Mama always said “Anything worth doing is worth doing right”, well not my mama but someone said it and they were right. The SBA reported that about 1/3 of businesses die within the first 2 years. This is likely because they failed to plan.
Business plans, in general, are thought of as only needed if you are looking for funding. Nothing could be further from the truth. Yes, banks require a formal business plan but the primary reason is for you to prove that you understand, as well as you can anyway, what you are getting yourself into. An entire section of your business plan is dedicated to marketing, thus your marketing plan.
A Marketing Plan outlines who you believe your ideal customer to be and how you plan to reach them. The more detail the better, things like:
Married Female homeowners between the ages of 45 and 65 with an annual income of 45,000 to 145,000 household income and more than 1 child.
Would be a good start, then you need to profile them
Moderate to Heavy Facebook users interested in family and travelling who also follow a college or other educational institution
Light to Moderate Pinterest users who interest include scrapbooking
I think you get the point.
It doesn’t matter if every detail is correct or not what matters is that you detail, as well as possible, who you think your ideal client is. This information can then be used to determine which channels will result in your brand being seen by the most potential ideal clients and what frequency each channel will require for maximum penetration.
This information in turn then gives you the amount of marketing budget required and how to best split up the budget. The closer your analysis proves to being correct directly corresponds with how close your budget is to being correct.
As with all plans it is incredibly important to review. Each Quarter, 6 Months, Year your marketing plan should be reviewed in order to determine how closely the previous plan came to reality. The data learned should then be used to create/update the new plan. With each review you are essentially insuring that the plan matches the businesses actions and visa-versa. By saving each version of the plan you are essentially documenting your journey to success.
This documentation can come in really helpful during the not so great times. Simply reviewing plans from the last year or several years will remind you just how far you have come and that ultimately this too shall pass.