becomes out of date. Stay flexible and keep yourself informed to boost the long-term success of your efforts.
We hope you get a boost from these 7 quick tips to help your marketing plan pay off! Did you spot a consistent theme? Knowledge through research is the most important part of any marketing plan and as the old saying goes – knowledge is power! So that being said, grab a pen and some paper, or your phone, or a laptop, or whatever else you find useful and get researching today! If you want some help with the details and you can’t find the time to tackle your plan, we would love to help you move the dial for your business. We’re experts in planning, budgeting and strategizing marketing moves to increase your bottom line. What are you waiting for? Give us a shout today
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