Planning
What is it good for?
By: Sherri Becker

You have undoubtedly heard the adage, “Failing to plan is planning to fail”. Does this truism and rule of thumb have any application to marketing?

You bet. All businesses, from the one-woman (or man) operation, to a multi-level corporation, should develop a “marketing plan”.

Generally speaking, a marketing plan is a strategy and design formulated and developed to meet your sales objectives. If that sounds like a jargon or gobble-de-gook to you, don’t despair. It is easily broken down and then readily understood through the following few simple steps.

1. Strategize. Analyze, at the outset, what you want to accomplish. Some businesses want more customers. Some want to create loyalty within an existing customer base. Others want more visibility. Still others want to increase the bottom line with a greater profit margin.
2. Prioritize your objectives. After your analysis, determine which objectives or goals are most and least important. Obviously, proceed from the most important to the least.
3. Consider your past, present, and future. Review what marketing strategies you have used in the past and what results those strategies have yielded. With this information, compare your current objectives. Keep in mind who you are marketing to; that is, review your present and your future niche, customer base, or market. Also, don’t forget to account for money. Establish how much money the budget can and will be for these marketing efforts and plans.
4. Take action. Prepare an action plan, incorporating the strategies, priorities, objectives and outlook learned to this point in your analysis. Involve everyone in the company in this plan. Shared responsibility yields the most positive results. Develop a task list and assign duties or action steps as appropriate. Create and post a timetable and calendar for each of these tasks or action steps.