Plan your marketing strategy before launching to get the maximum impact from your advertising.
A well-written marketing plan is essential for every business.
It provides a clear direction for all your marketing activity and outlines your main objectives and how you will achieve them.
A marketing plan is different from a business plan.
A marketing plan focuses on how you’ll meet customers’ needs and communicate the benefits of your products or services to them.
It includes how you’ll position your products or services, how you’ll price your products, and what (if any) promotional activity and marketing channels you’ll use.
Crucially it sets out what you expect your marketing activities to achieve.
Remember, a marketing plan is a live document.
Don’t file it away once written – use it to monitor progress and keep your marketing strategy on track.
Don’t be afraid to make changes if the market or economy demands – your ability to adapt will help keep your small business ahead of the competition.
Start with a situation analysis
Start writing your marketing plan based on a ‘situation analysis’ of your business.
This should include details such as:
Your business
What it does and what products or services it sells.
A SWOT analysis of your business
Look at the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) of your business.
Strengths and weaknesses are factors within your business while opportunities and threats are external factors, such as competitors and market trends.
In your analysis you should attempt to answer the following questions:
- What’s your key differentiator and ‘reason to believe’?
- What makes your business different to competitors?
These answers will underpin your marketing messages as you position your new business in the market.
Find out more about SWOT analysis with our helpful guide.
What to put in a marketing plan?
Identify your target audience
The more you understand your customers and their needs, the more effective your marketing will be.
Carry out market research to gather demographic data including gender, age, location and buying habits.
Learn what your target customers like, such as quality or customer service.
Ask how often they buy, what media they consume, how brand loyal they are, plus if they have any unmet needs.
In your plan, segment your audience into three or four types.
You can then tailor your marketing to each segment, using different channels, images, and messages to increase effectiveness.
Personas can help bring these segments to life.
Set pricing and positioning
List all the ways your product or service meets customer needs.
Define your business’ unique selling point (USP), based on what your customers value the most and how you differ from the competition.
Look at competitor prices and conduct market research to find out how much people are willing to pay.
Set marketing goals
Decide on your marketing goals.
These may include sales volumes or conversion rates from a marketing channel, such as the percentage of website visitors who become customers.
For example, if your aim is to gain ten customers a week via your website, work out how many potential visitors to your website you’ll require.
You’ll then need to plan a digital advertising, social media, or email marketing campaign to drive that number of people to visit your website.
Monitor results
Measure everything you can: people who see your advertising, the number who become customers, which channel delivered the most customers, and how loyal these customers become or how much they spend.
By measuring the quality of customers each channel brings, you can calculate a return on investment (ROI) and discover which channel generates more customers for every pound you spend.
Your previously read articles
Chapter six: Setting up a website
Discover how to develop a website for your business, allowing you to reach your customers, and sell to them, online.
Next chapterDisclaimer: The Start -Up Loans Company makes reasonable efforts to keep the content of this article up to date, but we do not guarantee or warrant (implied or otherwise) that it is current, accurate or complete. This article is intended for general information purposes only and does not constitute advice of any kind, including legal, financial, tax or other professional advice. You should always seek professional or specialist advice or support before doing anything on the basis of the content of this article.
The Start-Up Loans Company is not liable for any loss or damage (foreseeable or not) that may come from relying on this article, whether as result of our negligence, breach of contract or otherwise. “Loss” includes (but is not limited to) any direct, indirect or consequential loss, loss of income, revenue, benefits, profits, opportunity, anticipated savings, data. We do not exclude liability for any liability which cannot be excluded or limited under English law. Reference to any person, organisation, business or event does not constitute an endorsement or recommendation from The Start-Up Loans Company, its parent company British Business Bank plc, or the UK Government.
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