A Smarter Marketing Plan for Small Businesses

You may be thinking your business is too small to need a marketing plan. However, ALL businesses that have any kind of marketing going on need one. But not a traditional plan and definitely not a marketing campaign plan. There is another option aside from the multipage plan that most professional marketers recommend—it’s a one-page plan that’s laid out roughly like this:

· Company Objectives

· Marketing Product/Service Mix

· Key Performance Indicators (in order of importance)

Unlike a traditional campaign plan, there is no start or end date. The idea is to find a set of marketing tools that work together (and that can take a while, even with a consultant) and then continually monitor the effectiveness with weekly analytics.

A plan that’s set up like this gives your marketing efforts space to evolve and a clear picture of what is and isn’t working. Theoretically, you could change it every day, based on where you are seeing results. As a very small business, you can’t afford to wait 3-6 months to see if your efforts are working. You need to know almost in real time whether each tool is delivering results. You can’t do that with a traditional marketing plan.

Hoping and praying that a series of successive tools will work, is not a marketing plan for any business of any size, but that’s what most very small businesses tend to do—try one thing that may work in isolation for a bit and then move on to something else—either because it isn’t working or something that promises to be better comes along.

So, you do need a marketing plan, just not the type of plan your probably think. If you would like to see a sample, just send me an email.

For a no cost discussion of your situation and how we can leverage metrics-based marketing to grow your business call 630-363-8081 or email jeanna@smartprcommunications.com. Find out more about Marketing Services for Technology Companies.