A small business marketing plan is an essential component of your overall business plan.
On this page, we'll present a sort of marketing plan template and example of a marketing plan that you can use to develop your own plan.
Regardless of your product or service, a sale has to happen for your business to exist. The best way to determine where to get a sale, is marketing. Planning your small business marketing online and offline is the best place to start.
The Small Business Marketing Plan contains the following components: Market Analysis and Market Strategy & Promotion.
By combining Market Analysis with Market Strategy and Promotion in your small business marketing plan, you can develop an effective plan for marketing your product or service.
First, Let's Look at Market Analysis
Market Analysis provides you with a "snapshot" of your market — where and to whom you'll offer your services.
You Need to Have a Vision. Entrepreneurs usually have an image of the type of business they want to own. Without a clear picture, it's impossible to plan the logistics of running a successful business. The description of your business idea is often called the "vision".
An example of clear vision is the one used by FedEx, to deliver by noon the next day. Or Macintosh computers, to bring technology to non-technical everyday people.
Express your vision in customer terms. You could say, "we want to be the restaurant that most people tell their friends about". This implies a whole code of behaviour to deliver super satisfaction with every meal served.
A realistic vision provides continuing focus and is communicated through your marketing activities.
Ultimately it means generating enough sales, through satisfying customer needs, to realize a profit. To do this, you need to clearly define the business you're really in.
Think about your vision, the goal you wish to achieve for your customer, and the business you may really be in. It takes time to create a guiding vision statement. Take some time to write yours, based on your business idea from your customer's point of view.
Next, Know Your Customer. Now that you have a vision for your business, you need to identify your target markets.
Your business idea must satisfy the needs of different kinds of customers - but not every need of every customer. You have to choose which needs you want to satisfy, and more than that, which prospects are most likely to buy your offering to satisfy those needs.
Your target market is that group of people who see you offering products and services that "fit" their view of the world. But we are emotional beings and we buy for personal, mostly irrational reasons. For instance, Volvo is well known for making the safest car in the world. But does everybody buy a Volvo? No. One segment of the market, "people concerned with safety", are particularly interested in the Volvo offering.
Most people buy cars for other reasons, like status, style, performance, economy.
What really happens when people buy a car is that they "fall in love". They buy it, and look for reasons to justify it later. This is true for everyone, for pens to pets, popsicles to bicycles, restaurants to roller blades. We all do it, and we always will.
So how can you uncover something so intensely personal about other people? Fortunately, they leave clues. And this is what discovering a target market is all about. You're trying to find people with similar characteristics and preferences, and the potential to afford your offering—a target market segment of people most likely to want what you have.
Here are some tasks that will help you identify your market:
Develop a typical customer profile.
Narrow down your trading area.
Talk to people about their needs and wants as relates to your product/service.
Finally, Know Thine Enemy. Or, in other words, evaluate the competition. No small business marketing plan will be complete without this analysis. The company with the best understanding of customer needs, and something unique to satisfy them, is usually the leader. You must know the strengths and weaknesses of existing and potential competitors if you compete to win.
Check out the competition thoroughly. Read the trade magazines in your industry for trends that may mean future competition. For example, superstores were a retail phenomenon before they ever hit Canada. No retailer should have been surprised when they opened here. Even so, Wal-Mart sent shock waves through the Canadian retail market.
For each competitor in your area, find out how they market, what they sell, how they sell it, and how much they sell. Be sure to research both direct and indirect competition.
By the way, if you'd like to learn more about how to analyze your market and develop a small business marketing plan, you'll want to check out our Business Buffet "Help Yourself" video learning series: Business Buffet on Marketing – helping small business help itself to profit, by making business learning fun.
Now that you can do the research and analyze your market, half your "axe-sharpening" (i.e., your small business marketing plan) is done. You know everything there is to know about your target market, right?
By the way, if you'd like to learn more about how to analyze your market and develop a small business marketing plan, you'll want to check out our Business Buffet "Help Yourself" video learning series:
