Marketing Plans

Sometimes clients react to my suggestion that we develop a Marketing Plan as if I had suggested we spend the afternoon having a root canal.

Marketing Plans are your road map to success. They take you from Where You Are Now to Where You Want to Be. If you think that marketing plans are expensive documents full of irrelevant MBA-speak, think again.

Can you answer these basic questions? Vague answers indicate detours and bumps on your road to success.

• Why should people buy from you instead of your competition? Is there a real difference between you and your competitiors, or do we need to get creative so that there's a perceived difference?
  
  Let's give people a reason to buy from you! It's called 'market position' in business plan jargon.


• Who are your ideal customers? It's tough to serve your customers well if you don't understand who they really are.
  
  Let's define your target market. Let's make sure that your Web site and all of your marketing efforts target the hearts and wallets of your customers.


• Where's your sales growth going to come from? There are only 3 groups of customers: Yours, Theirs, and 'No-one's Yet'.
  
  Let's develop steps for capturing- and keeping- all 3 customer groups.


• How do you stack up against your competitors?
  
  Most everyone, and every company, has a weak point. You want to protect yours and exploit theirs, don't you?