Your marketing plan is a key document that you will need to have assembled in order to successfully get new customers profitably and grow your venture.
You can quickly create your marketing plan if you understand the 12 key components of a successful marketing strategy. So in this article I'm going to walk through those 12 key components for you to follow so that you can quickly create your plan.
Marketing
The first section is to identify your target market and your target customers. If you haven't pinpointed the ideal target customer, for example, it may be females age 20 to 39 living in Kansas City that are in households with an annual income of over 0,000 per year. You just need to really identify who your target customers are.
The second part is going to be for you identify your USP or Unique Selling Proposition. Your Unique Selling Proposition defines why customers should buy from you. What makes your product and services unique versus the competition?
The third part is your pricing strategy where you must figure out what is the ideal pricing for all of your products and services. This includes possibly your regular versions of your products and also a premium or discounted versions.
The fourth section is your distribution plan. Your distribution plan is how customers buy your products. Do they buy it directly from you via your storefront or your website? Do you have partners that also distribute your products, etc?
The next section is your "offers." What are the offers that you're going to be making your customers to compel them to buy? For example, an offer could be we have a buy nine get one free, or that we guarantee our product for 90 days or your money back. You need to think through what is it that you're offering your customers that's going to compel them to take action.
The sixth part is to think through and put together your marketing materials. What marketing materials are going to be required for you to successfully execute on your marketing plan? Do you need brochures, business cards, flyers, a website, etc? You need to develop those materials.
The seventh section is your promotion strategy. How are you going to promote your products and services to prospective customers? There are tons of different ways. Are you going to do television advertising or radio or newspaper advertising? Are you going to use direct mail? Are you going to use telemarketing? Are you going to go door to door? There's a host of ways you can promote your company.
The next step is to think through how you're going to increase your conversions. Once you get those leads you need to have strategies in place to convert those leads into customers. You can do this through better sales scripts, etc.
The next step is to think through and identify joint ventures and partnerships and think through what other companies could you partner with to get more customers. Ideally you can think of the companies whose products or services your customers buy before they buy your products or service, and work with them.
The tenth section is your referral strategy. How will you get existing customers to refer more business to you? The eleventh part of your marketing plan template is figuring out how to increase your transaction prices and look at bundling products so that you can generate more revenue per transaction. Finally, the twelfth and final section of your marketing plan is your retention strategy. That is, how are you going to get customers to become customers for life and keep paying you and buying your products and services over and over again. If you can accomplish this, you can leverage all of the marketing costs and expenses that you incurred trying to attract those customers in the first place.
Marketing Plan Template: How to Quickly Create Your Marketing Plan
Are you struggling to create your marketing plan? Download this marketing plan template and start growing your business today!