Build A Solid Marketing Foundation

All construction must begin with a solid foundation otherwise you risk erecting a structure that requires constant maintenance and repair. Creating a solid marketing plan is no different. Jumping directly to program execution without producing the necessary foundation increases your risk of missing your target and wasting your marketing dollars. The fundamental information and tools that simply must be in place before any marketing campaign will be successful need to be built as carefully and with as much care as the foundation of a building. So before you begin spending your precious marketing budget, take a moment to be sure your marketing foundation is solid.

The following diagram illustrates the critical components of the marketing foundation and how that foundation provides the base for all of the marketing programs you may want to execute.

Lay the Foundation

Before you can determine what your marketing strategy is, you need to understand your vision and goals. All marketing activities will be chosen based on whether they will achieve one or more of your goals. When you have a clear understanding about what you are trying to accomplish with your business, you can then determine how you will get there.

Now you need to look at the market and analyze whether the market you wish to serve wants what you can provide. You should sit back and think about your business and determine your focus. By evaluating your business from the perspective of client need, you will be able to focus your efforts on initiatives that are key to the success of your business.

Understanding your competition from both a business and marketing perspective helps you determine how you are different from them. Your marketing plan should emphasize how you are different so that you stand out from the crowd. This differentiation will be the basis of your core marketing message.

Identify Your Brand

Your brand is the image you wish to portray to the world and is one of your company’s most valuable assets. It communicates your corporate personality and shapes the internal and external clients’ perceptions of who you are as well as the expectations and promises you extend to your customers in terms of quality, service, reliability and trustworthiness. A strong brand helps the audience differentiate you from your competitors and can positively influence their purchasing decisions, directly impacting your profitability

Also, identify your personal brand. If you are an independent professional or partner in a service business, you are your brand.

Identify Your Marketing Strategy and Budget

The marketing strategy outlines your plan of action to achieve your marketing goals. It is how you take advantage of the various marketing activities to build awareness and educate your prospects. If one of your marketing goals is to double traffic to your web site, what activities will you use to drive more traffic to your web site and in what timeframe and with what budget? Think through each of your marketing goals and identify the key activities that will help you achieve success.

Create Your Sales Tools

Your sales tools are the last activity you should undertake before you launch your marketing campaigns. Until you know what types of marketing you will do, you don’t know what materials you will need to support them. Using the brand identity and messages developed earlier, combine them to create the sales tools that help you communicate with your target audience. A good first impression makes selling that much easier, and a consistent set of materials – Web site, brochures, newsletters, advertisements, business cards and other materials – with a strong identity and a compelling, powerful and enduring message, gets you noticed and remembered.

If you can do only one thing well because of budget or resource constraints, be sure your Web site is the best you can provide. It is most likely the first impression your prospect gets of your company, and how useful, informative, and simple it is to use will impact their decision to do business with you. I cannot stress this point enough – a bad Web site can ruin your entire marketing effort by turning away prospects before you even know they are there.

Build Upon the Foundation

Now you are ready to execute the plan. You have a roadmap for your business, a budget for your activities, and an understanding about how you will reach your prospects. By building your foundation first, all of your programs will be consistent, targeted, and more likely to succeed. You can be assured that no matter what type of programs you choose, you will consistently communicate your value to your prospects, raising your awareness, attracting ideal prospects, and increasing profitability.

Focus Your Marketing for Better Results

This article is an update to the original that appeared in Golf Biz Journal in February 2008.

The golf industry has recently been through some tough economic times. With the supply of golf courses outweighing demand, golf courses need to compete for a finite population of golfers. But to do so effectively, they need to invest in marketing and aggressively go after new customers.

Contrary to popular beliefs, businesses should continue to market even when the economy is down. Investing in marketing will boost revenue opportunities now and create future opportunities to attract new business. But, before you open your wallet, there are ways to get the most out of your marketing dollar. The following are five tips to help you get those precious golfers’ attention while using your budget wisely.

