hi guys
I'm writing the company marketing plan and just wondered if anyone had any advice on what to include? The critical thing for me is to make sure it is actually usable and doesn't just get filed away and forgotten about.
I've had a look for templates but couldn't really find anything appropriate.
any help would be greatly appreciated!
rob
You havent given anything away about what you do which makes it hard!! - because good marketing plans arent the lifeless stuff of business textbooks, they are as you say, actionable stuff.
So viewing the business in terms of porters model is well worth doing in order to prove that it is a good businees to start with, and if you must, produce a swot chart - more useful to students than marketing professionals.
What I suggest you do before all of that is looking at marketing models.
The best model of all is the direct marketing model.
In which you offer people something useful to sign up on a list.
You then turn those prospects into friends by building a relationship withthe list. And turn the friends into customers, by making offers to the list - and consider the funnel, what products or services of additional value can you sell. Your list is your prime asset.
And start looking for your hungry crowd -
where is the evidence that they are searching for the products or services in your niche? And how can your reach them.. Are they on the web? what magazines do they read? what forums do they join? what blogs do they read?
Get into their mindset.
And study the web2 resouces particularly , because that is where the traffic is now, and also the greatest opportunities for marketing.
Dont do what most businesses and most (bad) adword consultants do. Just because you sell investments you arent just looking at the word investments.
THose people read the wall street journal. and FT, so can you find any evidence of them seraching for those things you can also target them (by bidding on wall street journal for example!!!)
Thats called mindset marketing.
The key here is to start thinking about your business as a customer list not a product. If you thought of seling cricket bats STOP!!! Think of your business as selling to cricketers. You will see then that many search for "how to play cricket" - so make the information product for them, you can sell the cricket bats to your list WHEN you have got them to join your list.
So the role of your website is NO LONGER SELLING CRICKET BATS..that is the mistake made by most webdesigners. The selling pages can be hidden below. Your main doorway pages want to be all about getting people to joun up on your list you sell to them later
And think of what fascinates them, so you can send them that information.
Then form your USP.
By studying your competition decide why they should buy from you rathter than anyone else. That can be a guarantee, a heap of free stuff (like information products and videos)you make with offers...etc etc. But you must decide on that USP
Then look for both affiliate programmes ( other peoples products you can sell to your list) - and JV partners ( people who have a list of customers of your type - who will send their traffic to you in return for a share)
Once you have done alll that your marketing plan will write itself
You know who your market is.
You will know how to reacht hhem and get them on your list.
via web/ ads / JV whatever
You will know how to interest them
You will have the funnel of products ready to promote to them
You will know your USP
And the steps and stages to build that up from nothing.
Thats the marketing plan!!!!!!
And the best bit is? With a $20 website ,some pain creating an information product, and an autoresponder, you can find out whether you were right! before ever spending a lot of money
Dont do what most do.
Think > I sell cricket bats
I will build a cricket bat estore.
I will SEO to get traffic.
ANd how much do adwords cost anyway??
And arent newspaper ads expensive,
And then produce a tame lame so called marketing plan including a "market size study" a few swot charts, a mission statement, straight out of a marketing textbook, a contrived "tag line" USP, a list of the comepetition, and an advertising budget. - thats not a marketing plan - its a homework excercise for a student.
Whoever you are you dont need a brand image, or a thick brochure!! - forget tag lines too , I never yet saw a customer offer to pay for one. All they are interested in is what your product can do for them, the proof that it works ( since noone believes you) and prove of the value, and why they should buy fronm you.
If you are a novice at this, read things like
"purple cow" and "permission marketing" seth godin - still as valuable now as when they were written
anything by Jay abraham (or dan kennedy) ( eg "ultimate marketing plan")
And also read something like "tested advertising methods".....WHATEVER you do , the secret to all methods of promotino is testing get it into your head before you even start.
