The business that does not invest in marketing cannot expect an appropriate level of sales. Because of that, each business has different marketing activities implemented to stimulate sales among existing customers and bring fresh blood into the business through new customers. Because of that, you need a solid marketing plan if you want to succeed.
What you need to know is that there are thousands or millions of potential customers for your company. However, before they become customers first they need to hear about the products and/or services offered by your business. That is the job of your marketing activities.
I hope you have already prepared a business plan for the next year, which includes overall business objectives of your business. The marketing plan should follow these business objectives for the next year.
In this post, I will try to help you to build a framework for your marketing plan for next year by answering the following questions:
1. Where are my potential customers? What they are doing there? How I can approach them?
2. Is there an enough significant problem that my business can solve?
3. Is there enough big desire for the solution that my small business will offer to them?
4. Are there customers willing to pay enough money for my solutions?
5. Do I have enough capacity to act there?
6. Who are my enemies (competitors) who are fighting with me for the same market?
7. What are they currently offer on the market?
8. How they offer what they offer?
9. Can I, or do I have the capacity for a better offer? What I will need to do to create a better offer?
10. What will be my marketing activities to support my business objectives?
11. What do I want to achieve with my marketing activities?
12. Are my marketing objectives on an optimal level for which I have the capacity to achieve them?
13. Are my marketing objectives measurable so I can know my progress towards them?
14. How I will achieve my marketing objectives and with this achievement to achieve my overall business objectives?
15. What do I need to take for those objectives become reality?
These are basic questions that you need to answer about your marketing plan for the the next year. Write your answers on a piece of paper. After that, make a list of your most important activities in the table. The rest you will need to do is just making formatting and better look of your marketing plan for the next year.
