5 Tips to Start a Marketing Plan for Your New Fiscal Year

Hosted by: technogranny
Title: Monday Morning Marketeer, How to Start Your Marketing Plan for 2011
Time: 01/24/20

Hosted by: technogranny
Title: Monday Morning Marketeer, How to Start Your Marketing Plan for 2011
Time: 01/24/2011 11:00 AM EST
Episode Notes: You never thought of doing a marketing plan for the year, shame on you! It's not too late. The snow has not thawed yet and guaranteed you will still have a few days where you do not feel like going out of the house, so let's get started with the basics, where do you start? And how do you make it sticky? Or how do you make sure that it is something you can and will follow?


Sticky and Stickiness are ways to describe marketing ideas that hold a certain value in a user’s mind. Within that value, the ideas must be worth enough to be shared with friends and family.
The concept of sticky marketing came from Malcolm Gladwell’s “The Tipping Point“. Gladwell discusses product epidemics and tipping points being made up of 3 Laws:
1. The Law of the Few
2. The Stickiness Factor
3. Law of Context
“The Tipping Point” illustrates that products and services if presented right, and under the right circumstances, can be irresistible and sticky.

The clock is ticking,
is your plan ready?

Whether you are reading this at the first of the  year or the end of it, the clock is ticking.  Have you ever heard that having no business plan is like having a plan to fail?  No matter when you are reading this, there are only a Only a few more hours until the clock strikes IMMINENT, yes imminent and that is what time your failure arrives without a marketing plan.  Soon you will  fin yourself in another month, another quarter, another year without a marketing plan.   Do you know what you want to accomplish this year and what about the next and the year after that.  This is not And I’m not talking about your year-after-year resolution to that becomes a wish list at the end of the year that your fairy godmother did not grant.  Have you taken the time to sit down and truly figure out what you want to achieve for you and your business in the next months, next quarter, next year?
 This is not you writing into your to do list or on your calendar:
Here is a list of generic goals.
A..   Get my business in shape
B. Outpace my competitior
C. Find more clients
D. Make more money
But how are you going to get there?
The buzz word now is “sustainable business.”  If you are jumping on this buzz like it’s the train to success, which it is,  you must understand the importance of planning. However, that’s often easier said than done. Hectic schedules and day-to-day business tend to get in the way.  Again it is biblical, “Write your vision on tablets.”
Have no fear! Even if you haven’t put a strategic marketing plan in place for 2011, it’s not too late to get started now. So, what are you waiting for? Here are simple five steps to kick you into high gear and help you develop a marketing plan that will generate results for your business.

1. Start with goals
Before you can put a plan in action, you need to know which direction you’re headed. Although this may seem like an obvious step, it can be often overlooked.

Sounds elementary, but
you have to set goals!

Take the time to write down specific, measureable goals for your business. Start with the larger goal in mind. Then, take it down into bite-sized chunks and look at what benchmarks you need to achieve on a monthly basis to accomplish the overall goal.  Not only will this exercise help you determine the best marketing strategy, but it will help hold you accountable along the way.
I will give you an example from my own seminar, Monday Morning Marketeer™  This is part of my Dreamweaver Marketing Associates plan which is by the way the parent company from which I run both my full service marketing company and all of my information products and media.
Goals from my Dreamweaver Marketing Plan Example:

•   to garner additional listeners and sponsors for my radio shows
•   To diversify products and add new ones that will augment my online platform and my business
•   To create more stable income with diversification
•   To increase my list and sphere of influence
•   To keep my online identity fresh

I am not going to bore you with the bite size chunks that I broke these down into.  Everyone has to start somewhere and this is where I started.

2. Self Evaluation
The best marketing strategies in the world can’t help a business that doesn’t have a killer product or service. Before you do anything else, make sure you’ve got something spectacular to offer your customers.

What do you see when you
look in your business mirror?

I know, I know – we all think our own business is the best thing since sliced bread. But, ask your customers. Do they feel the same way? Does your product or service solve their problems or give them the results they’re after? Do your customers receive top-notch service?
If you’re not sure about the answers, talk to your employees and your customers. Getting their honest feedback will likely highlight some ways you can improve your offerings and make your business shine.
Here’s what I did in my Dreamweaver Marketing Associates Plan with regard to my media offerings:
Looked at my editorial calendar and how I could beef up my calendar for
TechnoGrannyShow
PositivelyPittsburghLive
Monday Morning Marketeer
Professionals with Impact
This all feeds locally into PositivelyPittsburghLiveMagazine.com
So I looked at:
· Web Statistics including hits, click throughs and unique page views
· Did my clients find the Pittsburgh Internet Radio and TV channel easy to use?
· Did they even understand its purpose?
· What could I do to augment content?
· Could I turn my current listeners and viewers into advocates?
· What did they think I should add?
· How did they think I could improve?
· I turned my listeners and readers into marketing constultants.  I asked them what they wanted, what could be better, how could I fix it.  And guess what?  I also took their recommendations.

