Small Business Owners - How to Create Your Own 5 Step Marketing Plan
Here are 5 quick steps that you can use to create your own marketing plan: 1.
Identify your target market to the best of your abilities.
Who is this person? What do they do for a living? Where do they live? How do they think? What do they eat for breakfast? How much money do they make? What are their additional hobbies besides your product? 2.
How does your target market like being communicated to? Do they prefer phone calls? Do they prefer email, television, direct mail, billboards, public recognition, road flares, text messages, or airplane fly-bys? You need to the vehicles that your customers are using so that you won't waste your time and money using a marketing technique that your customers don't even look at.
3.
You must have a rock-solid, killer Unique Selling Proposition (USP).
Your USP is the ultimate promise that you are going to give your customer for a particular product or service.
It is perfectly acceptable to have different USP's tailored towards a specific purpose.
Do not go any further in your marketing plan without completing this step.
If you do not have a rock-solid USP, your competition will wipe the floor with you and you might as well give up before you start.
The USP is that important! 4.
You must have a marketing calendar.
Very few people will buy your product on the first contact.
It has been proven that people won't even recognize your marketing until 3-4 exposures and won't make a purchase decision until around 7 exposures.
Mail or email your clients at specific, calculated intervals of every 10-20 days.
Do not let your clients forget about you.
If you have to choose between one really expensive ad and a series of 7-15 mailings, pick the repeat exposure.
You might as well throw money out the window if you are going for a single ad.
5.
Finally, make sure that all of your marketing material is uniform.
You want all of you material to look the same, same logo, same font, same colors, same pictures, and same message in all of your materials.
Remember that you want your customers to remember you, and to have the switch trip in their brain to say "hey I've seen that before, now I've gotta have it.
" Do not make it difficult for your potential customers to recognize you.
You want them to combine all of your messages together to make a buying decision.
Identify your target market to the best of your abilities.
Who is this person? What do they do for a living? Where do they live? How do they think? What do they eat for breakfast? How much money do they make? What are their additional hobbies besides your product? 2.
How does your target market like being communicated to? Do they prefer phone calls? Do they prefer email, television, direct mail, billboards, public recognition, road flares, text messages, or airplane fly-bys? You need to the vehicles that your customers are using so that you won't waste your time and money using a marketing technique that your customers don't even look at.
3.
You must have a rock-solid, killer Unique Selling Proposition (USP).
Your USP is the ultimate promise that you are going to give your customer for a particular product or service.
It is perfectly acceptable to have different USP's tailored towards a specific purpose.
Do not go any further in your marketing plan without completing this step.
If you do not have a rock-solid USP, your competition will wipe the floor with you and you might as well give up before you start.
The USP is that important! 4.
You must have a marketing calendar.
Very few people will buy your product on the first contact.
It has been proven that people won't even recognize your marketing until 3-4 exposures and won't make a purchase decision until around 7 exposures.
Mail or email your clients at specific, calculated intervals of every 10-20 days.
Do not let your clients forget about you.
If you have to choose between one really expensive ad and a series of 7-15 mailings, pick the repeat exposure.
You might as well throw money out the window if you are going for a single ad.
5.
Finally, make sure that all of your marketing material is uniform.
You want all of you material to look the same, same logo, same font, same colors, same pictures, and same message in all of your materials.
Remember that you want your customers to remember you, and to have the switch trip in their brain to say "hey I've seen that before, now I've gotta have it.
" Do not make it difficult for your potential customers to recognize you.
You want them to combine all of your messages together to make a buying decision.
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