The Basics of a Marketing Plan

Marketing companies need to come up with effective marketing plans if they really want to nail down their target audience and know how they’re going to accomplish their business goals, as well as what those goals are. While these marketing plans are an essential aspect of any successful business, smaller businesses can find the task to be daunting, leading them to ignore the creation of a basic marketing plan altogether. Failing to make a marketing plan can be detrimental to a company, but marketing companies can help create a simple yet effective marketing plan to ensure that these smaller businesses don’t miss out on any marketing opportunities.

So, how exactly do marketing companies help businesses come up with a marketing plan? Well, it all comes down to the basics.

Researching Your Potential Market

Research is the backbone of any successful marketing plan. From product research to researching your target market, you have to put in a ton of time if you want to craft a strategy that can guarantee you results. Marketing companies are great to consult with about solid research, but you can also find resources online that will help you identify consumer buying habits in the industry, market size, market growth and decline, and current trends.

When it comes to your target audience, a well-defined audience description will help identify who your buyers are. Marketing companies recommend that you discuss at least two different levels of segmentation.

Identifying Your Budget

Budgets are where most businesses run into issues. Marketing companies suggest that when coming up with a basic marketing plan you put together a month-by-month schedule of what you plan to spend on your marketing efforts. Another important aspect when it comes to a budget is setting up a “red light” decision point. For example, establish a metric that tells you when you should stop if you’re not generating sufficient ROI.

Planning Your Tactics

To create a solid marketing plan, you want to make sure that your company creates specific tactics and then follows through. Tactics are actions that you have to take to help you accomplish your goals. One tactic that a business might use is deciding how they might utilize direct mail, email marketing, online advertising, case studies, social media marketing, and/or sponsorships.

Creating a marketing plan doesn’t have to be complicated to start, and as you get more accustomed to it, marketing companies can help you create more complex plans. If you’re in need of a marketing company to help you create a successful marketing plan, give us a call here at Fusion 360.