With commitment and consistency in mind, let’s look at 5-C’s needed to construct your marketing plan.
Company. You have to be able to describe your company just like you would describe it to a prospect or customer. In your description, you will create a mission statement. You will describe your product or service, your geographical marketing area, your pricing strategy, your customer service, your distribution methods, your business location and any environmental factors that might affect your business.
A business with a mission statement is like a fireman running into a situation everyone else is trying to leave. But successful businesses know what they’re doing. They have a mission - a plan just like the firemen. They know about fire and exactly how to put it out.
Customer. You have to be able to describe your perfect customer. The better you can describe a customer, the easier it will be to find them.
Competition. If it wasn’t for competition you wouldn’t need a marketing plan. If you were the only business out there selling your product or service, a plan would not be necessary.
Because you have competition, you must know them as well as you know your product or service. You have to identify what you have in common with them and how you differ from them. You have to know the similarities and dissimilarities between your product or service and theirs. You have to be able to identify target segments where you definitely have a competitive advantage.
You must know your competition - In football team members study their opponents so closely that they usually know where to position themselves. Baseball players change position in the field, depending on who is at bat.
Cost. You have to know what percentage of profits you can allow for marketing campaigns. You also have to know what previous methods of communication that you’ve used to find customers - which ones have been effective and which ones have not.
Communication. You have to know the communication strategy that will be used to achieve your objectives. You must have clearly defined marketing objectives for your company and must list the way that you’re going to test your marketing ideas. Then, you have to make decisions on which strategies you will use to communicate your message to the prospect or customer.
P.T.Barnum of Barnum & Bailey Circus used to say that without promotion something terrible will happen - nothing!
Keep the 5 C’s in your mind, and know them well. Constantly do research to know them better. Implement your plan in steps making sure that you are successful in each level and generating additional income.
A marketing plan is the first step to success. A businessperson who knows where they are going, knows what progress they are making and has a pretty good idea of when they will arrive, has a 1,000 percent more successful ratio then another business who does not. Planning is the open road to your destination. If you don’t know where you’re going, how can you expect to get there?
Remember, plan ahead - it wasn’t raining when Noah built the ark.
This entry was posted on Thursday, November 1st, 2007 at 8:51 am and is filed under Frequency, Marketing, Marketing Plan. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
