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Make Sure Your
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I'm sure you've heard the following famous saying in one form or another time and again throughout your life:
you're planning to fail."
Unfortunately, I think it's one of those saying that people have heard so many times that they tend to ignore it. But it's so true when it comes to your small business marketing. Lack of adequate planning is a huge factor in why so many small businesses fail.
Marketing Plans Are About Preparing For Success!
Planning by itself will not guarantee your success. But, not planning has proven again and again that you will almost certainly fail.One of my favorite resources that I use over and over again for my own planning is Steve Hackney's Power Marketing Super System. Steve describes his Power Marketing Super System as 90% preparation and 10% application. He not only tells you what to do, he also explains why you're doing it and gives detailed steps on how to do it.
An effective marketing plan will keep you from falling victim to the "episodic marketing" approach that is so common among small businesses. You know what that looks like don't you? Business slows down, so you come up with a new "marketing idea" such as a direct mail postcard to try and drum up some new business.
Then the next time business slows down, you come up with some different idea (maybe a newspaper ad, a new brochure, or an open house) in another desperate attempt to stir up some new clients.
The problem is that typically none of these ideas have anything to do with the one before. They're isolated episodes that are a reaction to the current business slow down. It's like riding on a marketing roller coaster. We "market" when things slow down and we "stop marketing" when things are busy.
Marketing Plans Are The Path To Success!
It should go without saying that marketing plans are crucial to your small business success. Yet everyday people don't take the time to stop and actually think about how much better off they'd be with even a simple plan.If you're like most small business owners I meet, then planning is something you know is important, but it doesn't always happen. Most small business owners need to feel like they're "doing" something to be productive. And all that planning sure doesn't feel like doing when there are so many day to day things to get done.
It Doesn't Have To Be So Complex.
I took the resources I've consumed over the past several years and broke the process of creating marketing plans for my clients into a simple four-phase, seven step process. I call it ABCD Growth Marketing.Take a few days to a few weeks to follow these seven identifiable steps to create your own small business marketing plan.
Click on each of the A-B-C-D's for even further detail.
ABCD Growth Marketing Plan.
A = Analysis and Preparation.1. Begin With A Clear Purpose And Focus. It's imperative to begin by making sure you're very clear on where you're going with your business and what you want to accomplish. It sounds simple enough, but so many small businesses can't think past their desperate need for one or two new clients by next week.
With a direction and focus you can be passionate about, key marketing activities can begin to line up and all point in the same direction.
2. Position Your Business For Success Others Can't Generate. You'll be amazed at the difference in your results when you spend time focused on and preparing some of the most important elements for your lead generation and sales conversion systems.
Key elements such as: an attention getting message, risk reversal, and case studies and testimonials have been proven to work time and time again. Many small businesses just don't understand how to implement them.
B = Building Lead Generation.
3. Create More Compelling Marketing Materials. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but most small business marketing materials are bad. They're poorly designed and written. They don't compel people to read them and don't make much of a case for the product or service they're promoting. In some cases they're actually driving away customers in droves.
Having completed these most important steps 1 and 2, you'll have done much of the preparation to make sure that your marketing materials are much more effective for your small business.
4. Get Busy Getting Known. You can't do business with someone if you don't know about them and they don't know about you. If you're invisible, then your prospects don't even know you're in business.
As you complete the preparation work and at least some of the marketing materials, it's time to start getting out there and getting known. Share the information you have with those who can benefit the most.
C = Create Sales Conversion And Reselling Processes.
5. Convert Leads Into Paying Clients. Being able to consistently generate lead without converting them into clients will not equate to growth of your small business. That's the importance of creating a seamless marketing and sales system.
If you've done your work with marketing, then you'll be generating a supply of high-quality leads. But, now you need a process to help them become your clients.
6. Maximize Income And Profits From New And Existing Clients. By far the easiest and most rewarding, but often ignored part of a typical small business is reselling. It's been said that it costs at least seven times more to get a new clients than it does to work with existing clients.
It does require a certain amount of focus to ensure you are providing all of the value you have to offer and to begin generating referrals.
D = Deploy And Improve.
7. Deploy Systems And Initiate Continuous Improvement Activities. Marketing does not have an end point where you are finished and get to just sit back and let it work for you. By continuously monitoring what's working and what's not, you'll find opportunities to improve the results you're getting from the ABCD Growth System you've built.
Don't Get Overwhelmed By Planning.
Most small business owners seem to get overwhelmed when they start thinking about marketing. But if you just start with a simple outline like this and commit to spending some time filling in the spaces each week, you'll realize it's very possible. Here's another fantastic resource you could use to outline your own plan. Action Plan Marketing offers a free Marketing Plan Workbook.Marketing Plans by themselves will certainly not guarantee you success. But the process of creating even simple marketing plans will put you ahead of 90% of the small businesses out there. The few weeks of time you spend now and the continuing effort you spend ongoing will launch you past your competition who is continuing to use the episodic (flavor of the month) approach to marketing.
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