By Timothy A. Smith Starting to promote your product or service can sometimes be very confusing to the beginner. Questions arise, such as, 1. What steps do I do first? 2. How should I promote my product or service? 3. What is the most effective way to advertise my product or service? Emails, newspapers, radio, television, or? And to whom? 4. What is it going to cost me to advertise various ways? Well, the first thing you should do, is develop a marketing plan. Now you say to yourself: "But I am just a one man show with one product or service. Why do I need to take the time to plan anything on paper, I'll just start advertising my product or service and should get sales because it is a good product or service. Good luck! You might get lucky and succeed in getting some customers, but the odds are strongly against you. So what can a marketing plan do for your business? A marketing plan can: 1. Tell you where you want to go 2. Who you want to market to 3. How you plan on getting there 4. What it will cost (Budgeting) 5. What progress, or lack of, you are making 6. What you need to do to correct you marketing methods if things are not working 7. And, are you achieving your goals It has long been said, "A bad plan is better than no plan at all". Why put your plan in writing? This gives you a blueprint to follow in marketing your product or service.
Plus, it cements your thoughts and plans. Not in concrete, but something to measure. Many small businesses are busy with day-to-day activities and they feel they have no time left over to create a marketing plan to follow. If you are the owner of a small business, having a solid marketing plan in place can increase both your name and brand recognition locally, as well as expose you to a new set of potential clients throughout the world. Take some time and think through what and how you are going to market your product or service. The time spent here could save you valuable time and money in the months ahead. An effective marketing plan for your home business precisely defines your targeted customers, the product, the price you will offer, the channel you will use to promote the product, and your promotional budget. Set some goals or projection (be realistic) on what you want to accomplish in three, six, nine months, and for first year to begin with. Why set short term goals as well as your yearly goals? Because, if you are not meeting your short term goals, you certainly won't meet your yearly projections without adjusting your marketing plans along the way. If you have not done so already, determine who and where the best market potential is for your product or service. In internet terms, find the "Niche" you hope to market to. Is your potential market for businesses, families, singles, young, old, or? You most likely had a good idea of this when you were selecting or creating your product or service. If not, you should have given some thought to doing this. Sometimes people get caught
up in the excitement of a product or service but stop to think through if there really is a market for that product or service. Placing the answers to these first two steps on paper will make it easier to develop your plan for reaching your potential customers. Now you just need to do a little research to determine the best way to reach your customers. If your customer niche is singles and you are planning on using the internet, then look at the sites that are appealing to this market niche currently. Review their sites and methods of getting their message across and see if those methods might work for you. If you can, see if some of the sites might want to cross link with you in hopes of better serving both your customers and theirs. Don't be afraid of like or similar sites as these can compliment each other's businesses sometimes. Look at the "Car Centers" that have been developed, having many different car dealerships in one location. Why? Because they have learned that this type of "grouping" brings more potential customers to an area. In internet terms, your sites can feed off each other to hopefully bring more customers to both of your sites. A marketing plan is a "living plan". By that, I mean your marketing plan should be reviewed often to see if you are on target, if it working like you thought it would, and, are you reaching the goals you set forth for three, six, or nine months, and the year? If you are off target in three, six, or nine months, as I mentioned earlier, you certainly will not make your yearly goals. Unless, your plan is off because it is working far better than you planned. That's great! However, your marketing plan is not set in stone and if your company achieves more success than you anticipated, amending the plan to reflect your continued growth is a very good action to take as well as adjusting for not making your goals. But, assuming that you are not reaching your goals, then, you must change your plan so you will obtain your projections. That might mean more advertising, changing your method of promoting your product or service, re-evaluating your customer base, etc. That is why I call it a "living plan"; it is something that should be refined from time to time. Not just something you do once and then forget about it. Then finally, your marketing plan, along with your goals, will tell you if everything worked out the way you had hoped and planned for. Having it in writing tells the story.
If you succeeded, and you have refined your plan to where it is working well, then move on and enjoy your business. But remember, this is an ever-changing world for buyers. So keep abreast of changing methods to reach customers and the changing markets so you are not a "flash-in-a-pan" business. For your plan to be effective, it needs to concentrate on presenting those things that will make your customers take action. Hopefully, purchasing your product or service.. Do that and you should enjoy many years in your business. Tim has fifty years of business experience in various fields in the retail industry. Tim has been the President and CEO of several successful large coporations, as well as starting seven successful companies. Three for other corportations and four for himself. He was a keynote speaker in the industry before retiring. Tim started Home Busines Created to help others enjoy the benefits of having their own business. This is just a few of the steps to take.
For additional information and resources, visit out website at: www.homebusinesscreated.com Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Timothy_A._Smith http://EzineArticles.com/?Marketing-Planning-For-Success&id=496575 buy phentermine yellow
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