Marketing Plan for Small Businesses
If you are a smart small business owner, you would know the importance of having an effective marketing plan. Giving your small business a marketing plan an in-depth layout will allow your business to open its doors for various business opportunities such as to gain new customers, to determine the possible pricing pitfalls, to take a step ahead from your competitors, and even to leverage your business’s other possible potentials like discovering new product lines or services. You may also want to know how to define what a marketing plan is and its purpose.
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Once you will be able to create a marketing plan for your small business, rest assured that you will definitely not miss out on the making possible profits. With that, we have here examples of marketing plans that can surely help you out on your small business. You may also see how to create an executive summary of a marketing plan.
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Questions to Answer in Creating an Effective Marketing Plan
No matter how small or big your business is, a marketing plan is something that is essential for your business to thrive in the cutthroat industry it belongs in. For you to be able to create an effective marketing plan for your business, you have to ask and answer some important questions for you to be guided and that you should also make sure that your marketing plan will be able to answer these questions. You may also like digital marketing plan examples.
1. What do you want to accomplish for your business and why do you want to accomplish it?
This question can be answered by your mission statement. Having a mission statement is something you can refer back to whenever you feel like the business is not anymore on its supposed tracks. You may also check out restaurant marketing plan examples.
When starting out on a new business venture, you will be bombarded with questions like “What are you trying to do?” or “Why you are doing it?” Not knowing the answers to this question can be your potential nightmare. However, when you are already further in the process of building a business, you might have already finalized your mission statement. Use this for your marketing plan.
Your business’s mission statement can actually serve as the foundation of your marketing plan. Even if it does not have a direct role and a direct effect on how you are going to market your business, your mission statement can actually help you focus on the goals you want your business to achieve and helps you ensure that your marketing activities will always be relevant to your business’s entire objectives. You may also see personal marketing plan examples.
2. How can your marketing plan support the goals for your business?
This question can be answered if you have already determined your marketing strategies. Your marketing strategies are connected to the goals and businesses you have set for you business. You may also like making marketing plans that work.
Determining your marketing strategy will outline the things you want your business to be doing and to accomplish, and your marketing plan will be the one that gives you the guidance on how you can do and accomplish such things.
When you are to develop your marketing plan, you have to determine first what you want to accomplish for your business. Knowing what you want to accomplish for your business beforehand enables you to derive a marketing strategy for your business. You may also see how to write a marketing plan for a business.
3. Who are you trying to reach with your marketing strategies and how are you going to reach them?
This questions can be answered if you have already determined your business’s target market. The target market is the main audience that you want you are attempting to sell your business’s products and/or to. The more specific and detailed your target audience is, the more your marketing plan will become equally specific and detailed. You may also like marketing strategy plan examples.
This is why conducting your market research is also deemed important because it is in this way that you will be able to identify and answer a follow-up myriad of questions that goes:
- Who is your target audience?
- Where can you find your target audience?
- What do they value?
- What are they worrying about
- What do they need at the present time?
When you will be able to determine your “ideal customer,” it will then be easy for you to determine how you are going to compose marketing messages that can directly affect and persuade them to buy or avail of your products or services. You may also check out apartment marketing plan examples.
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4. Who are you competing against and what is your rank standing?
The answer to this question is quite obvious—your competitors. But there’s more to simply answering this question straight up identifying who your competitors are because you will then have to do an competitor analysis. One of the best ways for you to be able to do so is by conducting a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) analysis for both your competitors and your own business. It is in doing so that you will be able to figure out how you are going to beat and be on top of the competition, to prepare for the challenges posed by your competitors, and to fine-tune your target market or audience. You might be interested in advertising plan examples.
Knowing who your competitors are does not end on identifying what their names are because it goes on further. If you want the best way to research your target audience and to determine the best way to identify and prepare your marketing strategies is by knowing you competitors answers to that. This is not for you to rip-off theirs and to make things easy for you but this is for you to know whether there are other businesses out there that sell remarkably similar to what you sell and whether you also have a remarkably similar target market.You may also see wholesale real estate marketing plan examples
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5. What makes your business stand out among the rest?
Knowing who your competitors are in the industry is not just enough because, as mentioned above, your real and hard-to-beat competitor is yourself. You may also be interested with these restaurant marketing plan.
