Every successful business is defined by an effective marketing plan. Without some kind of marketing strategy a business is without direction. An important component of any business strategy is defining exactly how your business intends to attract customers to its goods or services. This is the key to making a profit.
Marketing plans are the calculated parameters within which a company takes specifically planned actions to create an awareness and demand for a particular commodity.
What we want to address here today are 5 common mistakes made when developing marketing plans which could render them ineffective.
Lack of Target Marketing
Your product or service probably is not suited for everybody therefore why spend time or money promoting to people with little or no buying potential? It’s important to identify the ideal customer profile when planning your advertising. By using a target marketing approach you are better able to spend your advertising dollars in a way that will be more cost-effective. The net impact will be seen in your profit margins.
Not Knowing Your Numbers
From a financial standpoint it’s an absolute that you know your break even points. According to your projections how much money will it take before you make a profit?
This knowledge will not only help guide you according to your budget constraints but is also an effective tool for measuring your marketing performance.
Lack of Tactical Planning
There’s no doubt that marketing involves a good deal of creative thinking however when planning your tactics creativity should be put aside. A creative idea is one thing and is encouraged, but implementing this idea is a more of a thought out and methodical tactic. Creativity and tactical planning work well together but don’t try to substitute for the other.
Marketing Goes Beyond Advertising
As we’ve mentioned earlier marketing in a very large part is a focus of how to attract customers to your goods and services. One thing that you don’t want to overlook when planning your marketing is how to establish a ‘positive’ company image. Aside from product quality this aspect is just as important when promoting your product. How a company representative portrays themselves or treats a potential customer has much influence on the buying decision.
Forgetting Existing Customers
Existing customers represent a gold mine to most businesses and shouldn’t be forgotten when putting together any marketing strategy. A significant thrust of any marketing campaign is creating new customers but established customers offer a high probability of repeat business. A plan to monetize both new and old customers should therefore be established. Failure to do this is like leaving money on the table.
As you can see if your marketing plan is not well thought out it could hinder your ambitions to having a successful business. An integral component of any business strategy is the planned and deliberate process of attracting customers to your product. Your marketing strategy is where you define how you intend to actually interact with potential buyers in order to generate any profit. If your marketing plan is in someway left incomplete you may fail to attract those customers needed to make your business profitable.
By TJ Philpott
I agree with every point there especially point #4 neglecting existing customers. It’s true that word of mouth marketing is far more effective that investing resources in creating new customers. It is your existing customers who will bedrock of that word of mouth marketing. Neglecting them is shooting your own toes!
All these points are valid as per concerns of marketing planing. Specially point number 5 usually ignore by most of the good running business. They should assure that its current consumers shouldn’t be effect by the new marketing plan. Even if there is any requirement from the marketing plan the organization should be be consider its current customers.