The Benefits of a Marketing Plan

What is a Marketing Plan?
Marketing is to do with matching the features and benefits that your products and services are able to provide with specific customers and then telling those customers why they should buy them from you. Your marketing plan details how to do this. A Marketing Plan is a document that supplements your business plan and brings together all your market research so that you can work out exactly where your business is going and how it is going to get there.

Your plan should include:

• Objectives.
• Details of the current market.
• A full analysis of your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. (SWOT Analysis.)
• Your plans for achieving your objectives.

The plan should be flexible and able to be adapted to meet the changing conditions in the market place.

Benefits of a Marketing Plan
Having a marketing plan will help you to focus on your target market and to find if there are any gaps in the market that will provide new opportunities for you. Your marketing plan will also provide you with something that enables you to measure how you are progressing. This can then highlight strategies that are working for you and those that are not.

A good marketing plan will also benefit you in that it provides your outside financiers with confidence that you know your market and that you know how to achieve your objectives.

A good marketing plan will deal with the matter of sourcing new leads as well as creating new networking opportunities for your business. The bottom line means your plan will define your business as well as your customers and your future plans.

What is a Good Marketing Plan
A good marketing plan is really a blueprint for the action that your business needs to take in order to achieve certain goals. It will identify the most cost effective ways of performing certain functions and should show the best way to present your business to your target audience.

A good marketing plan will save you money by cutting out unnecessary expenses while at the same time presenting you with new marketing opportunities. A good plan will work for your business to make sure that what you do fits into your budget and that your marketing drive reaches your target audience.

It will essentially keep all your activities and your budgets on track. If you don't have a good marketing plan it is possible that you are not taking full advantage of all the ways to reach your target audience. This will result in decreased sales.

A Marketing Plan must Reach People
Your marketing plan will provide you with a track upon which your business needs to run. It is similar to a flight plan for pilots. Their flight plan tells them the direction along which their plane is going to fly, where they are leaving from and the path they have to take to get to their destination.

A sports coach will have a game plan that sets out how the team is going to play the game that particular day. The coach will work on strategies that will effectively frustrate and win out over the competition so they can come out on top.

Your marketing plan should be designed in a similar fashion.

• It has to be built with an end result in mind.
• It should fit the specific markets you are aiming for as well as the people in those markets.
• It has to be flexible to meet the needs of the people in the markets because those needs are constantly changing.
• It must focus on people rather than on products.

Remember to always develop a marketing plan that is specifically designed to reach people.

Copyright 2005 StartRunGrow
http://www.startrungrow.com

StartRunGrow (http://www.startrungrow.com) is a global online information organization that specializes in creating, developing and marketing business help information specifically with the aim of "making business easier" for entrepreneurs around the world. The StartRunGrow objective is to become a dominant player in the business help arena providing end to end solutions for the millions of small and medium businesses worldwide who continue to struggle daily with the difficulties of starting, running and growing a successful business.

---

Plant a Seed and Watch Your Business Grow

Do you have all the business you could possibly want... Read More

Your Headlines Are Key To Your Success Or Failure. Do You Know What To Write?

Most professional copywriters would say that headlines account for 80%... Read More

Hermey Wants To Be A Dentist

December marked the 40th anniversary of the original broadcast of... Read More

How to Earn the Right

"How to Earn the Right..."Marketing your professional services is a... Read More

How to Expand Your Target Markets

Are your products or services geared towards only one target... Read More

Find the Goldmine Within Your Business

Doing a current customer breakdown can help you find the... Read More

Take a Leap! How To Take Your Business To New Heights

Take a moment to reflect on the current reality of... Read More

Has the Free Report Had Its Day?

For years now we have been inundated with offers of... Read More

Embracing The Future - Marketing Yourself, Your Business And Your

IntroductionMany businesses and organisations have a perception that marketing means... Read More

Developing a Contact List- Part One

One of the most essential things to successful networking is... Read More

Grow Your Business By Getting Your Customers Buying From You More Often - 35 Ideas

35 Ideas to Spark Your Creativity:There are 3 ways to... Read More

3 High-Impact Fixes For Your Marketing Woes

How many times has your competitor gotten one over on... Read More

How To Turn $100,000 Into $1,191,817 In Just One Year Part II

Turning a modest $100,000 annual turnover into $1,191,817 may sound... Read More

Mortgage Originator Marketing ? Differentiate or Die

One of the best ways to attract more clients is... Read More

Money Making Real Estate Marketing Ideas

Real estate marketing is a lot simpler than most Realtors... Read More

The Newest Marketing Course

Certainly the newest earth quaking event in Internet Marketing insider... Read More

25 Ways To Get More Business

Special Requirements for Reprint: we ask only that... Read More

21 Must-Have Web Site Elements

Your Web site should be the cornerstone of your client... Read More

Four Super-Deadly Marketing Sins - And How To Fix Them

It seems nowadays every marketing guru and their brother-in-law has... Read More

Can Message Board Marketing Work For You?

One of the things that makes the Internet fun is... Read More

The Mighty Marketing Brochure

"Brochure" is French, and it comes from brocher, meaning to... Read More

Take It To The Customer

In the past, purchasing ad space was the solution to... Read More

Consider Consumer Psychology

In your marketing efforts, be they on or offline, it's... Read More

Motivating Shoppers with Online Coupons (Part 2 of 2)

Last time we discussed how online coupons and promotion codes... Read More

Six Essential Principles for Marketing to Women Business Owners

Marketing to women entrepreneurs is not difficult. You just have... Read More

Sales Resistance on the Rise

Have you noticed it? More and more marketing campaigns are... Read More

Moving a Business Relationship from Free to Fee: Power of Freebies - Part 2

In the last issue we looked at 5 reasons why... Read More

CRM Star Wars: When Marketing is from Venus and IT is from Mars

Inherent tensions exist between marketing and IT. This is often... Read More

The Fundraising Letter PS: 25 Powerful Things To Say There (Includes Examples & Samples)

Donors read postscripts. This is a sad but important reality... Read More

Your Ideal Client

A lot of small businesses make the mistake of thinking... Read More

Direct Mail Response Rates Low? Eliminate These Mistakes

Are your direct mail response rates lower than you expect?... Read More

Small Business Pricing: Setting A Price For Your Product / Service

The importance of pricing can not be underestimated as incorrect... Read More

Target Marketing: The Bell Curve

Finally, Something You Learned In Math Class Makes Sense In... Read More