Tag: marketing plan - Page 3

A marketing plan is a vital aspect in successfully launching a new product or service. It acts as a blueprint in ensuring your target audience is well educated on your expertise, with the overall aim to generate leads and increase overall sales. All companies are aware of the importance of having a business plan, yet many ignore the plethora of benefits a marketing plan will bring to your business.

Oftentimes, these terms are used interchangeably…

But they actually mean two different things.

Think of it like this…

You are a military leader and about to go war, you would obviously need to prepare all the necessary machineries, weapons, equipment, troops, and the perfect combat strategy to penetrate your opponent’s defences.

The approach to how you are going to tackle the enemy’s defences will be different for each opponent (your competitors), hence this describes your marketing strategy, it lays the foundation before you attempt to do anything.

So, it is essentially like your strategy on how to win the war with your limited sources and capabilities.

Has your business ever performed so well on a promotion, yet was unable to convert them to sales and revenue? If this sounds familiar, there is a high chance your company may be dealing with ‘smarketing’ misalignment.

When you start out in marketing, you always think the career path will be easy, fun and a bit on the glamorous side. Then when you start, you realize that it isn't easy, fun is for Friday's and there is no glamour in organizing an event even if it is for your favorite fashion brand.

Many don't start in the mail room or doing photocopying anymore, but at an entry level there is plenty of mundane tasks that can often bury our enthusiasm for the career that you are by this point indebted to through your university degree.

For years, I kept my business strategy in my head. It was a reliable place to keep it, or at least I thought. My memory is fairly decent when it comes to things that matter and reaching my business goals – matters. 

With our marketing plan, that was another story. Writing it down is what we do, and we know that it is the only way to achieve marketing goals, aligning the sales function with marketing tactics that derive results.

There is not a business on the planet that hasn't thought about setting marketing goals for 2021, and at least given thought to how they are going to keep them. Most companies spend November and December bringing together key stakeholders in a business to discuss the next years business, sales and marketing goals. They do this in the form of a series of workshops, and what's really great about this, is even if you have a small business, a mini-workshop is invaluable for brainstorming how your business can do better in the year ahead.

A change in a calendar year is significant for many people around the world, mostly because it allows us to reflect on our life, personal and professional goals and our dreams.

Quite often, we make the same new years resolutions as we may have done the year before, simply because we didn't commit to the our goals in the way we had hoped. However, there is good news for those who don't quite make good on their New Years Resolutions as you are more likely to achieve it when it becomes a goal that is repetitive.

There are few marketers who truly have a firm understanding of the entire marketing mix, mostly because they have been pigeon-holed into various tactics without having enough exposure including successes and failures in others.

A 2020 marketing strategy looks a lot different to any other year. The market has changed dramatically. There is an election in the works and of course, the economy is playing havoc with cash flow, so how does a small business navigate their way to marketing success in such murky waters?

When building a business or taking the one you have to the next level, it is important to consider how you want to grow your nest egg. What happens when one marketing campaign turns into a rush for your product and service and is this the way you want to grow? Or do you want to maintain a regular increase in sales month-on-month at a sustainable level so you can keep customer experience at an optimum level and ensure that your team of people are growing with you?

It's that time of year when entrepreneurs, business leaders and marketing professionals re-evaluate their businesses on multiple levels. The market has changed and with this fluid transformation companies are needing to draw on data, research and experience to navigate the future.