by Adam Basheer, on 18-Jan-2017 16:26:04
A marketing plan is paramount for achieving business growth. The purpose of a marketing plan is to assess the current market position of your business and develop marketing strategies and actions to undertake to meet your business objectives. Putting together a strategic plan that develops your business around your competitive advantage, and ensures that you are in a position to take advantage of your strengths, is a key to continued business prosperity. Of course, once you have the plan, making it work is the next step.
If we went back ten years we used to develop great marketing plans for people and then talk to them some time later to see how things were going. This invariably lead to comments like "Yes, it is a great plan, we just haven't managed to do any of it!"
Now it is much more about putting together a simple plan and strategy and concentrating on implementation. To understand how to implement the plan we have to understand what the barriers are to implementation.
Sometimes the reason for not completing marketing activities is because of a lack of resources, or lack of focus. However, most of the time, the in-action is due to the procrastination of the decision-making when it comes to implementing marketing initiatives. This in-action is caused by a lack of confidence when it comes to making the decisions.
Overcoming this problem is a three-fold process.
1. understand your marketing strategy
If you haven’t yet developed a marketing strategy, now is the time to do so. A marketing strategy does not need to be complex or extensive, just comprehensive. So long as you have covered the key marketing principles then you are well on your way to achieving your business objectives.
A great starting point for developing a marketing strategy is to create SWOT Analysis and outline your company’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. For a complete guide you can download the free Marketing Strategy workbook which helps you to bring aspects of marketing together to successfully develop a marketing strategy.
The same applies if you’re seeking a digital marketing strategy. There are three effective and powerful online tools to help build your brand awareness, drive more traffic to your website and generate new leads.
Once you truly understand your marketing strategy then decisions for each element of the plan fall out of this strategy. You simply go back to the strategy that you have created (written down - yes written down, not floating about in your head somewhere) compare what it is you are doing and ask yourself "Is this on strategy? Does it fit?" If it plainly does not fit then dump it. If it might fit with some changes, then make the changes and make the decision to go ahead.
2. aim for 80%
I went through school studying all the sciences and when you study the sciences you come up with exact answers. This is how most of us have been trained to think. X plus Y equals Z. When you study marketing, things start to change. To my frustration at the time, lecturers would keep telling us there is no right answer. Only good and better and worse.
Many people seem to think that the activity they are taking needs to be 100% right. But there is no 100% right, so this can be a problem. Some activity is better than doing nothing. Getting it 80% right and actually making the decision to do something is better than waiting to get it 100% right and doing nothing.
3. practice makes perfect
So how is it that a professional marketer can make better decisions quicker? It is a case of knowing the strategy, understanding that there is no such thing as 100% and also having made these types of decision before. If it is something you do on a regular basis then you getter better and better at it and even more than that, you gain confidence that the results will be there.
You start to understand that every decision has risks but if you follow a well thought out strategy you are likely to get the results in the end.
Fit 4 Market are marketing strategy and inbound specialists, and can assist with any decisions that you have to make. If you do not have a strategy that you are happy with, or you don't have a strategy at all, then this is definitely an area you need help on so give us a call to set up the right strategy for your business.
Fit 4 Market are specialist marketing consultants operating in Adelaide, Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane and Perth