3. Master the basics
There are a couple of marketing basics that are so essential, it’s like milk and bread. Branding and a websites fall into that category. If you want to move the needle for your business this year, you must have these in place.

It's simple, just do it!

Your brand has not only to be exciting but also rock solid.  This  is an integral to a successful business. More than just a logo, a brand is the personality of your business. In other words, your brand communicates who you are and what makes you different from the competition. If you haven’t nailed down your brand message, now is the time. Don’t wait another year to get this right.

In today’s digital world, an amateur website just won’t cut it anymore. A well-written, user-friendly website is a must for businesses. In a world that’s constantly competing for eyeballs, make sure your site hits the mark and doesn’t leave them quickly moving on to the next one.
These are some methods that I used in my Dreamweaver Marketing Associates.  I decided that I needed to  Promote my business by increased Internet marketing.
These are areas that I will share my ideas with you for various niches in the media portion of my business:
· Every Monday at the beginning of my show, PositivelyPittsburghLive I do the “local good news.”  I decided not enough people were listening and so I had my blogger put together the news in blog format with links back to listen and planned to  blast it out to my list every Tuesday.  The goal was to get 20% additional listeners and it is working, every month.
· The Roving Pittsburgher™ is another segment on the news which listeners really seem to like, even my guests who I force to listen to it before their roundtable interview on PositivelyPittsburghLive.  This is where I tell listeners where I , my good news reporters and other PositivePittsburghers have been the week before. Decided that this had to become more organized and profitable so I did a few things.  I purchased domain names and negotiated a new website, put a system into place to get more tickets for events and more dinner invitations. I also have plans to institute a monthly video contest where viewers can send in their own pictures which my staff will turn into a video.  The plan for the following year is to send out
the Roving Pittsburgher Report on Wednesdays.

· Post Script PPL         .
In order to raise the number of listeners and hit to my PPL Mag I needed a vehicle.  So I invented the PPL Post Script in which I would send out all of the syndicated show links that were archived in the previous two weeks.  This increased listeners.  This is a Thursday blast.
· To further interest local listeners I developed Positively Pittsburgh Live Perks™  This is a blast for channel owners on PositivelyPittsburghLive to put out special deals for PositivelyPittsburghLive listeners on DreamweaverMarketing Associates mailing list.
     

4. Make Sure You Get Noticed
Social media is definitely the new kid on the block. But before you rush off to sign up for a Twitter account, take a look at your current marketing efforts and determine what is working well for you.
For instance, if word of mouth is your top business generator, build a referral strategy that rewards your biggest fans for spreading the word. Or, if your email list responds well to your campaigns, look for ways to grow your list by encouraging your readers to share it with their friends.
Whatever it is, continue to focus your energy in this area and look for ways to amplify it.

Start some fireworks
about your business!

Oftentimes, the most profitable marketing effort we can employ is by taking a strategy that is working really well and turning up the volume.

If you have a mobile phone use down time to communicate on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, even Sprouter and what I am doing now in New Media, TalkShoe, also Blogger
I have Ning Network for Positive Pittsburghers and two Sundays ago sent out 1700 invitations to join.  :My newest strategy is to offer a free gift to everyone on the site once we hit each breakthrough goal for membership.  I have enlisted clients and local vendors to provide the gifts.  No cost for me and good public relations for them.

5. Stretch yourself
Once you’ve hammered out ways to improve already successful strategies, you can begin to venture into uncharted territory. Social media is the considered marketing frontier for small business and it can be a great way to engage customers, generate leads and provide customer service.

The reward is in the stretch!
So wake up!

But, before you take the plunge, do your research. Determine what you want to accomplish through social media. Find out where your customers hang out on line and where they go to get their information.  Also  look at what is working well for other businesses in your niche. A misguided social media effort will suck up a lot of time and produce little in return.
Determine your goals because your return on investment will not always be in dollars. It could be in visibility, additional hits to your website, additional inquiries.  These are my goals for my internet radio shows.
· Additional listeners
· Additional visibility
· Give out good information to create credibility
· Build relationships to increase customers
 So with that in mind I certainly hope you will use the share button to pass this blog onto friends and also that you wiill listen to MondayMorningMarketeer™ or one of my other four internet radio shows.
You can listen to a fifteen minute audio version similar to this blog at:
Monday Morning Marketeer, How to Start Your Marketing Plan for 2011