This is why you need to answer this question for you to be able to determine how you are going to market your business effectively to your target market in a way that you will be able to highlight what makes your business unique among the rest of its competitors. Since you may now have already determined your target market, this means that you will also be able to determine how you are going to attract them with your products and/or services.
You should also figure out your unique selling proposition (USP) by then. Your business’s USP is the statement that draws a clear outline on how your business and its products and/or services differ from its competitors. Your business’s USP will also help you create better and relevant choices for your business as well as give your target market to choose you over the others and a reason for your current customers to remain and not switch sides.You may also see systematic steps for an effective startup marketing plan
6. How are you going to price your products and/or services?
This question will be answered by how you are going to strategize the pricing of your products and/or services. You may also see strategic marketing plan examples.
After establishing your business plans and even before starting to plan out for your marketing plan, you must have already researched regarding the best ways on how you are going to price your products and/or services. Since you have already done that, make it a point that you will be able to relate this pricing information to how you are going to market your products and/or services.
One of the most important factors to evaluate is how you will work your pricing strategy into your marketing message. In most cases, you want to be able to support the price points you have chosen by providing your customers with a clear idea of the value and benefits they will get in return. A high value proposition is often the factor that leads a customer to the decision to purchase.You may also see digital marketing plan examples.
If you haven’t identified your pricing perspective yet, review this pricing strategy primer to explore the different approaches and consider how they may relate to your business.
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7. How can you reach your target market?
Identifying your target market alone is not enough and it certainly does not end there since you will have to reach your target market right after determining it. You may also see marketing strategy plan examples.
Your marketing plan should be able to answer this question because how will you sell your products and/or service if you do not know to whom you should be selling it to? And in what manner are you going to get the word out about your business to your target audience?
For you to be able to reach your target market, you have to make sure that your marketing plan contains these relevant marketing activities:
- Advertising
- Direct sales
- Internet marketing
- Marketing materials
- Packaging
- Public relations
- Sales promotions
- And other publicity efforts
By securing that your marketing plan consists all these marketing plans, you can already be assured that your target market can get a word about your business.
8. How much money are you going to spend and on what are you going to spend your money on?
Every promotional or marketing plan needs a budget in order for it to run successfully. However, if you own a small business, you will most likely have a limited budget especially when it comes to marketing. Most small businesses would often overlook the importance of allocating a budget for marketing without even caring to know the potential benefits it can provide for the business. You might be interested in event marketing plan examples.
No matter how big or small your business is, you should never skip a budget allocation for your possible marketing activities, particularly in the creation of a marketing plan. Ensure that your marketing plan will be able to answer the question posed by making sure that it will be able to help you determine how much money you are willing to spend and what are the relevant marketing activities you are going to spend your money on.
9. What are the necessary tasks for you to reach your business goals?
Incorporating your business goal in your marketing plan means that you will also have to clearly indicate on your marketing plan the things you need to do in order to achieve your business goals. Outlining the necessary actions you need to accomplish to meet your business goals is a very important aspect that your marketing plan must contain. These necessary tasks or action steps are your guide in order for you to keep yourself on the right tracks, for you to make consistent progress, and for your business to be successful in general.You may also see apartment marketing plan examples.
For you to effectively create a list of your necessary tasks, you can simply start by determining your main end goal. From that, break it down into a series of manageable steps that will eventually lead you to your main end goal. The more small and manageable the steps will be, the easier it will be for you to accomplish it. Do not also forget include some sort of a deadline of when you should be able to accomplish all of the steps. You may also check out integrated marketing plan examples.
10. What have you achieved and how can you do better?
Not all marketing plans are perfect, so expect that there will be some things that will not go as planned. And because of this, determine the ways on what you can do to improve the areas that needs more word. Instead of feeling discouraged in the event that some things will not work out, you should keep track and measure the results of your marketing activities.
However, even if your marketing plan will be considered as successful once you will finally achieve something because of it, you still have to work on it and keep track of it or else it will go to waste. It is in keeping track of your results and overall performance that you will be able to determine the best types of marketing tactics or activities that works best for your small business. You may also see email marketing plan examples.
Even if marketing plans vary from business to business, your business will definitely strive if you are going to make sure that your plans are well-made, detailed, and geared toward success. If you are interested for more articles related to writing a marketing plan, you may also be interested in learning these systematic steps for an effective startup marketing plan.
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