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.