Your B2B marketing plan is one of the most important documents that you’ll ever create. It’s essentially the document that you’ll use to develop your B2B marketing strategies and to make sure that you’re reaching the right people with the right message in the right place at the right time.
The good news is that creating your B2B marketing plan doesn’t have to be difficult. Every company approaches their marketing plan in a different way, and it can include as much or as little information as you think it needs. It’s better to have a short business plan that covers the key information than a long business plan that doesn’t.
The good news is that it’s a good time to be starting a B2B business because B2B ecommerce sales are expected to outgrow B2C ecommerce sales by 2020. And so with that in mind, let’s jump on in and take a look at how you can get started with your B2B marketing plan.
How To Write A B2B Marketing Plan In a Few Easy Steps
1. Know your audience
B2B marketing is all about building relationships with prospects over time instead of just trying to secure a quick sale. You can’t build relationships with people if you don’t know who they are, though. It’s like Roy H. Williams said: “The first step in exceeding your customer’s expectations is to know those expectations.” Know your audience first and tie everything back to that.
2. Know your goals
For your marketing efforts to be successful, you’ll need to know what you’re trying to achieve with them. Set goals that are SMART: specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and timely. Then identify metrics that you can measure as key performance indicators (KPIs) to determine whether your marketing efforts have been successful.
3. Know which software to use
You can make your business plan in Microsoft Word without too much of a problem, but there’s also plenty of specialist software out there that’s specifically designed to help you to write a business plan. Don’t be afraid to pay for professional business plan software and think of it as an investment in the future.
4. Know your budgets
Your business plan can be a great tool to help you to secure funding, but only if you spend time analyzing your budgets and showing how your marketing efforts will generate a return on investment. It’s also a good idea to keep a certain amount back as a contingency so you can fall back on it if you need to.
5. Know your allies
Your business plan should include lists of all of your assets, and the people you can rely on to help you will be a big part of that. This could cover everything from employees and freelancers to suppliers and even customers if they’re members of your street team. Include people who’ll give you their time for free and those you’ll have to pay for. After all, a hired ally is still an ally.
6. Know your enemies
While your allies are helping you to carry out your marketing plan and to reach those KPIs while staying in budget, your enemies will be trying to take you down. That’s why you’ll want to make sure that you know who your competitors are and what their strengths and weaknesses are. That will help you to develop strategies to overtake them in the marketplace.
7. Know when to get help
Nobody is perfect. If you get stuck, consider getting online help with essays or other services that can go over your business plan and suggest ways to improve it. While you’re at it, get friends and family members to look over it too. They don’t need to have business expertise to be able to spot something that doesn’t make sense.
Conclusion
Developing a comprehensive marketing plan doesn’t guarantee success, but it does set you up in good stead for the future. Ultimately, if all you can spend is a couple of hours on it, it’s still better to do that than to not do anything at all.
Better still, there are plenty of tools out there that are specifically designed to help you to create a business plan with no prior expertise, so it can be worth either searching those out or finding a blank template that you can fill in.
The good news is that now you know everything you need to get started, and so it’s over to you to make it happen. Good luck!
