A marketing plan will help keep your priorities aligned and help you stay within budget. To create a good plan you must consider your audience, define your message and create the budget. These three steps help fine tune your marketing message and ensure you are getting the most out of your marketing dollars.
The first step in prioritizing your marketing is choosing your target audience. Once you identify who you are trying to reach, study how your audience prefers to communicate. You may have more than one target group-just be sure to use the best marketing method for each group. The blog Target Your Audience! goes into further detail. Now that you have researched your audience, it is time that consider your marketing message.
Your marketing message should be intrinsic to your values, beliefs and/or related to your field. So where do you start? A marketing calendar is a great tool to organize your ideas and schedule them throughout the year. First save the dates for the events that are specific to your industry; such as award ceremonies, awareness months, training events, conventions etc. Then consider any dates that are unique to your business, family, faith or community. For example, anniversaries, birthdays, local non-profits and community events/festivals. This should generate enough areas of interest to keep your marketing fresh throughout the year.
Lastly you must consider your overall marketing budget for the year and decide how much you would like to dedicate to the various sectors of your marketing message. If you have been business a few years--use the current dollars spent as a jump off. However, if you are just getting started here is a good Chron article to get you started. With your budget in hand—it is time to implement your marketing message to your targeted audience!
A marketing plan will ensure you are creating a clear message for your business that supports and promotes the issues that are most important to you. In addition, it helps you stay on track with your marketing budget. However, it is important to remember that the plan is not written in stone! Therefore, feel free to adjust it as needed to meet your needs. The main goal is to create a consistent image/message that engages your audience and keeps within your budget. Happy Marketing!
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