Start with the marketing plan.
There are two reasons: 1) You must know who is your paying customer; 2) You must know how you are going to stand out in the marketplace. Once armed with these two critical points, you’ll be ready to write your full business plan.
Your Marketing Plan should answer the following questions:
• What is/are your product(s) or service(s)?
• Who is the target market customer?
• What is your placement strategy?
• How will your product or service be distributed?
• How will you price your product or service?
• How will you promote your product or service?
• What are the sales activities that must be executed on a daily, weekly and monthly basis to achieve your marketing goals?
• What are your budgetary needs to execute your marketing plan?
Market Analysis: Outline the business opportunity, then drill down to what share of the market you believe you can capture. Define each customer segment in terms of revenue. Include trends analysis about your industry and define where the market is going. If you are not in a growth industry you need to understand how long you can pursue your business strategy before the market moves or is saturated.
Explain your target customer and niche strategy. Make your description:
1. Meaningful – know the problem you will solve, and offer a real solution.
2. Sizable –make sure the market you want is large enough to turn a profit.
3. Reachable – be certain you have the resources to reach your target audience.
Remember, your network is your net worth when starting a business.
Competitive Analysis: Today, your customers’ needs are already being met by some other vendor or company. Describe your top three competitors, their strengths, and their weaknesses. Explain why their current customer will buy your product or service over theirs.
Customer Profile: Describe your customer in detail. Your description should enable anyone to see the face of your customer. Based on this information, you can now create a message and then a strategy on how you plan to communicate with your target customer.
Niche: Define a niche market for your products and services. You have limited time and limited resources as a small business, so you need to pick a lane and be disciplined enough to stay there. Strive to own an area of specialty. Think about it this way, which makes more money — your primary care physician or your cardiologist. Niche to get rich.
Your Signature Move: Michael Jackson was famous for the moonwalk. What is your signature move? Defining your secret sauce or signature move will enable you to stand out in the market place. A signature move could be uniforms, an extra free service, how you say thank you, a discount coupon for the next time. Little things can be big winner with your clients.
Marketing Budget: Now you know who you are selling to, your niche, the competition and your signature move, you must develop a budget to execute your marketing plan. Once you have a 30-day revenue goal, you need to determine how many sales leads you need to generate to hit that number each month. Then you need to figure out how many resources you need to put those leads in your pipeline (website, sales people, call center, tradeshow, Facebook ads etc.)
BY Melinda F. Emerson
There are two reasons: 1) You must know who is your paying customer; 2) You must know how you are going to stand out in the marketplace. Once armed with these two critical points, you’ll be ready to write your full business plan.
Your Marketing Plan should answer the following questions:
• What is/are your product(s) or service(s)?
• Who is the target market customer?
• What is your placement strategy?
• How will your product or service be distributed?
• How will you price your product or service?
• How will you promote your product or service?
• What are the sales activities that must be executed on a daily, weekly and monthly basis to achieve your marketing goals?
• What are your budgetary needs to execute your marketing plan?
Market Analysis: Outline the business opportunity, then drill down to what share of the market you believe you can capture. Define each customer segment in terms of revenue. Include trends analysis about your industry and define where the market is going. If you are not in a growth industry you need to understand how long you can pursue your business strategy before the market moves or is saturated.
Explain your target customer and niche strategy. Make your description:
1. Meaningful – know the problem you will solve, and offer a real solution.
2. Sizable –make sure the market you want is large enough to turn a profit.
3. Reachable – be certain you have the resources to reach your target audience.
Remember, your network is your net worth when starting a business.
Competitive Analysis: Today, your customers’ needs are already being met by some other vendor or company. Describe your top three competitors, their strengths, and their weaknesses. Explain why their current customer will buy your product or service over theirs.
Customer Profile: Describe your customer in detail. Your description should enable anyone to see the face of your customer. Based on this information, you can now create a message and then a strategy on how you plan to communicate with your target customer.
Niche: Define a niche market for your products and services. You have limited time and limited resources as a small business, so you need to pick a lane and be disciplined enough to stay there. Strive to own an area of specialty. Think about it this way, which makes more money — your primary care physician or your cardiologist. Niche to get rich.
Your Signature Move: Michael Jackson was famous for the moonwalk. What is your signature move? Defining your secret sauce or signature move will enable you to stand out in the market place. A signature move could be uniforms, an extra free service, how you say thank you, a discount coupon for the next time. Little things can be big winner with your clients.
Marketing Budget: Now you know who you are selling to, your niche, the competition and your signature move, you must develop a budget to execute your marketing plan. Once you have a 30-day revenue goal, you need to determine how many sales leads you need to generate to hit that number each month. Then you need to figure out how many resources you need to put those leads in your pipeline (website, sales people, call center, tradeshow, Facebook ads etc.)
BY Melinda F. Emerson
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