I supplied a previous blog around how to create a business plan. Which covered the importance of a marketing plan. Small business owners are aware of the important need to plan out their marketing. But, many will spend hours working on their overall business plan to try and move their business forward. Yet, they neglect the area that gets their business seen, which is just as critical – the marketing plan.
The marketing plan is quite often left behind because small business owners assume they already know their target market, and that they understand their customers. This is why they went into business. Yet, when a marketing plan is being created; it almost in every situation is able to reveal useful data that will help build the business faster and provide a range of opportunities.
3 main reasons why you should produce a marketing plan for your business:
First of all to outline why a customer should choose your business. What is it that you do – that customers love and want to have more of? Why they want it? How can you best communicate this to future customers? The better you explain your business and what it is that customers need from you, and how you meet those needs; the easier it is to win new clients.
To establish who your customers are. In every industry there are plenty of customers. However, some of those customers are harder to get than others. Some are more loyal than others. And so on…the marketing plan has to be an in depth look at who your best customers could be; then you can target them. You want to create a marketing persona for that customer; so that it is clearly understood throughout your business who those customers are.
To determine the competition. Once you know why customers should choose your business and what the best customers look like; it’s time to work out who else in your line of work is geared up to deliver something similar to that customer group. When you know that – you can examine how they move to attract customers – price, quality, service? Then you can adapt your marketing strategy to outmaneuver the competition.
Once you have all this information you can then develop your brand position. That is a simple statement of who your customers are, why they need you and how you will beat the competition. This statement provides a huge amount of value within the organisation because it gives everyone something to refer to when dealing with clients and client leads.
Once you have your brand identity you can start to explore ways to reach new customers. While websites and advertising definitely have their place; there are low cost marketing options that small businesses can use to attract customers and gain repeat custom too.
Low Cost Marketing Options
E-mail Marketing
E-mail marketing is not dead. It may not be a new concept and it might not be as pretty as some other marketing approaches but it is highly cost-effective. You can use services like Mail Chimp or Aweber to build a list of your customers e-mail addresses and then develop e-mails to reach out to your clients.
It’s worth noting that e-mail marketing is not a “one size, fits all” blast of spam offers but rather a tailored approach. You can segment your customers to deliver relevant and interesting material to them. Both Mail Chimp and Aweber offer free training and support on how to develop effective e-mail marketing campaigns and it’s worth going through their offerings in detail to try and work out how to make the most of your opportunities.
It’s also a good idea to run a small test campaign to see how an e-mail is received before blasting it out to your entire list.
Mobile Marketing
Mobile is the dominant internet access platform today. More than half of all web pages will be viewed on a smartphone this year. That means that if you can get on the mobile platform; you can get in front of your customers.
This isn’t as cheap as e-mail marketing but it might be even more effective. Developing a mobile app can mean that your customers and potential customers are always interacting with your brand and your ideas. Of course, you need to plan on using that mobile app to add value to your customers’ lives. There are millions of apps out there and people will only install yours if it brings them something they want. It can’t be an advertising catalogue or nobody will use it.
Social Media
It has become more challenging to use social media to win customers over in recent years. Platforms like Facebook have dramatically reduced the reach of “free users” in order to better promote those who will pay for access. However, that doesn’t mean that they have become worthless and in fact, you can still reach plenty of customers without paying a penny.
It’s best to work out where your customers hang out online and then to try and learn the rules of the space before you start pouring money into social media marketing. If they are on Facebook, for example, work out which groups they use and how you can interact with those groups without being seen as spam. Then slowly dip your toe into the water and create great content. Over time you’ll start understand what works and what doesn’t. When you have that information you can start to pay to get greater access to your customer group – with confidence that your investment won’t be wasted.
Measure the Results
The final part of a good marketing strategy is the ability to measure the results of your efforts. Just because something is low cost or even free; it doesn’t mean that it’s a good use of your time unless it brings the kinds of results that you need.
You’ll want to determine how you are going to measure the output of a campaign. It could be in value of new business, in terms of number of e-mails read and acted on, number of likes gained, etc.
If you find an activity is providing value; you can increase your efforts in that activity. If it’s not – you may want to rethink your strategy or change track completely.
So, there you have it. Hopefully, this can help your business and if you are unsure or would like some help. Please comment below or feel free to get in touch.
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