Are we there yet?
Marketing – map your course for success!

There is a common misconception that a good product or service will simply sell itself. Many new and developing businesses spend so much time and resources on developing their product that when it comes to marketing it, they think, “It’s such a great widget, everyone needs it, I don’t need to do any more to sell it”. The truth is you can have the very best product or service in town and still fail. How will people find out about your must-have product? How do they go about getting it? Will they tell others about it once they are hooked? Creating a fantastic product is only the beginning – the secret to real success lies in a properly executed marketing plan. .

Why do I need a marketing plan?
To understand the value of a marketing plan, perhaps I should start with a definition. A marketing plan is a road map to meeting (hopefully exceeding!) the goals you have set for your business. It defines your product or service, your target audience, your business and sales goals, your budget and resources, and what steps you are going to take to bring it all together. The goal of marketing in general is to communicate the benefits of your product or service in order to persuade prospective customers toward a particular response. The goal of your marketing plan is to outline a strategy toward achieving that end in a focused and effective way. Just like any journey, if you haven’t defined a destination, chosen a mode of transportation, and determined the best route, you’re pretty much wandering aimlessly and just hoping you’ll wind up somewhere good. This isn’t the most expedient way to get anywhere.

So many of my clients have come to me because they realized this kind of meandering wasn’t cutting it. For years they ran their businesses without a plan – and it worked well enough for a while. But with the economic downturn they noticed a dramatic reduction in sales and profits. The “don’t have a plan” plan was no longer working for them. Developing a clearly defined strategy, setting goals, and tracking your progress is fundamental in the success and growth of any business, not just new ones.

How long does this take? (I’m very busy, you know)
Sure, everyone is busy. And putting together a successful marketing plan will take a little time. But here’s a secret I’ll fill you in on: Once this plan is set into action, you will begin to reap not only the financial rewards, but you will soon realize all the time you were wasting chasing one lead to the next has diminished. You now have a plan that coincides with your business goals, and by following the plan, it’s doing a lot of the work for you. Trust me, the time you invest in putting together a plan is going to be paid back in triplicate. The 3 steps of the initial phase are not as daunting as you may think, especially when you break a plan down into its basic components:

1. Research your target audience, and define the benefits your business offers them
2. Create a marketing plan
3. Set goals and deadlines
4. Execute your plan
5. Review goals often with reports and modify the plan to adapt to the changing market

Where do I begin?
It’s best to start with an evaluation of what you’ve got. Take a good look at the 7 P’s: Product, Place, Price and Promotion, Physical Environment, People, Process. Don’t worry too much that the 7 P’s may divert some of the attention away from the client, this is just a framework to build your marketing plan on. Once you’ve outlined everything, it’s time to set clear goals. You will take the information you’ve gathered and line it up with your goals and create your action plan, aka marketing plan. How will you do this? You could do direct mail, develop promotional pieces to hand out at networking events, internet marketing, cold calling, etc. Most plans will include some of each.

Stay the course!
Whatever business-building strategy you come up with, you must execute the plan and track results. This means keeping good data on who you’ve called on and the sales process. I recommend you get a good CRM system (client relationship management). There are many open source projects (free), and many off the shelf CRM systems you can buy. I don’t care what you choose, but pick something and USE it! This is the most effective tool you have at TRACKING your results and knowing if what you are doing is working. Review your reports of new accounts weekly if you set a monthly goal. Know that when starting out, you probably will not see these 20 accounts overnight. But they will progressively accumulate. Trust that by following the plan and adapting to market changes you will reach your goals.

And before you know it, YES, we ARE there yet!

Happy Marketing!
Lynn Miller | Founder
The Printheads, LLC
[email protected]
www.theprintheads.com