It’s the time of year when we all start to think ahead and ponder our New Year’s resolutions: getting fit, painting the house, learning a new language, finishing that patchwork quilt you started in 1995. But what about creating a New Year’s resolution for your business?
Despite the current economic climate, there are still opportunities out there for savvy, positive-thinking business owners to find and create success in 2009. Take advantage of your competitors’ ‘doom and gloom’ attitude and prepare for new business opportunities by creating a strategic marketing plan now that will give you the impetus to hit the ground running in the New Year.
Strategic marketing plans are very important because they articulate – on paper – your goals for your business and how you hope to achieve them. This not only greatly assists business owners and managers to more effectively target where they spend their time and resources, but also gives employees a ‘road map’ to help them actively contribute to the business’s success.
Where to start?
There are many different ways to approach the creation of a strategic marketing plan. At Market Savvy we believe in creating marketing plans that are realistic, time and cost-effective. Our steps for getting you started are outlined below:
1. Set your goals. When devising any strategy, the most important place to start is with your goals. What do you want to achieve? By when? What’s realistic? Jot down your goals for your business for 2009, then group them into two categories: Must Do and Should Do. Those in the Must Do column are those around which you should shape your marketing strategies for the coming year. The Should Do goals could still feature in your marketing plan, but should be implemented only if you have the time and resources to do so. Your goals should also take into account the time and resources (both financial and people-related) available to your business.
2. Be realistic about timeframes. The next step is to put some timeframes around your goals. Generally, it makes sense to categorise them into short term (within the next one to three months), medium term (within the next six months) and long term (within the next 12 months), but your business cycles may dictate otherwise (eg seasonal demand). However you choose to do so, breaking down your goals into set timeframes makes them seem much more achievable and will give you a plan of action starting immediately and lasting until the end of the year.
3. Think about the ‘how’. The ‘how’ is exactly that: how you will achieve your goals within the set timeframes (for example, if one of your goals is to increase sales of Product X within the next three months, the how would be running a promotional offer on that product line). The how – or the tactical part of marketing – is the part that many people are tempted to skip to straight away, but there is no point undertaking any marketing activity unless it directly helps you to achieve your goals within your desired timeframe. How many business owners have spent thousands on advertising with no visible results?
4. Assess your success (and failures). Marketing activities are as much a learning process as they are a means of increasing revenue. It is important to build into your marketing plan an element of evaluation, that is, objectively looking at whether you’ve achieved your goals and how well you’ve done so. We recommend revisiting your marketing plan every quarter, not only to check in on how you’re doing, but also to assess whether the goals you set down at the start of the year are still relevant to your business’s current situation.
As you can see, the creation of a strategic marketing plan needn’t be an onerous task. Investing time now in planning for the coming year will help your business to run more smoothly and stay one step ahead of your competitors. And remember - the more realistic and action-oriented your plan, the more likely you are to stick to it and achieve success!
* These steps have been simplified for the purposes of this article and may be helpful in getting the planning process underway. Other elements such as situation analysis, target market identification and product/service analysis may also assist your business to create a more comprehensive and successful strategic marketing plan.
If you would like further information and advice about creating a strategic marketing plan for your business, please contact me on 07 3899 8335 or email megan@marketsavvvy.com.au .
Best wishes – Megan.