As the year come to a close many of you will start to look back and review what you achieved over the last 12 months.
Maybe you achieved all that you set out to, maybe you missed the mark on some things. All I know is when it comes to marketing, we all need a plan. Some marketing plans can be long a laborious but I know all of you out there want something easy and simple that you can put together on your own.
So here it is. A simple 6 step process.
Step 1 – Understand who your customers are. Otherwise known as a situation analysis. You need to gain an overview via your customers to understand where your business is now, this will determine what you need to change to get it to where you want it to be.
So this means asking your clients the right questions to get the correct information. Keep it short, relevant and please, no hypothetical questions. Using Survey Monkey is a simple, no cost way to completing this step.
Step 2 – The Audit aka Situation Analysis.
So now you have captured some insights from your trusted customers it’s time to dig out some statistical data on similar businesses in the same sectors as yourself. You can learn things about their average employees, earnings etc. This information will allow you to compare your business to others and will highlight some opportunities that you may otherwise be missing.
Conducting a SWOT analysis will give you a holistic view of your business. SWOT stands for Strength, Weakness, Opportunity, Threat.
Step 3 – So where do you want to go?
Create your objectives and make them SMART. You may want to ask yourself, how can I improve my customers experience, how can I communicate better, what can I do to save time in my business, what is my WOW factor? I could go on, but you get the picture.
Step 4 – Strategy and Segmentation
What do you want to achieve in the next 12 months and how will you do it? This area is important and you may need to segment your customer base and have a variety of strategies for each. For example, you may want to develop a new product for a segment of your customers, perhaps you want to enter a new market altogether or start planning an exit strategy.
Step 5 – Actions
Work out who will do what in your team to put all your strategies into play. Make each person accountable for the various steps involved and make this section as detailed as possible. You may want to consider outsourcing some of the actions.
Step 6 – Management
You want to constantly monitor your actions and manage the process and measure your results. The plan is not set in concrete so if something isn’t working, tweak it, change things around and it’s OK to completely change the path if you need to.
As always, you know we are here if you need assistance with any of the steps mentioned above.
Good Luck!
Melita
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