Don’t Shortchange the Strategy Process

When resources are scarce, it’s tempting to short cut the planning process. But doing so guarantees a marketing plan that is little more than a list of unrelated activities. Without a plan, you may be tempted to spend money on programs that are not the best use of your marketing dollar. By thinking in broader, more strategic terms, you can align your spending with your goals and spend your valuable time and money on programs that are worth doing.

Focus Your Resources

One issue for many businesses is spreading their marketing resources too thin. They try to execute too many diverse marketing activities without a clear goal or become reactionary and jump from one activity to another. By setting clear goals, pairing them with creative strategies and focusing your resources on doing everything possible to achieve them, you are more likely to be successful. For example, if your goal is to increase the number of golfers, one strategy could be to focus on attracting golfers from vulnerable courses that are in some type of transition. Pick the best opportunities and hammer away for at least six to nine months. Use your marketing to attract their outings, their regular golfers, their members and their leagues. But be sure to monitor all competitive activity in the process to enable you to quickly react to changes that could benefit you more.

Take Advantage of the Internet

The Internet is a powerful channel that you can utilize fully without spending a lot of the marketing budget. Traditional methods of marketing to your prospect database can be done using the Web at a fraction of the cost. Get a quality web site developed professionally that interacts with your visitors and enables you to collect information about those who come to visit. Then make sure all of your marketing programs direct your prospects to your Web site. Once there, provide valuable information to keep them coming back often to see what you have to offer.

Market to Your Customer

Once you have invested in the cost of obtaining a customer, don’t forget to nurture that relationship. It is far more cost effective to retain a customer than to acquire a new one. Remember, if you are trying to attract your competitions’ golfers, they most likely are trying to attract yours. Ignoring golfers who frequently play at your course or treating them like strangers will only encourage them to look elsewhere.
Get creative and invest in marketing that delivers value to your regular golfers. Send out monthly newsletters with golf tips, course events, and other activities. Post information in the newsletter about new merchandize or services being offered and ask for input through a Web response form. Offer an email newsletter that parallels the hardcopy version and let people opt-in to save you postage. Most of these activities are all simple and inexpensive, but they help you create a positive experience and stay visible with your customer.

Invest More – Time, Effort, and Money

When the economy is down, you should expect to invest more than just money in your marketing to stay visible. Spend time with your customers to show them you value their business and implement marketing activities that communicate clearly about what you offer that is of value to them. Use all aspects of your marketing to drive new golfers to your Web site. Get involved with your local business community through the Chamber of Commerce to encourage businesses to host their meetings at your club or schedule an outing. Attend networking events to promote your golf programs. Host a networking event at the club to encourage people to come see the facility. Participate in community events that keep your name in front of potential golfers.
Simple, effective marketing is not out of reach for businesses on limited budgets. Build your strategy. Focus your resources wisely. Invest more time and effort to communicate with your prospects. Offer value to your current customers. And, take advantage of cost-effective, Internet marketing. You will begin to see results.

Search Engine Optimization – Tips and Tricks

I have spoken with business owners who have actually said to me “marketing doesn’t work. I have spent all this money on a Web site and I have not gotten one client from it yet.” If this sounds familiar, there are a couple of things you can do to turn your Web site into a sales tool.

To ensure prospects find you on the Web, you need to take actions to drive people to your site. These actions can be direct marketing programs, public relations, advertising, handing out your business card, or Internet marketing techniques, to name a few. And one of the Internet marketing techniques is to enable people to find you through search engines.

Search engines and directories generate over 90% of Web traffic by users who are trying to search the Web for information and services. Search engine optimization is the act of developing your web site to make it easier for search engines to index your site and make it available to those who search on certain keyword terms. So if you have a Web site and you want to be found, here are just a few tips that will help.

