Marketing Mistake – Lack of a Focused & Clear Marketing Plan
September 2, 2009 by Tony L
Filed under Marketing Mistakes
In my business consulting experience, I have noticed a similar attribute that is common in most entrepreneurs and business owners. Most are “doers” rather than “planners”. In reality, being a “doer” is perhaps the ultimate character trait of a successful person. Rather than thinking or wishing, they get out there and make something happen. In fact…I would probably put myself in the “doer category”. Although there is amazing benefits of being a “doer type”, I’ve often found myself that (in the doing mindset) I’ve gotten myself in trouble as I didn’t think things thoroughly through. Can any of you out there reading this relate to this?
That as a foundation, I’ve also witnessed this behavioral pattern in a lot of my small business owner clientele. They get into trouble “doing” the wrong marketing activities. Specifically, marketing activities that were programmed into them since birth. Most people think…well we need to market the business so let’s put $1,000 per month into Radio, Yellow Pages, or Newspaper Advertising (like most do) and they see if it generates any results. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m all for testing to see if different marketing may work. However, the majority of business owners (I run into) follow the pattern of just seeing what marketing sticks in traditional popular marketing channels. But that sad thing that I see is this type of business owner does not have any concrete basis (or statistics) for it. If you want to “do” the right marketing activities the right way, you must start with a good marketing plan.
Definition of a marketing plan is as follows:
A marketing plan is a written document that is an organized set of activities that is designed to promote your product, service and/or company. A marketing plan is designed to increase customers and company profits and usually “planned out” between one and five years in the future.
CAUTION ALERT: Solid marketing strategy is “the foundation” of a well-written marketing plan.
While a marketing plan contains a list of actions, a marketing plan ( without a sound strategic foundation) is of very little use to businesses.
Elements of a good marketing plan
Wisdom: “focus your efforts on a few BIG things”
- Conduct quality research as the foundation to build your marketing plan
- Business & Marketing Mission Statements (they should be different but connected)
- Determine specific goals and time frames to reach these goals
- Determine what your effective “marketing channels” are
- Determine your marketing budget (do steps 1-3 first)
- Delegate responsibility to carry out each segment of your plan
- Measure the effectiveness of your marketing campaign and re-valuate