For More on this Topic:

 "Folly of Marketing Plan in Your Head, 101 Compelling Reasons to Write One" 

Click Here:  

This blog post can be reproduced in its entirety with the following information:  
© Joanne Quinn-Smith 2011, Monday Morning Marketeer™ 412-628-5048    
Listen at:  http://mondaymorningmarketeer.com
Blog:  www.mondaymorningmarketeer.com
Or on its unique radio channel at:                                                                      
www.positivelypittsburghlivemgazine.com


Joanne Quinn-Smith is the Creative Energy Officer of Dreamweaver Marketing Associates in Pittsburgh,Pennsylvania and an expert on Web 2.0 Branding.
Joanne has also been designated by the 2009 U.S. Small Business Administration as the Small Business Journalist of the Year for her work with information relevant to and advocacy of small businesses.
Follow at:  https://twitter.com/monmornmarketer
Facebook:  http://www.facebook.com/mondaymorningmarketeer
Phone:  412-444-5197

MondayMorningMarketeer Market Data, Five Things to Determine, Three Reasons to Bother

Market Data, Five Things to Determine,

Three Reasons to Bother

Prepare Market Data Like You Would a Recipe,

Recipe for Strategic Marketing Success

You have got to know the lay of the land in order to prepare a good marketing strategy.  Like any good recipe you have got to have the ingredients and a process for preparation.  Your strategic marketing recipe should be based on good data. Good data collection should be used to start your strategic marketing planning process with data about your industry and specific market, and about your customers.

First is the data collection process.  The data that you will need to collect is: 

Strategic Marketing requires good data!

·         Industry and market data         

·         Customer behavior data

·         Online monitoring Data

And then you have to turn that data into good information that can help you in the strategic marketing process to turn suspects in to prospects and then clients and to turn activity into business.

·         You will want to collect data that reflects market research that you have conducted for the marketing plan.

·         What is Market Data? it’s data from Studies, surveys, market demographics and sales data

·         If you don’t have a large budget you may want to start with Census Bureau for Your Local Community, Use Industry Data, if you are starting anything to do with Food Service, US Food and Hospitality Industry.  Do a Google Search for instance on Manufacturing or the Fashion industry

·         Great site: 

http://www.grabstats.com 

Some Statistics Categories from this site  

·         African-American Statistics  (223)

·         Background Music Statistics  (21)

·         Charity / Non-profit Statistics  (53)

·         Dating / Relationship Statistics  (26)

·         eCommerce Statistics  (116)

·         Green / Environmental Statistics  (50)

·         Hip-Hop / Urban Statistics  (17)

·         Homelessness Statistics  (34)

·         Internet Usage Statistics  (142)

·         Mobile Industry Statistics  (13)

·         Movie Industry Statistics  (39)

·         Music Industry Statistics  (139)

·         Online Advertising Statistics  (42)

Think you might be able to find something here?

·         ___________________________

Five Things You Need to Determine

1.  Determine the market, past present and future

·          

·         Preparing the target market section of your plan

·         The outdated and overused way of marketing is to create a product and then try to figure out how to sell it.  In this fast paced world where we now do business, that just does not work.  Before you even begin producing your product or designing your service you must be certain of sufficiently large, accessible, and responsive target audiences.

Investors want to know that you
have a sizeable enough market.

·          If your market isn't large enough, you can't reach it efficiently, or if it isn't ready for you, your business will fail, no matter how good your business concept.

·         A concise description and thorough understanding of your target market will give you focus when developing your product or service, designing your marketing plan, and forecasting sales and expenses. Potential investors want reassurance that you not only have a sizeable market but that you will have a platform from which to reach that market.  It’s also important to investors that you comprehend the opportunities and limitations of the market.

·         You say, why is she talking so much about investors, I am going to bootstrap this myself.  Well unless you are not going to invest in your own business, you are also an investor.  You are investing your time, your income and your ideas and dreams.  You need to make certain your target market is definable and reachable.

·          

·         When preparing the Target Market section of your written strategic marketing plan you need good solid data with the right focus.  To get you started focus primarily on these three areas:

• Description
• Trends
• Strategic Opportunities

2. Who owns the current market share for your product or service?

Ask these questions:  Who are the current players?

Who would be your immediate competition? Please don’t tell me there is none, this is 2011 there is competition everywhere for everything both on and offline.

3. Look at market trends, have there been any recent shifts?

Has a big player gone out of business?

Know the recent market shifts!

Has technology changed the playing field?                

Have celebrities changed their style or buying habits?

Has a movie or documentary created a trend?