• The page titles of your Web site are one of the most important parts of your page as far as search engines are concerned. The title tag has to contain your major keyword and it should be between 4 and 12 words. Tightly focused titles with your important keyword at the beginning perform best with Google and help with many other engines.
• Whenever possible, use text links in your web pages and NOT images to link to other pages in your website. If you must use images, make sure the text links show up first in the source code, because search engine robots need to read the text to find to any particular page.
• Make sure your content contains your keywords and try to put them in your headers and bold them when possible.
• Page descriptions and keywords in meta-tags make a difference in some search engines. Since they don’t hurt for any of them, define them wisely for each page in the site, ensuring they are different. Some search engines compare the page descriptions, titles and keywords to see if the content on the page matches. If not, it can hurt your ranking, not help it.
• If your site has many pages within different areas (such as a resource area that contains articles, information and links), you need a site map. A site map links to every page on the site. This will help the search engine robots find every page with just two clicks. For small sites, a well-defined navigation scheme will perform just as well.
• Make your site popular. Get links to your site from other sites that add value to yours. Buy links from reputable sites to help, but work out exchanges with people who have the same type of clients but do not directly compete with you. The quality of links are important – pick your links as you would pick your friends.
• If your site has a consistent theme throughout, that will help you in the rankings. The spiders are looking for consistent, valuable and fresh content to serve up. Make sure your site provides the value they are looking for.

Still need more information about search engine optimization? Stay tuned. We will be covering search engine marketing and all of its components in detail in future articles.

Internet Advertising

In March 2004, we wrote an article on Internet Marketing, highlighting the types of programs you have available to build awareness and generate leads using the Internet. In this article, we will focus on Internet Advertising using a pay per click (PPC) service such as Overture and Google AdWords. It is now quite practical for many businesses to add this activity to their marketing plan and budget.

What is Pay Per Click?

A Pay Per Click (also known as Pay Per Ranking, Pay Per Placement or Pay Per Position) search engine enables you to list your site at the top of the search engine results. You don’t pay to list your advertisement; you pay only when a user clicks on your listing and connects to your site.

How your advertisements get displayed is based on two factors: what keywords from which you wish to be found and how much you are willing to bid to get a better ranking. If your keyword is very popular, you will pay more. If it is not, you can get clicks to your site for a few pennies.

To get the best traffic to your site, you need to select keywords that refer to your product or service. Your advertisement must, in very few words, convey a call to action for someone to click through. For each keyword you determine how much you are willing to spend. The higher you bid the higher you will appear in the search results.

What Does Overture Provide?

Overture provides cheap, targeted web site traffic. They have become one of the leading PPC search engines. You have many tools available to you to help with setting up your keywords, the advertisement, and your maximum bid. Your bid for rankings can go from 10 cents to $50 max. Since you can write the description and title you want for your advertisement, you can play with your campaign to determine which ads provide the most highly targeted traffic to your website. The best part of the Overture capability is that you can control your bids at all times and adjust them, based on the quality of your results.

What Does Google AdWords Provide?

Google’s self-service AdWords program charges a per click fee, similar to Overture. AdWords charges a $5 activation fee, and bids on keywords are from 5 cents to $100. However, there are other differences.

Where Overture ranks the advertisements in order by those who bid the most, AdWords are ranked for placement by a combination of cost per click (CPC) multiplied by the click through rate. Thus, even if two ads have the same CPC, the ad with the higher click through rate gets listed first. In other words, Google ranks ads based on its total value to Google.

Conversely, Google will penalize those ads that do not have a good click through rate. Really bad ads — those that get below 0.5 percent in clicks after appearing 1,000 times, will be prevented from appearing at all.  The rationale for this is to increase the value of the PPC real estate on the page.

What Makes this Type of Advertising Affordable & Effective?

There are many benefits to using a PPC service for advertising your business.

