As EOFY approaches and hopefully you’ve done your marketing review (if you haven’t, check out our previous blog), it’s time to think about your marketing plan and strategy. Do I really need one? – You may ask. Even if you’re a small business, having a marketing strategy is critical to your business success. Here’s why:
Positioning – Who you are
Your marketing plan helps you find out who you are, how you fit in the marketplace, and what makes you unique as a business. In today’s highly competitive environment, how do you stand out from your rivals? What do you offer to your target market, and who are these people? Being able to answer these questions give you a clear direction on how, and who you can target your business towards. It also helps you think about what you can do better than your competitors.
Focus and Activities
Without a clear marketing strategy, it is easy to lose track of what you’re doing and your marketing activities may become irrelevant to your business goals. A marketing plan can guide you in what actions you need to achieve those goals, you should list your marketing activities as specifically as possible, in a monthly and weekly form, down to a daily planner so you know exactly what’s happening. Your team will also benefit from knowing what to expect. This allows you to better focus not only on getting better ROIs for your marketing, but also focus on doing business!
Budget and Resources
Having your marketing planned out will help you better allocate your time, resources and spending. As you prepare for the next financial year’s budget, you can then decide how much you should spend on the marketing activities based on your goals, and the marketing review that you’ve done will guide you in where you can better spend the advertising budget. For example, you might decide that the success of social media campaigns should have a larger spending based on last year’s marketing review.
It is more than worthwhile to spend some time in planning out your marketing and strategy for the next financial year, you’ll find that the year will be less stressful and more productive in terms of not overspending your budget, and not being overwhelmed with ‘what marketing shall we do this week’ while trying to run your day-to-day business!
Need an extra hand in your marketing plan? Not sure what strategy you should put in place? Concept Designs and Marketing can help! We have a team of marketing experts who can guide you step-by-step in the planning of your marketing to suit your goals. Get in touch for an obligation free chat today!