What are they talking about on Twitter, FAcebook, LinkedIn, Four Square,

Check Out Google Trends and a publication called Ad Media.

Also check out the website of the Newspaper Association of America

http://www.naa.org,

Some of the things they are talking about on their front page:

o   Retailer Consolidation: A Shift In Buying Power .

o   Multi-Channel Advertisers: Clicks And Mortar Plus .

o   Opportunities: Emerging Players With Unique Needs 

o   Competitors: Traditional And New .

o   Population Changes: Workers And Customers 

Of course they are talking about the traditional media business but you can get an idea of how to organize your research.

.

4. Develop Pricing Strategy

Look at your costs.  Consider material costs and labor costs and overhead costs.  

What are your competitor’s prices?  What would you have to charge to operate at a particular gross margin?

Establish pricing techniques and brief description of these techniques.

Establish both retail and wholesale costing and pricing

Establish if you are going to price below the competition or

Establish value for pricing above the competition

Will you have multiple pricing strategies for different layers of your business.

 

Although your pricing strategy may be based on a strategy devised by industry standards you should study this plan and the strategies used by competitors. That way you will acquire a thorough understanding of how to price your product, and you can determine if your prices are in line with competitors, if they are in line with industry averages and what adjustments you can make to bring them in line.

The key to success is to have a well-planned strategy, to establish your policies and to constantly monitor prices and operating costs to ensure profits. Keep abreast of changes in the marketplace because these changes can affect your bottom line.

What’s the acceptable gross margin for your particular industry?  This is very important to know, it is a great success indicator if you can operate within it.

5.  Use the data to Develop an Effective Promotional Strategy

·         Advertising Media

·         print media (newspaper, magazine, classified ads, Yellow Pages advertising, brochure)

·         radio

·         television

·         networking

·         business cards

·         Ad specialties such as tee shirts, hats, buttons, pens

·         Online media

·         E mail Marketing

·         Ezines

Develop a promotional strategy that uses various media for promoting your business. Monitor the different media identifying those that most effectively promote your business. Concentrate on developing material for these formats that clearly identifies your services, its location and price.

Three reasons why you want to take the trouble here:

This data will help convince bankers and investors that you understand your industry, your local business conditions, and your realistic profit/growth opportunities. It will also help you in making key decisions in your business as you go along, develop and grow.

Research, Market, Test for a Strong
Plan!

Here are three great reasons to invest the time in market research:

1. Create a stronger business and marketing plan with compelling, accurate financial comparisons for your industry.

2. When you decide to grow and need investors or bankers, this will improve your chances when applying for loans, opening new accounts, or working to fund your business through angel investors or venture capitalists.

3. If you know your competition you will know where the pitfalls lie and will be able to determine your financial success and also possibly determine their weak points.

Watch for upcoming E-book on this subject, “Choosing Your Customers, Marketing to Them for Life.”

Additional information at:  info@mondaymorningmarketeer.com.

Expected release date September 1, 2011.

You can listen to a fifteen minute audio version similar to this blog at:  

Monday Morning Marketeer, 5 Types of Marketing Data, 3 Reasons to Bother

For More on this Topic:

 "Folly of Marketing Plan in Your Head, 101 Compelling Reasons to Write One" 

Click Here:  

This blog post can be reproduced in its entirety with the following information:

© Joanne Quinn-Smith 2011, Monday Morning Marketeer™ 412-628-5048

Listen at:  http://mondaymorningmarketeer.com

Blog:  www.mondaymorningmarketeer.com

Or on its unique radio channel at:

www.positivelypittsburghlivemgazine.com

Joanne Quinn-Smith is the Creative Energy Officer of Dreamweaver Marketing Associates in Pittsburgh,Pennsylvania and an expert on Web 2.0 Branding.

Joanne has also been designated by the 2009 U.S. Small Business Administration as the Small Business Journalist of the Year for her work with information relevant to and advocacy of small businesses.

Follow at:  https://twitter.com/monmornmarketer

Facebook:  http://www.facebook.com/mondaymorningmarketeer

Phone:  412-628-5048

MondayMorningMarketeer, The Folly of the Marketing Plan in Your Head or 7Things You Need to Know to Get Into Customer's Heads

Hosted by: technogranny Title: Monday Morning Marketeer-- Folly of the Marketing Plan  in Your Head Or 7 Things You Need to Know to Get Into Customer’s Heads

Time: 02/07/2011 11:00 AM EST Episode Notes: "My marketing plan is in my head, " you say.  Sure and so are the last two weeks, to do list! How many of those important, "to-dos" never happened and what were the consequences. If there weren't any consequences, then you were just plain lucky or your "to-dos" just weren't that important. There's a little more at stake with that marketing plan in your  head. The number one thing that you need "to-do" in your business is to market it. No matter how sharp you think you are, please don't leave this important task  to your very fallible brain. Today on Monday Morning Marketeer, hear some tips to help you get started. Listen to archive of this show at: MondayMorningMarketeer, 7Things You Need to Know to Get  Into Customers Heads

It's in your head, now you have to get
it out on paper, a plan is no good
unless it's written.