• You pay only when someone actually visits your site.
• You can guarantee relevant placement of your advertisement.
• The results are highly quantifiable, particularly when you use sales conversion tracking.
• The process involves nearly zero risk. No $50,000 media buys. Not even $2,000 media buys. You pay one day at a time.
• Your listings appear only when a particular keyword is requested, thereby appearing only when a user is actively searching for your product or service.
• You can present a title and a description for your product or service that will give a lot more information, specific to their search query, than banner advertisements allow.
• You pay nothing for impressions (a term used to indicate when your advertisement appears), unlike banner ads where you pay a dollar amount for every 1000 impressions (similar to traditional media costs). For example, you will be charged $50 per 1000 impressions for a banner ad. Of those 1000 impressions, standard click-through rate is approximately 3%, about 1-2 people.  If your search term is reasonably popular, chances are you would bid well under $50 per click (more likely $1- $2 for a more specific keyword) and still have your advertisement prominently displayed. Depending on your bid price, that same $50 would get you many more qualified visitors to your site than a banner ad would.
• The conversion rate (the number of people who buy from you that click through) for your PPC advertisement is higher than the click through rate of banner ads.

What Should You Do?

If you have a small budget and it is important for you to drive targeted traffic to your site, using a service like Overture or Google AdWords can have a great return on investment. The benefits are many, and you can control your costs and you can track and test your results to improve your click through rate. All of this can turn into more sales leads and more business for you.

What’s in a Domain Name?

Your domain name is the center of your Internet identity. The following should help you choose a set of domain names if you don’t already have one. And if you do, you may want to purchase others for future uses.

• Pick a name that is memorable – Many believe shorter is better, but you want people to remember your domain name. Your domain name should correspond to your business or product name as closely as possible. Get both if available and point them to the same web site.
• No acronyms – Unless your business is well known by its acronym, get a domain name that uses the full name for your marketing materials. Unless you are IBM, it is more memorable to use your company’s full name.
• Get what Search Engines like – Getting a domain name that contains your main keyword helps with the search engine optimization. Also, domain names with hyphens sometimes rank a bit higher in the search engines.
• Hyphens are ok – In the crowded world of the Web, domain names that are short, easy to remember, contain no hyphens and still represent your company or product name are hard to get. Try all combinations of your desired name, with and without hyphens to see if you can get the .com version. It is far better to get a hyphenated .com domain name than a non-hyphenated .net or .biz name inmost cases. Hyphens also make a longer domain name easier to read. On the other hand, keep hyphens to a minimum. Too many hyphens will be harder to remember and a pain to type.
• Don’t get a name close to your main competitor – If your direct competitor has your desired domain name without the hyphen, consider a different name. Check first before you invest. Find out who your prospects are finding if they type your name wrong or without hyphens.
• No funky spelling – Spelling your domain name wrong to get something close to what you want is also not a good idea. People won’t remember how to spell the name. Some companies have dropped characters to shorten the name or at least be close, but all that does is confuse your audience.
• Register your domain name now even if you don’t plan to build your site yet – Planning to write a book, build a new product, or develop a new service? A good domain name that can be used to market those efforts is a good investment to make now. Don’t wait thinking it will always be there. The cost of registering a domain name today is cheap (most registrars offer 5 or 10 year registration at less than $10 per year).
• If you can not find a good .com domain name – What happens if you can not find a good .com name for your domain? Getting a .com domain name is the best, however, .net is fine as well. I would only get .biz, .info and .name domain names to protect your brand if you do have the .com or .net. If your company is a non-profit or you feel your company would benefit from its association, get the domain name with .org. There are no restrictions on the use of .org for businesses. If you do get a domain name with a .net designation, your marketing must include the entire domain name to ensure people know how to find you.

Choosing a domain name is as important to your brand and marketing as your logo and design. Do not just take anything for your domain name. Make sure your domain name represents your company, product and image, and you’ll be setting a great foundation for your marketing efforts.

Can My Small Business Benefit from Internet Marketing?

