APM Business Planning

Marketing Planning Tips for 2013

Posted on in Small Business Tips, SME Marketing

First of all, Happy New Year! Are you thinking you should be planning some marketing activity (or indeed strategy) for 2013, but just don’t know where to start and hence putting it off?

Here’s a few simple tips to get you started and which should help the process:

  • Identify first what you wish to achieve; for instance, an increase in sales of a specific product.  What level of increase, what are you achieving currently, what is a realistic growth rate and over what period?
  • Consider your target audience – do you know who is buying your product and/or services?  The reality may not be the same as perhaps you planned or thought.
  • Once you know who your customers are and, just as importantly,  where they are, you can consider the best medium to reach them, ie, direct mail, telemarketing, email, social media etc.
  • Consider your resources; plan a campaign that you (and your staff if you have any) can manage, both in terms of fulfilment, and in terms of response.
  • Plan your budgets; you might like to send out a free sample to your entire customer base or offer free consulting, but what will that cost be to you in reality including, for example, any packing and postage.
  • Finally, only implement a campaign that you can monitor the responses for, based on your original objectives.  With email, Google Analytics and Telephone Tracking that’s a relatively simple process now, but you need to plan in advance, not retrospectively.

I hope you find the above useful. If you need any further advice or direction, then feel free to drop me a line to hello@alisonpagemarketing.co.uk or contact me via one of my social media accounts:

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