How to Make a Marketing Plan

Send survey mail. If you have a large and enthusiastic customer base, you might consider sending out survey letters. That way you can poll your customers about your strengths and weaknesses. You can then build a marketing plan based on your strengths (and know what assets your business should really focus on) and you can also work on improving your weaknesses based on customer feedback. row. ^[14]

• The content of the survey/questionnaire should be short and simple. Customers can fill in the content, but usually they won’t want to spend a lot of time and effort to fill it out. The content of the survey should be about as long as a piece of sticker paper or half a sheet of plain paper, but if you need more content, make sure it’s no longer than 2 pages. ^[15]
• Consider short-answer questions rather than simple multiple-choice questions. You can combine several multiple-choice questions if you like, but keep an eye out for open-ended, specific questions like “What do you like best about our product/service? What do you like best?” What would you like us to improve on?” You can also ask some questions like “Would you recommend our product/service to a friend or colleague? Why yes/why not?” Through such questions can help you assess the satisfaction level of existing customers and gather information about your strengths and weaknesses.
• When sending survey letters, you must include both stamped, and stamped envelopes. Create favorable conditions for customers to easily participate in surveys as possible. ^[16]
• Don’t forget to estimate both the cost of printing and the cost of mailing the survey, and if you decide to use this method you must include both in your current budget.

Conduct surveys via email. If you have previously collected a list of email addresses of customers for communication or sent out a monthly newsletter, this can be a very informative method for you. If you already have an email address, you can send a survey with the same sentence as a survey by mail. However, this survey email may run the risk of being pushed down to the customer’s spam folder. And there is no way to know how many customers received the survey email, and there is no way to guarantee that the customer filled out the survey or not even after receiving the email.

Conduct surveys on the phone. Quite a few people will probably be annoyed by being called. But if your business relies heavily on phone communications, this survey method can’t be ignored. Similar to paper surveys, you can ask questions about your key strengths and weaknesses and whether customers would recommend your business to others. ^[17]

• In addition to annoying, annoying for the caller, the phone survey also has another disadvantage that you will not be able to get a written answer. If you plan to take the survey by phone, you will need someone to quickly write/retype your responses. As such, you may need to hire more staff to conduct surveys and write down customer feedback, then compile it into a spreadsheet or feedback checklist.

Do a personal interview. This method does not necessarily require too much preparation. You can survey while talking about orders or help customers as usual. Such face-to-face interviews can be the best way to poll customers and find out what they think about where they want your business to improve. ^[18]

• Similar to a phone interview, in a personal interview you still have to write down customer comments, answers, and feedback. This difficulty is not what makes the plan ineffective or impossible; as long as you plan ahead if you decide to go this route.

Collect information. Review the survey you conducted and determine how you want to grow your business. Then compare all practical obstacles, including current and projected market trends, forecasted near-term costs, geographies, and personnel. the demographic you’ve been most successful with, or any competitors that operate in the same region or have the same target audience. ^[19]

Assign tasks. As you move forward with your marketing plan, you need to arrange specific roles and responsibilities for each person in your business’ marketing plan. Determine who is best suited for which role in the marketing plan and define the responsibilities of that role. You should also determine how to measure the success of each role ^[20]

Marketing goal statement. What do you hope to achieve through your marketing plan? Is your ultimate goal to expand your customer base, or introduce new services/promotions to customers, or expand into a new region/customer audience, or something? different from? These goals will guide the creation of the plan.

• Note: the marketing objective must align with the primary business objective.
• When developing a marketing goal, you must make sure it is tangible and measurable. Otherwise, it will be difficult to analyze the revenue, and it may not be possible to find a clear approach and an effective strategy. ^[21]
• Use results such as increased sales, increased units sold/manufactured, increased public awareness, or new customer accounts. ^[22]
• For example, your goal might be “Increase new contracts by 10% or increase social media presence”.

Determine how to reach prospective customers. The strategic plan should target all three potential customers: low-potential customers (customers who don’t know anything about your business, but can potentially reach direct marketing and advertising) your business), potential customers (customers familiar with your business, or at least exposed to your advertising and marketing before), and potential customers (consumers/customers). interested in knowing your business and willing to work with you). ^[23] You need to think about how to reach all your potential customers, this can play a role in determining your marketing strategy.