Many companies have realized the effectiveness of Internet marketing in reaching targeted audiences with measurable results. This trend has resulted in many companies rebalancing their marketing budgets to spend more online than on traditional marketing activities. Research company eMarketer estimates that online ad spending n the U.S. will reach $15.6 billion in 2006, up from $12.9 billion this year. Beyond online advertising, marketers are also investing in the newer digital marketing options including blogs, podcasts, Webcasts, e-mail, Web sites and database marketing to reach business customers.

This article concentrates on the fundamentals of Internet marketing – web sites, search engine optimization and online advertising including banners, pay-per-click, and directory listings. Future articles will cover some of the newer digital marketing options such as blogs and podcasts.

Benefits of Internet Marketing

Spending some time and money on building an Internet marketing strategy can be the difference between a good year and a great year for your business. Some benefits of engaging in online marketing include the following:

• Your online presence can give the impression that your company is far bigger than it really is. Done right, you can get an incredible amount of visibility that far exceeds your business size or the ability to compete through traditional sales and marketing channels. The Internet has leveled the playing field for businesses of all sizes. Planned and executed correctly, you can achieve a large portion of marketing online for a reasonable budget.
• A professionally developed web site and expert content can build credibility for your company faster than traditional methods. Using your web site as an educational vehicle for your prospects makes it easy and convenient for them to learn about what you do, how you do it, and the knowledge you possess. Make sure you take advantage of this key capability that your Web site offers that many other marketing efforts do not.
• You can generate a large number of leads that convert to prospects and customers. Capturing and generating leads through the Internet enables you to build a prospect list that you can continue to nurture either through sales activities or through marketing activities such as an online newsletter.
• The world becomes your marketplace. You can reach prospects globally, 24 hours a day, every day. There is no other marketing activity that has extensive reach at minimal costs. Conversely, if you only want to do business within a 50 mile radius of your business location, you can choose where and how your advertising is displayed. You get to choose how to advertise your company on the Web that benefits you the most.
• If you combine Web based marketing with traditional off-line marketing activities such as direct mail or public relations, you can increase your exposure to your products and services, improve your image, and support your marketing activities at reasonable costs.

Getting Started with Internet Marketing

As with all marketing activities, you need to develop a plan, execute it effectively and measure the results. The basic elements of the plan should include a professional web site, expert content, and a combination of search engine optimization and online advertising using banners, directory listings and pay-per-click. Working together, these components of Internet Marketing can raise the visibility of your company and help you achieve quality inbound leads.

When considering your budget for Internet marketing, make sure you include the cost of developing and hosting your web site, developing the search engine optimization strategy, developing the content if you can’t do it yourself, and the individual campaigns you want to run. Keep in mind, however, that the cost of marketing is only relative if you don’t get any new business from the activity. A $500 marketing program may not seem like a lot, but if you don’t get business from it, it is too expensive. However, if you spend $500 on a sponsored link in an appropriate and relevant site and you gain a new client that brings in $3000 of income, then the $500 is well spent.

Internet Marketing can Work for You

If you think Internet marketing doesn’t apply to your business, you are missing a wonderful opportunity to easily and cost-effectively grow your business. Virtually any business today can benefit from a quality web site, sound search engine optimization practices and strategically placed online advertising. If you want people to find you online, then you need to engage in effective online marketing.

Make Your Web Site Sell

Many people treat their web site as a marketing brochure – lots of information on your company, products and services – but little on what you want your visitors to do. Even with a great design, good product or service information, and easy navigation to help visitors find what they are looking for, you are missing an opportunity if your web site structure and content is not telling them what you want them to do.

Your web site is an effective sales tool for many reasons:

• Easy to access from anywhere
• Easy to update with new information
• Can be used to collect leads
• Can offer interactive sales presentations from the comfort of your office
• Can present the image you want your prospects to see

In addition to providing a good image and information about your company, your web site can be developed so that it sells for you.

Leading the Visitor

Your web site needs to lead your visitors through the site with the purpose of helping them decide to call you or buy from you. If you let the visitor wander aimlessly without clear paths, you run the risk of them getting confused, frustrated and leaving. Web site visitors are amazingly impatient. If they don’t see exactly what they are looking for in a few seconds, they will leave. However, once they find something that interests them, they will read the entire piece.

