Question 8:
How can a marketing strategy help my small business?
Trick 8:
Creating a small business marketing strategy is vital for evoking and
accelerating business growth. It helps you focus on the right things at the
right time and measures your progress toward that goal.
First, start with your business goals for the next six months. You should
already have these, for example your target revenue, if nothing else. Now,
what marketing goals align with those business goals? How many leads do
you need to generate in order to reach this revenue target? 10 per day, 20 or
50?
Next you need to pick one or two marketing strategies that deliver on what
you are aiming for and hit your target revenue. Do you want more publicity,
expand into new markets, cross promote, create a direct mail campaign or
create sales partnerships?
Let’s say you are a business coach and decide that creating partnerships is
your strategy of choice. So, you partner up with a local business newspaper
that agrees to sponsor one of your seminars.
Also you agree to split the income derived from selling seminar seats in return
for a promotional campaign in print. That way the newspaper covers all ad
costs and you benefit from the credibility that sponsorship generates in
addition to any back-endsalesyou’llgain from the seminar.
The point is: determine what specific activities will achieve the chosen
marketing strategies. Put these activities together into a worksheet and
create target metrics (e.g. number of leads collected, calls, presentations
made, etc.).
And—presto!—you have just created your own customized marketing plan.
Congratulations, now you have something to measure against. Review the
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