Milestone Advisors

Your Marketing Plan Is A Critical Component Of Your Strategic Plan

Not every business takes the time to develop a fully detailed marketing plan. Understandably, most small business owners focus most of their attention on delivering their product or service to customers and handling all of the associated tasks that come with running a business. Too many times though, businesses jump right into the tactics of marketing without considering a cohesive marketing strategy. The result is often a “patchwork” of activities that produce unreliable results. While you may ultimately utilize many of the same marketing tactics to deliver your message, it’s important to make sure your efforts align with your business strategy from the beginning.

In its most basic form, the marketing plan should flow from the overall goals and objectives of the business and should be a part of your annual strategic planning process. Whether or not you take the time and effort to prepare a comprehensive strategic plan, consider these thoughts when working on your marketing efforts:

Know Your Customers – Taking the time to truly understand your customers and their needs will help your business in the long run. Do you really know what your customers think of your product or service vs. that of your competitors? What are the biggest challenges (business or personal) that your customers face? As you take the time to better understand your customers, you will find opportunities to improve loyalty and increase business.

Building knowledge of your customer base can take various forms.  For example, there are many inexpensive online tools that can help you in this regard. Of course, there is often a trade off with some of these online solutions, as they may not provide exactly what you need. Another option may be to gather more extensive customer data with the help of a company that specializes in market research, although prices for these services can vary widely depending on the size and number of variables and the level of customization involved. A careful evaluation of different companies and their service offerings is a worthwhile endeavor.

Keep Your Message Simple – Just because you sell a complex product or service doesn’t mean that your communications have to be complicated. In fact, even if your customers have advanced degrees or a technical background, that doesn’t necessarily mean they want to read a highly technical or detailed communications piece – save that for the technical specifications page.  Remember that you are competing with many other distractions to capture your customer’s attention and that an overwhelming amount of features and technical product information will not overcome a boring or poorly designed ad.  Make the most of your first impression so your customers quickly relate to your company’s offering.  Bottom line – keep your message straightforward and easy to understand!

Portray a Consistent Brand – Ensuring consistency in the presentation of your brand in all your customer interactions is critical, as poorly executed communications can damage a customer’s or prospect’s perception of your product, service or business. For example, having nicely designed business cards and an effective face-to-face meeting, coupled with a poorly designed web site, may leave a prospect feeling confused and apprehensive about your business. Having a professionally designed and coordinated communications program helps avoid these pitfalls and may even open the door for business growth where opportunities may not otherwise exist.

The first step to developing a cohesive branding strategy is to make your basic marketing message relevant. You’ll have some tangible insights on this point if you take the time and effort on the front end to understand your customers (see point one above - “Know Your Customers”). Once you’ve developed your basic message, the next step is to create a coordinated delivery strategy of that message which encompasses all of your delivery vehicles. All messages may not look exactly the same, since you will have to allow for differences inherent in each of the delivery mediums, but they should all work together to communicate your key message.

Finally, consistent repetition of your message is important to build familiarity with your brand. Unless you happen to deliver your message to a receptive audience at the exact moment your prospect needs your product or service, your chances of success will be low without a repetitive delivery strategy. Think about how many times you’ve heard about a new sandwich from a fast food chain before you actually remembered to stop by and try it. A multi-channel, high frequency approach increases the probability of reaching your customers in the right environment and at a moment when they are willing to receive your message. Again, if you know your customers well, you will be more likely to select the best methods for communicating with them and increase the overall effectiveness of your efforts.

Measure and Refine Your Efforts – Like many aspects of business, marketing is an iterative process, and one of the most important phases of any marketing effort is the analysis. Basically, you need to feel confident about your marketing investment, which means understanding what is working versus what isn’t. It is important to recognize that every tactic won’t work for every business every single time, and that you have to create an effective mix of tactics under a cohesive strategy to ensure the best overall return. Creating effective analysis begins early on by identifying those things in the marketing plan which are measurable. Although this is sometimes difficult, it is important to have people responsible for this function within your business and to hold them accountable for providing you with metrics at regular intervals.

If the performance of your programs appears less than satisfactory, don’t necessarily jump to quick conclusions. Sometimes you have to stick with a marketing program for a period of time before you begin to see results. The efforts you’re making today will often pay off in the long run.  Also, don’t be afraid to try new tactics – just make sure you measure their effectiveness. If a marketing program or tactic shows promise, then make some refinements and stick with it. It takes work and attention to detail, but then again, what will you gain from doing less?