When planning your web site, ask yourself the following questions:

• People visit your site for a reason – do you know what that is and can you provide them with what they need so that they are satisfied?
• Are you holding their interest and making them want more?
• Is every thing they are looking for easy to find and presented in terms they understand?
• Are you wasting their time with elements on the page that don’t add value?

Asking the Visitor to Take Action

A “call to action” in marketing refers to active copy that compels a user to take action. When developing your web site, think through how you want to weave effective calls to action into its structure. You want to do this because if you don’t, you are leaving it up to chance that they will figure out what they are suppose to do and actually do it. The obvious ones are “register for this seminar”, “subscribe to our newsletter”, “buy now”, or “add to shopping cart”.

Other more subtle or non-invasive calls to action are those used to move the visitor through the site on an information gathering process. Hyperlinks that help the visitor walk through a set of pages, next and back buttons, or hyperlinked phrases such as “read our success story” are all types of calls to action that get your visitor to stay at your site longer.

Summary

You should use a clear call to action on every page of your web site and interspersed in the copy. Don’t leave the path to a sale up to the visitor – guide them through the process with a flow that takes them to a decision. Understand your sales process and develop your site to mimic the process as best as you can. You still need the great design, clear content and a professional image for your web site, but don’t forget to tell your visitor exactly what you want them to do.

Benefits of Using RSS

If you haven’t started using RSS for to subscribe to blogs and newsletters, it’s time to start. I know what you are thinking. “I barely have time to read my email so how would I have time to read news feeds?”. I thought the same thing, but now that I have started using RSS, it offers many benefits.

RSS offers a more convenient way for me to get the information I need from news and business sources. By subscribing to this information through an RSS feed, I can have all of my information aggregated into one place where I can easily access it when I have a moment to read it. RSS is an Internet technology for content distribution. Most news media sites will have an RSS feed available as do most blogs. RSS puts the control of the content you subscribe to in your hands. Simply subscribe to a feed using your feed reader of choice.

The simplest feed reader for getting started is to use your Web browser. Both Internet Explorer 7.0 and Firefox enable you to bookmark feeds by clicking on the RSS icon in the toolbar and saving the feed. The top two images to the right shows IE7 and Firefox feed bookmarks. The bolded titles are those that have new content available. When you access the RSS feed of a web site or blog, the RSS feed icon turns orange. Clicking on the RSS icon enables you to subscribe to the feed.

There are other feed readers available such as Bloglines, Newsgator, Yahoo, MSN and others. Blogs may display icons such as those listed in the Add This image to the right so you can easily select your particular reader. Using these feed readers are similar to the browser readers, with the biggest benefit for the feed reader services being you can access your feeds from any computer.

Now that you know how to subscribe, try it now with the Masterful Marketing blog.

Benefits of RSS

• Get notified of new content without having to check all the sites yourself. Most feed readers bold feed titles to indicate new content.
• Read or scan a larger amount of information in a shorter period of time because you have it all at your fingertips.
• Subscribe anonymously to a feed, eliminating the need to provide your email address.
• Stop receiving the feed by simply deleting it from your reader.
• Subscribe to newsletters through RSS, getting them out of your inbox. No need to check your junk mail folders for newsletters that inadvertently get trapped.

Hesitate no longer – open up your web browser, look for the orange RSS icon and start subscribing to all the content you want.

Map Your Road to Success

Goals, objectives, and strategies – terms confusing to most but critically important to growing your business. What do they mean and should you care? This article discusses three critical steps to developing a successful marketing plan.

• Determine where you want to take your business
• Define the milestones required to get there
• Develop the tactics needed to achieve each step

As you work through each of these steps, take the time to reflect on your current marketing activities, decide what worked and what didn’t and make adjustments. By thinking through these three steps, you simplify the process and remove the stress usually associated with developing a marketing plan.

