Usually, a Marketing Plan is part of a Business Plan.  Business plans are often beautifully written but hardly ever referred to after they are printed, so can be a waste of opportunity.  Every business needs to look for opportunities and take advantage of them, and a Marketing Plan reviewed regularly achieves this.  A business plan can be written in a One Page format, and a one page format can be used for the Marketing Plan too.

A marketing plan doesn't have to be the size of a phone book, it just needs to be responsive to the market.

It really needs to address four essential points:

·            What makes me different

Why should customers buy from you?  What makes your business stand out, or what is your Unique Selling Proposition or Point of Difference?

·            Who are my customers

Who are your most important customers, and what are their defining qualities?  What problems do you solve, or what needs/wants are you satisfying.

·            What needs to be said to customers to win or retain customers.

         How will you solve their problem?  What is benefit of your solution?

·            How will you reach these customers.

How do they want to be reached, where are they now, how can they find you?

Once the core elements are worked out, determining the tactics is then much simpler.  And, as with any plan, you should not throw money down and hope things work.  You do need to research, test and continue to improve your marketing.  Always measure the return on your investment;  that could mean the number of visitors or leads, the number of conversions, the spend per head, etc.

If you need some help with planning, we can help you to analyse the problem, or we could refer you to people who specialise in these areas, including effectively using social media.