The Marketing Plan
How you go about getting and sustaining business is the nature of the marketing plan. It’s a road map of how you are going to start, build and maintain all that.
The marketing plan is a section of the business plan. The business plan shows all the marketing, plus operating expenses such as office space rents, HR (personnel), accounting details, and what I call the more boring stuff. Of course, those guys call marketing the more boring stuff. Go figure.
I write the marketing section of the business plan. This can be considered both the a marketing and promotional plan, because I deal with this particular segment of the business plan. I don’t write about human resources, or which buttons to push to get the copier to work, or get involved with what kind of water cooler to buy. I owned a big firm once, and didn’t like it. Well, it was really a small firm, but it was big for me.
So now I specialize. I like figuring where are the markets (or industries, or communities) are that we serve and how to reach them efficiently. Which ones are our primary targets? Secondary, tertiary markets? Which ones do we attack first? Which look to be the easiest to penetrate? Which have high entrance barriers? The big question I always ask first: Where are we going to get the most business for the least amount of expense? Then, where is the competition the strongest? The weakest? What will be our uniqueness, our marketing advantage? Where’s the low hanging fruit?
What can we offer the customer that makes us better/faster/cheaper? What’s the media like in the industries we serve - is it filled with huge ads from lots of competition? Is ad space available and reasonable in cost? Can we be effective in advertising? More importantly, how effective can we be in PR? Those are the segments of marketing I concentrate on.
Discover new markets.
You know, I could write a book about marketing, but - I already did that. Four of them, actually. Did I mention you can buy these on line?
Plus, I’ve written over 250 articles. You can read a some of them on line and on this site. So I won’t write any more about that here. If you’re interested, go take a look.
If you’re interested in what I personally can do specifically for you, please let me know and we’ll talk. I can send you additional material: sample ads, letters I’ve written, marketing stuff - you know, technical stuff only marketing geeks like me are interested in. Just call and let me know what you need. 610-642-1000 rings on my desk.
If not - that's OK, too. Not everyone becomes a client. Please feel free to take a look around - spend some time here. There is lots of information about marketing and direct marketing for free, plus even more you can purchase. Have fun, learn something, and let me know if I can ever be of help.
Thanks for coming to our site. Like I say, I talk marketing all day and still love it. Gimme a call if you have quick questions - I’m always happy to help. But don't forget, I still need to earn a living - so please keep this in mind. Blocks of long marketing discussions, specific help, and consulting contracts are reserved for paying clients. Please inquire about that, too. Thanks and enjoy the site.