Marketing Consulting Planning - starting your journey with a road map Whether you are re-directing an entire company, adding a product or service, experiencing increased competition or just trying to improve customer satisfaction, having a plan forces you to write your ideas down on paper. Once you've done that, and objectively included any external factors that could influence your ideas - you essentially have a basic marketing plan. (It also works great for your personal life, too!) Researching - finding out what obstacles to expect Research can be as formal and expensive, or as informal and inexpensive as your confidence in acting on the information. One of the reasons people call Gould Marketing for help is because we already have a lot of the information they need to make a good decision. Basically, you need to take an outside objective, look at your business products and/or services, your competition, determine how much desire or need there is for you in the marketplace, and if that will be profitable enough to make it worth the effort. Everything else is just number crunching. Implementing - communicating your message The benefits of planning and research are realized when you begin to "craft" your message. You will KNOW who you are talking to, their hot buttons, your distinctiveness and how that will benefit them, and which media option will reach them efficiently. Once you know these things, anyone with some writing skill and time can create a better ad or commerical. Certainly the greatest benefit in time, energy and effectiveness will probably be gained by having Gould or another local agency help you. (By the way, our fee is usually covered by that increased efficiency.) But, just following these steps yourself will improve your marketing effectiveness significantly. Budgeting Deciding how much to spend on marketing and advertising depends on what you want to do, and how long you have to accomplish it. But, it should never be your first step. First, decide what you want to do and how long you have, and THEN see what it will cost. Following this procedure will lead to alternative ideas for partially funding the project, or lenghthening the time frame, and give you a priority list of what's most important and less important. If you don't have an annual marketing and advertising budget, just start writing down what you're spending each month for a year. If you don't like what you have accomplished through the year, you'll have a starting point for changing it. You may want to switch some of your advertising to a different media, reach a different segment of customers, or even cut your budget by a certain percent. Your plan will enable you to do it intelligently. Measuring effectiveness "If it doesn't sell, it isn't creative" is a popular old marketing battle cry. Most business owners have no idea what is working and what isn't. Or even more important, if they're actually promoting less profit to their business by the way they advertise and showcase their products or services. Like everything else in marketing, if you don't pay attention to what is working and what is not, you have no way of directing your business in the best direction. As important as keeping track, it's also very important to give your marketing efforts enough time to work. It takes a full year for a small business on a limited budget to really get into the consciousness of the consumers in the market through advertising. And that's if the message is good and the media is well-selected. Professional help would be key for this activity, but you can do it yourself if you're diligent in collecting objective information and applying it without bias. In summary, it takes a plan - any plan, a little objective observation, selecting the right media to reach the most target customers at the lowest price, money set aside to promote your business on a consistent basis, and paying attention to what works and what doesn't. Not rocket science, but it's a little much for most businees owners who are busy enough being good at what they do. If you need professional help, contact us by clicking right here.