Business Goal

Most marketing professionals use goals and objectives interchangeably. However, your business goal is your vision of what you want your business to look like in three to five years. It is the guiding light that directs all aspects of your business and enables you to focus in one direction. Your business goal should remain consistent, but be flexible enough to respond to any major changes in the market environment.

Marketing Goals or Objectives – The End Game

Your marketing goals, sometimes called objectives, are measurable milestones that lead you to your business goal. Each goal should lead to sales otherwise you should define it differently. Goals should be S.M.A.R.T.:

• S – Specific about what you want to achieve;
• M – Measurable so you can track your progress;
• A- Achievable;
• R – Relevant to the target market you wish to influence;
• T – Time-based, usually a short period of time (no more than a year).

Some simple examples:

• To increase sales from our installed base by 30% by end of year.
• To achieve 20% of our revenue by offering new affordable services to markets needing assistance with employment law.
• To attract 5 new customers per month from xyz segment.

The intent of your marketing objective is to focus all efforts in one direction. Let’s look at a more detailed example:

The objective is specific (increase sales), measurable (by 30%), relates to a particular time period (next calendar year) and focuses on influencing the target market behavior (cross-selling new services). You likely would want to be a bit more specific on the target market behavior by defining what new services you want to offer.

A business can have multiple objectives for one target as long as the objectives are not conflicting. You should probably have no more than three to four major objectives in a given year. It’s important to be focused and these objectives should represent the keys for growing your business. They should be easily measurable on a monthly basis and you should have specific reports that continually measure each of these objectives.

Marketing Strategy – The Game Plan

Your marketing strategy outlines your plan of action to achieve your marketing objectives. The difference between a marketing objective and a marketing strategy is that the objective states what you will do and a strategy states how you will do it. Where your marketing objective is specific, quantifiable and measurable, your marketing strategy is descriptive. The marketing strategy discusses how you will affect your target market’s buying decisions through the infamous four P’s – product, price, promotion and place (distribution) – and how these get used to achieve your objectives.

• Product – Part of developing your strategy is to look at what you currently offer and rank them on their value to your company. If you are offering a product or service that is not producing the revenue you wish, part of your marketing strategy might be to replace those services with new ones.
• Price – Now is the time to look at your pricing strategy and cost recovery for your products and services. Determine what pricing changes you need to make in order to accomplish your objectives.
• Promotion – All of the tactics you will use you get the word out is part of your promotion strategy. Advertising, direct marketing, events, public relations, and viral marketing (word of mouth) are all types of marketing tactics that can be used.
• Place – many businesses fail to understand the value of distribution channels. Even for small businesses, having partners who help you market and sell your services is valuable. By augmenting your services with partners, you bring value to your customers by offering them more complete services. Look at your business, find the holes and fill them with partners that can help you develop new clients.

Using the marketing objective stated above (to increase repeat business within your client base by 30% this calendar year); you might develop marketing strategies such as:

• Develop a set of affordable services that help clients increase the productivity of their workforce.
• Create promotional materials such as an e-Newsletter and complimentary seminar series that includes knowledge and valuable offers to our current clients.

In this case, we have defined the type of product and its price (affordable services) we will use to go after increased sales within our client base. We will promote value through a client-only newsletter and complimentary seminar series that will contain educational information and action oriented offers for these new services.

Some marketing folks may feel these strategies are too specific. For small businesses, if you can define how you are going to achieve your strategy, you should. Use the marketing program plan to describe the specifics of each tactic, but there is nothing wrong with specificity here. Your mission is to choose the strategies that fit your company and your products.

Planning for Profit

Goals, objectives and strategies – different but interrelated and play an important role in the success of your business. To develop a successful marketing plan, focus on your marketing objectives and the accompanying strategies. Simply define what you are trying to achieve in measurable, specific terms and how you plan to achieve them in descriptive terms. Once you have your objectives and strategies, move on to your positioning, messages, and brand. As you continue to develop each layer of your marketing foundation, you will see your marketing effort become more focused, targeted, and consistent – the three ingredients for success.

