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[H1364]How To Make A Marketing Plan

by Colleen Davis, Col

An effective marketing plan is not hard to create. There are plenty of reasons to employ a marketing plan: to identify your customers, to compare your company's data against your industry and to track results so you know what works.

Here are five steps to creating an effective marketing plan.

1. Get Your Product Out There

Your marketing goal is to generate recognition or interest that leads to sales, which lead to profits. Profits are the name of the game. The first step to doing this is to position your product in the market to achieve that recognition and interest. By putting the right product at the right price in front of the right customer, your sales can go through the roof. Get your product out in the market so that when people see your great full color brochures or other marketing materials, they can go right out and buy one.

2. Brainstorm

Plan some brainstorming sessions with people you trust, such as family, friends, staff, or other professionals. At these sessions, try to answer the following questions:

• Who are your target customers?

• What do your target customers need or want?

• What makes your product, service or business different from your competitors?

• Which marketing tactics will work best to get your product noticed (catalog printing, brochure printing)?

• Where do you see the company in a year? Where do you want the company to be?

It's a good idea to tape the sessions (either audio or video), to catch the best ideas and suggestions. Also take good notes during the sessions.

3. Get to Know Your Customers

Next, you need to get into your customers' heads. What do they think of your marketing materials? How do they feel when they see your logo? You need to know how customers will react to your price, service, image, etc. – basically anything that could influence their buying decision.

You can do this by either a focus group or by conducting surveys. You can bring in current customers, or people in your target market that you would like to become your customers. You'll probably need some kind of incentive to get people in there – money, a gift certificate to your store or a free item.

You can also mail or email surveys if you have a mailing list already. Ask customers what think of your brochure printing pieces or how well your catalog printing pieces represent your products.

Based on what your customers say, analyze your business by finding the SWOT:

• Strengths: What makes customers come to you? What are you best at?

• Weaknesses: What could you improve on? What makes customers go to your competitors?

• Opportunities: What segments can lead to growth? Where could you expand your business?

• Threats: Which competitors are getting your potential business?

4. Expand the Plan

Now that you have some ideas and you know what your customers want, you're ready to write down what you'll do. This doesn't have to be a formal document, just something to refer to and that others can reference. Your marketing plan should:

• Summarize your market position and goals.

• Define what you expect to achieve in an explicit time period (for example: “We will sell 100 widgets by the end of the first quarter.”)

• Include a list of target markets, including niches

• Describe a strategy for each market or niche

• Detail expenses and resources

• Detail which marketing channels you'll use (Web site, email marketing, full color brochures, billboards)

• Include competitive strategies – what will you do if a competitor lowers her price?

5. Keep Track of Results

You can keep track of your results by including benchmarks in your plan. Examples of benchmarks could include “selling 100 widgets by the first quarter,” or “having 50 people call or visit the Web site to learn about the product.”

If the results are not measuring up, you'll know that this marketing plan wasn't quite right for you and you can tweak it to try to fix the problems. Then you'll want to make new benchmarks and start over again. Keep doing this until you get the results you want.

If you're interested in success, you need a plan to help get you started. With Denver internet marketing company professionals, you can get the attention your business needs without having to learn about the ins and outs of internet marketing. In order to be a successful online business, however, you will want to create a plan for your marketing in order to generate the profits that you desire.

The first step to any good plan is to know your overall goal, the end result that you're hoping to achieve. This might be anything from increasing your profits by a certain percentage, getting higher on the search engine listings or simply just becoming better known in Denver internet marketing. By writing down one or two goals that are your main reasons for running a web site, you will help your plan become focused on the end result ? and make better decisions along the way that will support those goals.

In your Denver internet marketing plan, you will want to consider the competition that you have at the present time. Invariably, you will have some competitor that is offering everything that you do. But when a customer visits their site, what are they not going to find? It's these ?holes? in your competition that you will want to draft into your marketing plan. By figuring out ways to make up for things in your competitor's business, you will be able to stand out from the rest of the crowd.

The next step to a Denver internet marketing plan is to figure out ways that will bring new customers to you. This can be a tiered system of processes that eventually lead to your ideal customer ? the one that buys from you. Try to start with a plan that ?grabs? the interest of as many people as possible. This could be a mass marketing email from a mailing list or perhaps a broad advertisement banner on a web site. In this way, you will secure as many potential customers as possible. But you want to create further steps that will whittle this broad response down. Perhaps you give the interested parties information on what your business? primary goals are. Then you give the interested parties insight into your products. As you progress from piece of information to piece of information, you will slowly condense your response into those customers that are going to make purchases from you. Start with larger Denver internet marketing strategies, but then move to more specialized processes ? free newsletters for those that opt in, articles for those that sign up, etc.

But it all comes down knowing who your main customers are before you begin to target them with Denver internet marketing. Try to make a list of all of the things that your ideal customer wants from you and then make sure your business provides it. In addition, you will want to define your ideal customer by where they are looking for your business on the internet - so that you can be there when they start their search.

This article was written by Steve Morris. Mr. Morris runs New Media, a Company located in downtown Denver, Colorado (http://www.NewMediaDenver.com). Mr. Morris is a highly respected specialist, and he constantly develops and stays current with all the latest SEO and Link Building Techniques.

Article Source : marketing mix objectives

About Author

Both Colleen Davis & S. Reeves are contributors for EditorialToday. The above articles have been edited for relevancy and timeliness. All write-ups, reviews, tips and guides published by EditorialToday.com and its partners or affiliates are for informational purposes only. They should not be used for any legal or any other type of advice. We do not endorse any author, contributor, writer or article posted by our team.

Colleen Davis has sinced written about articles on various topics from Business Cards, Brochures and Sales and Negotiation. . Colleen Davis's top article generates over 201000 views. to your Favourites.

S. Reeves has sinced written about articles on various topics from Recreation and Sports, Search Engine Marketing and Home Management. This article was written by Steve Morris. Mr. Morris runs New Media, a Company located in downtown Denver, Colorado (. S. Reeves's top article generates over 6600 views. to your Favourites.