Creating a marketing plan can seem like a daunting task, especially for small business owners who are already busy running a business on their own. However, a marketing plan will help you stick to a budget, stay consistent, and create goals to track success.
Sticking to a Budget
You never want to spend too much and go over budget, and small business owners already have to be cautious about what to spend their money on. A marketing plan will help you keep track of how you are spending your marketing dollars. It will also help you not only not go over budget, but not be drastically under budget as well.
“Wait. I thought being under budget just meant I was saving money.” Technically, yes. However, if you are not investing money into your marketing, then you are limiting your small business and how much it can grow. Instead, give yourself a threshold you are looking to meet when it comes to your marketing dollars.
Creating a marketing plan will help you visualize where you will be spending your marketing dollars throughout the year, which can be valuable insight. Maybe you know that your slow months are February, March, and April. You can plan ahead to spend more during those months to drive traffic to your small business.
Consistency
Randomly putting together marketing initiatives throughout the year because you “really should be doing some form of marketing” is not effective. The campaign might be effective, but consistency is important. If you are not being consistent then you are likely to not stay top of mind for your target audience. Going months without a marketing campaign, and then pumping out 4 different initiatives will likely bombard and confuse your audience.
It takes 7 to 8 touchpoints for a business to stay top of mind for a consumer. When you are consistent with your marketing, it is easier to build up those touchpoints and convert people.
Creating Goals & Tracking Success
Your small business is your baby and you have big dreams for the brand – but how are you going to get there. Creating tangible goals that you can track will help you actually make your way to your big dreams – and creating a marketing plan can help.
It is not enough to say “I want my business to be successful”. What do you consider success? How do you track that?
Instead, focus on goals that you can track. An example would be, “I want to increase my website traffic by 30% in the first quarter”. Creating tangible goals will allow you to plan out marketing strategies to help you reach them. You then will be able to track whether they are a success or not! This will also allow you to make tweaks and changes to your marketing plan as you go, because you are tracking your progress and watching the data.
While a marketing plan may seem like a lot of work, it is a great way to lead your small business to success. It allows you to stay consistent, track your progress, and stick with a budget more effectively.
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