A marketing plan is needed for a number of reasons. It provides a roadmap for the success of an organization’s marketing strategies and objectives. It focuses resources on what’s needed to reach desired goals, and examines the organization’s current environment, targeting potential opportunities and challenges from the competition and other factors. It also outlines strategies to measure the success of the marketing efforts and review/modify as needed.
Ultimately, a marketing plan is essential to ensure that resources are put to efficient use, with a unified end goal in mind. Here’s how to get started:
1. Understand Your Audience: First, entrepreneurs should focus their efforts on understanding their target customers. What needs to be learned about them in terms of pain points, interests, demographics, etc.?
2. Set Goals: Having clearly defined objectives will make all future marketing efforts easier to track, measure, and adjust as needed. This is different for everyone and every brand.
3. Establish & Optimize Your Presence: Most small businesses today should begin by optimizing their presence online, setting up social media accounts, optimizing their website for SEO, and cultivating a blog. Here’s an assignment: GOOGLE yourself! See what comes up.
4. Leverage Content Marketing: Blogging, video and social media are powerful tools for driving awareness and leads, and entrepreneurs should take full advantage of them.
This is a great start!