I recently attended a No BS Marketing Meeting which I attend every month because it keeps me fresh with the things that I am doing.  The moderator, Becky Ayres, asked how many people in the room of forty had a marketing plan.  A few of us raised our hands and then a busieness owner in the back of the room said, she had one also but it was in her head!  Wrong!  Not only is this a really bad idea, it’s against biblical advice and that’s the best business guide I know of.  Yes, I said it, the Bible is a great business guide.  In the bible it says, “Write your vision on tablets.”  I am not a biblical scholar just a follower and so I can’t tell you chapter and verse but I know that just like a contract keeps honest people honest, a business plan keeps a creative marketer on track.   It’s only February, please don’t get to the end of the year analysis and remember all of the great marketing ideas that you had that you never implemented.  Why?  BECAUSE YOU NEVER WROTE THEM DOWN, SILLY!   Am I yelling at you, yes I am!

One of the toughest marketing assignments is to write a marketing plan that is ambitious yet still attainable. Here are some simple things to do when you start your marketing plan.

Before starting on your written plan, you should answer the following questions:

1.      What is the product or service you are selling?

Whatever widget you sell whether it be a service or a manufactured product, you need a plan to sell everything, and you need a segmented marketing message for each product.  I do so many things that for a long time it was hard for people to understand what I really do, so I began segmenting my marketing for each of my products.

On that information highway you
have to have a division in your
marketing message to your
various segments of clients.

For instance if you are a consultant and you do public speaking, you have a book and you do billable hourly consulting but you also do group training, each of those is not only a tool to market you as a business/coach or consultant but also a product that needs promoted.  So decide what it is you are selling, what levels you are selling it at, and how many different variations of the product you are selling.

2.      Who is your market that will buy the product or service?

This is a tough one, let’s make a list for instance if I were to take this show and create information products who would I sell it to?

First of all, I would sell it to my current clients

Second, my listeners

If you think marketing is a game, then
learn to play chess, at least that's a
strategic game.

Third, others in the marketing business.  Whoa, horse, you are saying, others in the marketing business?  Absolutely, when you have information and if it’s not necessarily proprietary it is marketable to your competitors, maybe not the close ones, but if you make it public you can’t stop that but what about others nationally and internationally.  It’s hard to keep that information private with the internet so you may as well make money on it. 

Fourth, my blog readers

Fifth, attendees of my speaking engagements

Trade show attendees

Are you getting the picture?

3.      What need does the above market have for your product or service?

Affordable marketing

Increasing their business

Becoming known as an authority

Getting internet visibility

Using social media to get their message out

4.      What is the basic message that you would like to send to this market in regards to your product?

Don't let yourself be easy to miss, use
everything in your arsenal.

You are an authority at what you do or at creating what you sell

You have recommendations

You have endorsements

You have satisfied customers

You have a guarantee

On time, excellent quality

5.      What is the best way of getting in contact with your projected market? (i.e.- T.V, Radio, Print, Online)

Where is your marketing dollar best spent

If you don’t have a budget then perhaps you need to learn as much as you can about online marketing and social media as you possibly can.

After answering the above questions you will ready to start on your marketing plan. When answering question five keep in mind your budget limitations as you do not want to set yourself up for committing too much money to advertising. 

For More on this Topic:

 "Folly of Marketing Plan in Your Head, 101 Compelling Reasons to Write One" 

Click Here:  

This blog post can be reproduced in its entirety with the following information:

© Joanne Quinn-Smith 2011, Monday Morning Marketeer™ 412-628-5048

Listen at:  http://tinyurl.com/MondayMorningMarketeer

Blog:  MondayMorningMarketeeer Blog

Or on its unique radio channel at:

www.positivelypittsburghlivemgazine.com

Joanne Quinn-Smith is the Creative Energy Officer of Dreamweaver Marketing Associates in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and an expert on Web 2.0 Branding.

Joanne has also been designated by the 2009 U.S. Small Business Administration as the Small Business Journalist of the Year for her work with information relevant to and advocacy of small businesses.

Follow at:  https://twitter.com/monmornmarketer

Facebook:  http://www.facebook.com/mondaymorningmarketeer

Phone:  412-628-5048