• For example, you might choose to use social media, radio ads, signs, or handouts to reach a less likely audience. For potential customers who have been interested in or worked with you, it is possible for a salesperson to proactively contact you to convince you that your product or service and the best solution for the customer, after That member knows information about the customer you have researched.

Develop marketing strategies to achieve set goals. After defining your marketing goals and customer prospects, you need to build on that idea to determine what you really need to do to achieve your goals and attract potential customers. ^[24] There are many different types of marketing strategies, here are some of the most common:

• Holding an event in your business or in a store is a great way to attract sales. You can organize an event like dinner, social or any other event that impresses customers, encourages/unifies employees, or increases outreach to potential customers/consumers use. ^[25]
• Social media advertising is almost always successful. That’s because advertising programs will help promote your business and attract customers to your product or service. This type of contest can be run in-store or through social media and typically requires visiting your store or following your store on social media for some small “gifts”. ^[26]
• Consider giving short-term grants to reputable individuals or groups to use your product or service. Sponsorships can even be done entirely online through social media. While this is not an option that works for all businesses due to its cost, many businesses around the world have proven it to be a very effective option. ^[27]
• Don’t underestimate the value of clever or eye-catching advertising. Finding people with a good voice and good looks to feature in marketing campaigns can help bring more efficiency. ^[28]

Define the role of social media. Various social media platforms can be a very effective and inexpensive medium to advertise your business and this should be part of the overall marketing plan. Social media can be useful to advertise promotions, discounts, promote and reach your target audience.

• Be active on social media to keep your business in the mind of your customers. Write a blog post or link about a problem a customer might be facing and offer your solution.
• Discussion topics, promotions, and surveys can be a way to get customers noticed for your business, and you can learn more about their interests to help your customer relationship more profound.

Set a budget. You may have some spectacular ideas on how to market your business and reach your customers, but if your budget is limited then you may need to rethink your strategy. Your budget should be realistic and should reflect both the current state of your business and its anticipated future growth potential. ^[29]

• Assess your current financial situation. Surely you want to have a realistic figure on your budget, which means you have to factor in what you can spend at the moment. Don’t invest too much money on a single project in the hope that your marketing plan will create a breakthrough in new business, because if your plan doesn’t work, you will be hurt. lose a lot of money. ^[30]
• Start by breaking down your marketing budget and work it out. Find trusted ads that you know can have the highest success rate at reaching new customers. ^[31]
• Don’t be afraid to deviate from the plan. If an area of advertising isn’t working (for example, newspaper ads aren’t reaching your target audience), try reallocating the time and money you’re investing in. enter that unsuccessful route into other, more effective areas than advertising media.

Start with the Project Summary section. This section will have background information about the product or service and summarize the entire document in one or two paragraphs. Writing this section first can give you an overview of the detailed sections you’re about to write next.

• This is a great way for employees, advisors, and colleagues to get an overview of your plan.

Describe the target market. The next part is to use your research to describe your target market. This section does not need to be complicated, and should be presented in a simple bullet point. You can start by describing the demographics of the market (including age, gender and location, or occupation if relevant) and then describe their interests related to the product. or services you provide.

List goals. This section should not be longer than one page. Here, you will list all the marketing goals for your company for the coming year. When setting goals, use the SMART rule – i.e. Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Time-bound (S stands for Specific), M stands for Measurable (Measurable), A is Attainable, R is Realistic and T is Timely.

• For example, a SMART goal would be “Increase total revenue in public sector clients by 10% by the end of 2016”

Define marketing strategy. In this section you should be able to answer the “how” question of the plan, and outline the overall marketing strategy. Your goal here is to focus on your Unique Selling Point (USP), which is your distinct advantage over your competition. This point must be analyzed more clearly after you think and plan your marketing. Your strategy is to sell your USP. ^[32] .

• In this section, you must describe your customer approach (such as attending trade shows, radio advertising, telemarketing, online advertising) and the general approach you will use to convince customers. Here, you should focus on the customer needs that you identify and how the USP’s unique selling point will help meet the customer’s needs.
• The key in this section is to be as specific as possible.

Budget statistics. In this section you will have to list the total amount to spend as well as how to spend it. It’s best to break down your spending into categories, and list your total spending for each category.

• For example, you might spend $5,000 on a trade show, $5,000 on radio ads, $200 on flyers, $1,000 on new promotions, and $2,000 on website optimization.