The goals of your marketing plan are to evaluate the situation in your market, align your marketing strategy with that information, and assess how you’ll use your marketing tools to carry out the strategy. To come up with a successful marketing plan, follow these guidelines:
Evaluate last year’s marketing budget to identify the most successful advertising or marketing method. Give it a larger share of your budget this year.
Adjust your pricing and products to reflect the current economy. Unbundle and reduce costs and prices in a slow economy. Bundle more goodies and raise prices in a growing economy.
Use a template to make your plan more professional and accurate. There are templates and outlines you can use so don’t reinvent the wheel.
Spend only what you can afford on marketing. Your marketing budget should come out of your gross profit. Don’t commit to too much spending all at once. Modest growth is far easier to achieve than aggressive growth, so keep your plan affordable and your goals reasonable.
