How to Create a Marketing Plan

If you want to grow your business, you need a plan - a Strategic Marketing Plan. Here's the basics.

 

In 1965 a new television show premiered called “The Dating Game”. Remember it? The premise was that a bachelor or bachelorette would sit on one side of a wall and pose a series of questions to 3 members of the opposite sex who sat on the other side of the wall. Based upon the answers they gave, one member of the panel was chosen as the lucky “date” of the contestant. The happy couple was then whisked off on some exciting journey, enjoyed a lavish evening of entertainment or was ferried to an exotic destination.

 
If you’re in business today, you are playing "The Dating Game". You are competing for the attention of the customer or client on the other side of the wall. And you are faced with the same challenges as those contestants were: a limited time frame in which to impress your potential date; the need to position yourself as the one to be chosen; the responsibility to establish and nurture the relationship – if you ever want a second “date”. You need a game plan, or in marketing terms, a Strategic Marketing Plan. It will answer the questions of

•How will you get their attention?
•How will you keep their attention?
•How will you nurture the relationship?
•What will you do if you have a crisis in the relationship?
 
by establishing Goals, identifying Audiences, formulating Objectives, devising Strategies and employing Tactics.
 
Goals: These are longer-term, broad, more global, future statements of “being”. For example: “To become the recognized leader”, “to foster public support”
 
Audiences: These vary depending on your goals and your mission, and may include: a board of directors; your staff; your vendors; your customers or clients; one or more segments of the general population. You need to know who you are targeting in order to know what to say and how to say it.
 
Objectives: These are shorter-term than goals are and define WHAT behavior, attitude or opinion you want to achieve from specific audiences, how much to achieve, and when to achieve. Objectives need to be specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, results-oriented, time-specific. There are 3 types of objectives:

  • Informational Objectives – Use when your target audience has little or no knowledge of you, OR if they have the wrong information about you!
  • Motivational Objectives - Knowledge alone does not motivate action – audience attitude matters. Use these when you want to communicate a positive feeling or image for your organization. 
  • Behavioral Objectives - These are the ones that count – increase sales, retain clients. Use action words in describing the desired result – recognize your logo, accept your proposal, endorse your program, buy your product.
 
Strategies: Your road map or approach to reaching your objectives. They describe HOW to reach your objective. They contain verbs such as “enlist the audience to…” “accelerate”, “position”
 
Tactics: The tools you will use to implement your strategies. Some strategic plans go even deeper by listing the actions or activities planned to implement the tactic. These will have dates, delineate roles; they are the details that become your task list.
 
*This information was taken from a presentation created by Ginny Cooper entitled "The Dating Game - Marketing Your Small Business in 2010". For more information on strategic planning or to have Ginny present this material to your business or networking group, call 239-297-3638.