Putting together a marketing strategy or a Marketing Plan for a business is almost essential for any business’s success. The Marketing Plan or Marketing strategy acts as a plan or blueprint for where you are now and where you want to be, and what you need to do, and when to get your business recognized. There are some websites on the internet that can help. For instance, if your marketing strategy involves using Facebook, you can go ahead and invest in buying Facebook likes for your page so you attract traffic to it.
When creating a Marketing Strategy or Marketing Plan it is essential to have, set, and incorporate goals and aims for both your business and your marketing. Underneath each main aim or goal, it is always best to create smaller more bite-sized chunk goals that you must achieve, to reach your final goal/aim.
When setting your goals it is wise to make sure that they are measurable and achievable. When setting each and every goal it is best to make, create and stick to a timetable that covers what will be achieved and by when. If you don’t create a timetable then you won’t know when or how to measure your marketing and business results.
So, firstly create goals both short term and long term. What do you want to achieve and by when? Once you have set out and worked out what your goals are your next job/part within the marketing plan–marketing strategy is to work out how you will reach them, for example, what marketing methods–marketing channels will you use, for example, will you use internet banner advertising or perhaps more traditional printed media advertisements.
To find out what marketing will work for you the best it is advisable that you undertake both primary and secondary market research to determine what your target market and target audiences respond, react and pay attention to.
Find out what marketing is used within your sector/business and work from this, decide which marketing channels and platforms you would like to trial and try out, try not to use too many out at once, or else you will not see which is successful and which is not. Remember to include and use your goals and aims as previously mentioned, work out what would work best, for example, would a printed advert reach your goals and aims better than say a radio advertisement?
Next comes the costing/estimating, how much will it cost to achieve the results and success you desire. Work out rough costing based on your market research and on your aims, and work out how much it will cost to reach, achieve and hopefully surpass each aim and goal you have set.
The final step of your marketing plan will be the evaluation/measuring of your results. Have you reached your goals and aims, if not why not, what went wrong, what could be done differently next time around, and so on?
So to recap the 4 most essential elements in a marketing plan/strategy should be in no particular order.
- Goal and aim setting, decide what you want to achieve and by when.
- Undertake some market research to find out what reaches and appeals to people.
- Work out how much it will cost you/your business to reach your goals and aims.
- Evaluate your results, did you achieve what you wanted to and in the timeframe you wanted?
I hope you have enjoyed reading this article and have found it both useful and helpful. Good luck I wish you every success in everything you do.
