Your Marketing Plan

Here are the key elements of a basic , but complete, marketing plan in the form of questions that

you need to answer. The more specific you get the more effective your marketing will be:

Market

Who is your target market? (You can’t market to everybody!)

Who is your ideal customer – for whom are you the ideal provider?

How much do you know about the hopes, aspirations, desires, fears, anxieties etc of your desired

customer?

You really need to be asking questions like what do they do in their spare time? Where do they live?

Where are their children educated and what sort of car do they drive?

Is your message precisely matched to your target market?

Message

What’s your USP (unique selling proposition)?

Can you answer, in a compelling way, why people should choose you over any choices they have?

Until you can answer this question effectively you don’t deserve, and won’t achieve, success;

Do you make an 'Irresistible Offer' every time you ask for a response?

Is your message interesting and relevant to your intended recipient?

Have you pulled together a collection of proof (social proof, testimonials, scientific proof etc)

Are you using the language of your customers?

Media

Have you built your marketing calendar – taking advantage of key events/dates/themes etc?

What is your month by month plan for providing interesting, compelling news and information of

people who visit your website or walk in to your shop or ring you up?

Have you got effective lead-capture in place, to collect the contact information of people who visit

your website or walk in to your shop or ring you up? (This is the life blood of your business!)

How many different advertising media are you using to attract new customers and keep the interest

of existing customers? What system do you have in place to stimulate referrals?

What Now?

Map out all of your actions into a systematic process putting start and end dates into your calendar so that

every action happens by default and is not forgotten.

Have a clear goal of what you would like to achieve with your Marketing Plan, put it somewhere visible and

revisit it every few days to see if you're on track. If you fall behind your targets you can roll out more

marketing or review what's not worked well in bringing in results to the business.

Finally

Remember that the business you are in is ‘the marketing of what you do’ – not the doing of what

you do. If you think you’re too busy to answer all these questions and follow them through then you

do not yet understand the real business that you are in. In fact, I’d go as far as to say that if you are

unwilling to apply yourself to mastering the skills and knowledge required to properly answer these

questions then you are unwilling to do what is really necessary to be successful in your business.

For further help...

If you wish to get further help and support to hold you accountable to complete a Marketing Plan into

effective use in your business please send me a message via LinkedIn or call on 01452 417696.

I wish you all the very best of success

Jill ChittyJill ChittyJill ChittyJill Chitty