Practical guides
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Practical guides
Marketing planning
Key ingredients for your business and marketing success
To many businesses marketing is seen as an unnecessary and ineffective element of the business - "It's part of sales, so why bother" and "it's expensive and doesn't produce the results." In a way both of these are partially true because marketing only works if it is correctly targeted. To achieve this, your business must first and foremost have a clear understanding of what it is that your customers really need; what it is you are really selling and finally what is truly unique about your proposition?
Once you have this clear understanding you have the foundation to promote your business successfully, because you will be able to:
- convince your customers that you have the solution to their needs
- build awareness that you are in the market
- communicate what your offer is
- ensure that you stand out from your competitors
- provide a "call to action" to link them with you
Without these, there is no proactive pipeline for sales and without that the business will not grow.
The marketing fundamentals
When thinking about a marketing approach in the most general way you need to take into account the following key aspects of your business and market place:
- Product, Price, Promotion, and Place
- Stages of Decision Making - Awareness, Preference, Purchase, Receive, Use, and Retain
- Maturity of target markets and products
Sounds a lot to tackle, however help is at hand because from a practical perspective, the most important thing is to have a plan - for without this how will you know where you are going or when you have got there? A good Marketing Plan will state the unique strategy for your business; define a robust marketing approach with clear and measurable tactics on which you can measure success. By focusing your activities in this way you and your team will be able to successfully deliver profitable business on an ongoing basis.
If you are unfamiliar with these ideas, don't worry, you're not alone. Experience tells us that if you are willing to apply these principles to your business, you will see your profits increase significantly.
Where to start?
Here are ten main ways of marketing. If you're serious about growing your business, pick at least two that you're either not doing, or not doing very well, and make a decision now to add them to your marketing in the weeks and months ahead:
- Direct Mail
- Internet Marketing
- Advertising
- Telephone Marketing
- Direct Sales
- Strategic Alliances
- Up-selling existing customers
- Referral Systems
- Public Relations
- Contact us to organise a Marketing Planning Workshop