Your Marketing Plan – The Roadmap to Success

The New Year is upon us and, like most companies, you are probably in the midst of developing your strategic plan.

I don’t know of many companies who have their plans done by the end of the year, ready to hit the ground running when they recover from their New Year’s celebrations. If your company is one of the exceptions, let me know – I’m interested in how you actually accomplish the planning process during the last quarter of the year.

For the rest of you spending many hours of your day in planning meetings, trying to lay out your roadmap for the coming year, here are a few reminders about why you are doing this exercise and how you can make yours more effective.

An effective marketing strategy helps companies focus their efforts on initiatives that are key to the success of their business. In times of rapid change, we need to have a strategic plan on which to base our tactical decisions. If we only use business tactics, our plan will lack direction. If your company does not develop a marketing plan because of its perceived high cost and complexity, you should rethink this decision and develop even a simple one that helps you determine what direction you should be heading before you start your engines and head out to nowhere.

Marketing Strategy Benefits the Company …

Your strategy should define an action plan for influencing customer choices and obtaining a bigger market share. The outcome of your plan should consistently entice customers to buy your product or service by raising the customer perception of its value to them. Whether you are selling direct or utilizing partnerships, you need to constantly reinforce your value to your target customer, because no matter how good your product or service is, if the customer doesn’t believe that they will benefit from purchasing it, they won’t. Remember, customer perception is reality.

… And The Marketing Plan Communicates That Strategy Throughout the Company

Having a coherent marketing strategy is not sufficient if the people in the company do not know about it. The marketing vision should be written in a marketing plan. A good marketing plan IS your business roadmap. It will tell you what to do, when to do it, how often, and how much to spend. It should be the basis of the company’s product development, manufacturing, and financial forecasting systems. It should be continually reviewed and tuned to reflect the reality of the market.

The plan should be bought into by the other groups, especially sales, engineering, and manufacturing who should contribute to the plan. Without a written marketing plan that is shared among the key company groups, people have no sense of the company vision and what is expected of them. That vision should be constantly restated so that everyone from receptionist to CEO knows and understands it.

Remove the Complexity and Get to the Point

Developing a strategic plan does not have to be complex, however it should be clear, concise, and should answer the following questions:

• Who are your customers, and what do they need? – If you cannot answer this question clearly, you need to stop whatever you are doing and find out. Understanding who has a problem that can be addressed with your product or service is fundamental to all company plans, not just your marketing and alliance plans.
• What is the solution that you offer? – Being able to articulate what problem your product or service solves is key to reaching your target audience. If you don’t understand how your product or service benefits your customers and partners, ask them! Let them tell you what they believe your value is to them.
• How is your solution different from your competition? – Make sure your customers understand the benefits of your solution and how it is different from others. Determine what is unique about your company, product or service and whether it is noticeably better than the competition. Then integrate these messages into all of your marketing.
• How are you communicating this solution and creating customer enthusiasm? – Communicating with a message that the audience perceives as valuable should be the cornerstone of your plan and every program has the ultimate objective of getting that message in front of your target audience. Picking the programs that have the highest return on your investment is not rocket science, but has to be thought through.
• What is the budget required to successfully execute this plan? – Determining the priority of where you spend your resources is critical to your plan. If you take the time to think through what you are trying to achieve and how each program helps you get there, you can lower your budget and achieve the results you want. Constant ask what is the value of the program and if it should be executed at all.

As the ever-present saying goes, marketing strategy is ultimately about bringing the right message to the right person at the right time. To ensure you execute effective programs to attract customers and partners, a solid plan will keep you on course. Unfortunately, many executives blame poor results on poor tactics when, in fact, the lack of a clearly defined strategy is the root cause. The first step toward creating an optimized plan is to ensure good strategy and tactical planning, for nothing will make up for a bad strategy, a limited value proposition, or a lack of customer understanding.

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