A strong marketing plan will help your business be successful.
Whether you're an experienced entrepreneur or just have ideas about starting your first business, one of the keys to success is a strong sales and marketing plan. This is a streamlined document that you can show potential investors, lenders and clients. It will allow you to lay out both your short- and long-term goals. It should help you project where your business is going and how it's going to get there.
Instructions
1. Create a list of objectives. What do you hope to accomplish with your sales and marketing within the next year? Do you only want to increase sales or are you also hoping to establish customer loyalty? Be specific. If you want to increase your sales by X percent, then say so. Are you hoping to expand into new markets? If so, describe where you'd like to branch out. If you're starting a business, set realistic and specific sales goals. Use a financial software program to project potential income and deficits. Set your projections in terms of either units sold or dollar amounts. Setting specific goals will help you target your marketing efforts.
2. Research your market. This typically involves surveys, interviews and--if your business is already in operation--sales figures from previous years. You may gather data yourself or hire a market research consultant. A consultant's experience in asking the right questions might justify the expense. Key information to learn: how much customers are willing to pay for your product or service, where they currently obtain the product or service, and their typical shopping patterns.Make notes of any trends or predicted shifts in your particular market.
3. Evaluate the products or services you offer. Take a look at each product or service--are some more profitable than others? Ask yourself whether individual items have different target customers. Put products or services together in organizational groups, to determine whether your marketing plan can take a "one size fits all" approach or separate plans will be needed for different items.
4. Consider potential problems and how you plan to combat them. Is there something going on in your industry that could present trouble down the road? For example, if has been just announced that a chemical in your product may cause illness, you will have to address this issue. Do you have competitors who can consistently undercut your prices? Determine in advance what you're going to do about this. Be proactive.
5. Include financial information. Create a section in your plan that contains your company's profit and loss statements and discusses how much you plan to spend on advertising and marketing in the coming year. If you're just getting started in business, include projected numbers. Will the revenue generated by marketing exceed the amount you plan to spend? If there will be no return on your investment, you must adjust your marketing plan accordingly.
6. Determine what sort of marketing works best in your industry. Do people respond better to television ads or print media? Is yours a word-of-mouth sort of company or can online or viral marketing push your business ahead? This is where your market research will come in handy--by knowing your customers, you'll know better reach that target market.
7. Use your computer's word processing program to put all of this information into a concise and organized report. Compile your plan into a three-ring binder. Make sure that each member of your marketing team has a copy and have more copies available for potential investors and lenders.
8. Evaluate your plan regularly. Your sales and marketing plan should be at your fingertips at all times, and you should be reviewing it at least every three months. Be sure to track market trends and respond to them as needed. Get feedback from everyone involved in your marketing division, check sales numbers against expenditures, and keep adjusting your plan accordingly.
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