What is Marketing?
Marketing is the process of defining, understanding, and then continually promoting your company to your particular market. Your marketing plan is the foundation that defines who your target market is and positions your service or product to that market with an approach that converts into sales.
We believe having a marketing plan is crucial to the creation and sustenance of both small and medium scale businesses. It should be included in your startup costs and once your business is up and running a key part of your strategic planning every year.
A marketing plan helps the daily operation and growth of your business. When you develop your plan, you’ll set targets and milestones which help you to
• Distribute resources
• Plan your financials
• Inspire your team and
• Measure performance efforts
Why invest in a marketing plan?
A marketing plan is like any other plan. It gets you where you need to go, foresees dangers and stops you from wasting time and money on already limited resources. To us, it keeps all your resources focused on the goal, customers!
Who has the power in your company?
Customers should be the driving power of your company when it comes to strategy. They should be the center from which everything flows. Your marketing plan is the meeting point for customers and the company. We are not overstating this when we say all aspects of your company’s operations must be customer-focused.
Converts your ideas into strategy into actions
When we have our consultations with clients we are enthused by all the ideas they have about how to market their businesses. Your marketing plan is a way to convert these ideas into strategy into action items. It becomes a living document that takes all the ideas you have into a written, livable game plan that your current and future team members can collaborate and execute against.
Aligns sales and marketing
If you started your company after working in a corporate environment, you might know that sales and marketing don’t always work together. There are multiple reasons for this but we believe that successful companies are ones that align these areas and work together. Luckily, marketing automation makes this easier. Your marketing plan is crucial to this success because it:
- Defines your ideal client
- Creates a lead to sales pipelines that is shared across your company
- Develops systems, content, and campaigns that work with your sales cycles
- Makes customer satisfaction the whole company’s responsibility
- Once your marketing plan is complete, your job is to tweak and make adjustments to it.
So, do you need a marketing plan?
A marketing plan is many things to a growing business. It is your blueprint for you to define and refine your sales objectives and strategies for the campaign year. It is your yardstick for evaluating sales success, customer retention, team productivity, and sales incentives. One of the greatest benefits of developing a marketing plan focuses your resources and plan for your business growth.
So, whether you need a marketing plan, depends on how fast you want to grow, how smart you want it to happen, and if you want your business to be ready for the growth. Creating your very first marketing plan can be a time and resource-consuming endeavor, but it is 100% worth the effort.
