Marketing for your small business can be tricky and complex, especially if you have no idea what to do or what will work best for your company. OutboundEngine asked 350 small business owners about their plans, revenue, growth, and other factors and found that 505 did not have a marketing plan in place. When you compare this to a study by US Bank that found 78% of small businesses fail because of a lack of marketing plan, the urgency of creating a marketing plan doesn’t seem so dramatic now.
But what if you have no idea what you can do, what you should do, what to spend, or even what your marketing plan needs to entail?
Suppose you are feeling overwhelmed with your marketing options or don’t have the time to dedicate to creating an effective marketing plan. In that case, you can outsource this to a marketing agency that can help you put marketing in place that will benefit your business. Whether you need a visual campaign for billboards or a radio ad, you need to learn more about SEO for local businesses and how it can benefit you. There is a marketing agency that can get you started and put everything in place to help you drive results.
But if you don’t want to work with a third party, don’t have the funds to do so, or want to try your hand at marketing yourself, this guide is going to look at what you need to do as a small business owner to ensure you have a marketing plan and that the plan will work for you.
Define Your Expectations
Before you even think about the different marketing options for your small business, you must first define what exactly you expect from a marketing campaign. Are you looking to increase leads? Grow sales? Bring new customers on board or retain existing customers?
What you want and the results you expect to see will dictate the marketing options you need to use to help you get those results. For example, a flash sale at a local clothing boutique lasting a couple of weeks will need a different approach from an insurance company focused on generating leads to increase sales over a 12-month period.
Sit down. Look at what you want and the timeline you expect to achieve this in, and then you can look at the best options to get those results.
Market Analysis
Market analysis gives you an idea of the market you are operating in and allows you to gain more insights into the current market, how things are performing, and where you fit into the market.
The more you know about patterns, trends, growth, competitors, etc, the easier it will be for you to assemble a campaign and plan to yield the right results.
Competitor Analysis
You need to know exactly what your competitors are doing, what is working for them, and what isn’t doing so well. Knowing how well they’re performing can help you find your space in the market and pull together components that can work well for you. You need to be able to shine in your sector and essentially beat them at their own game. So take notice and use this information to your advantage.
Focus On The Customer Journey
You need to look at the customer journey as a whole, not just the acquisition. Because if they don’t have a good journey with you, chances are they won’t reach the final stage. Taking the whole process into account can help you see things from a customer’s point of view and anticipate any issues.
Following their journey through your sales funnel will help you create a multifaceted approach that can consider the customer’s needs for a more individualized approach.
Know The Customer
Your marketing plan needs to be created around the customer, meaning you need to know them, who they are, and what they want.
At this stage, you need to identify your target markets and develop your customer persona.
What are they looking for, what are their pain points, and how do you fit into the journey? The more you know about these needs and what they are, the easier it will be to find out you can approach them. Let’s say you’re a local bakery specializing in kids’ birthday cakes; then your target audience is parents, typically parents who are too busy to make their own cakes, are looking for something for a special birthday, or are unable to make the cake themselves.
Know Your Products
As you are gathering information on your customers and your market and industry, you need to also gather information on your products or services, too. What exactly do you sell, and what makes it unique? What is your price point compared to other companies, where is it sold, and how can you promote it?
Using this information alongside all of the other data you are gathering is instrumental in helping you create the perfect marketing plan.
Identify Your Options
Once you have collected all the information, you need to identify all the marketing channels available to you for what you want to achieve. Multiple marketing options are available and while some require a massive outlay, others can be done for free or at a lower cost.
But instead of casting your net wide and hoping something bites, you need to find the right pool to cast that net to be sure that you are going to get results. So, use the data you have collected to find out what your audience responds to the most and what is more effective (competitor analysis comes in helpful here). Then, you can look at how these options would work well for you and what returns you can expect to get. Not all marketing duties will work for each and every business, but there are always going to be options you need to include, i.e., SEO is vital if you’re running a solely online business, and social media can help you build a local customer base for those only operating in a specific geographical location.
Creating a marketing plan is vital to help you implement your marketing campaign. When you’re starting at the beginning you need to have all of your ducks in a row before you put any marketing materials out there so you can be confident you are going to get the results you need.
