Wednesday, September 24, 2003

Some tips to make your marketing plan work

Time-pressured business owners may be so focused on running their companies that they often fail to devote time to marketing their services and products. The Georgia Society of CPAs points out that marketing your business is critical to future growth because it can help build and retain a loyal customer base. Here are some suggestions from CPAs on how to get your marketing plan off the ground.

Conduct a situational analysis. Before mapping out a marketing plan, you need to clearly establish your business's current position in the marketplace. This should comprise a description of your current products or services and include a competitive analysis. Your competitive analysis should then identify the competences that define your organization and can lead to competitive advantages.

Build your brand. Determine what distinguishes your company from others in the field. If you're unsure, conduct a survey of the marketing base you are trying to reach. Finding out what they value will assist you with branding. While building the brand, be sure to communicate your unique firm attributes consistently and comprehensively.

Identify your target audience. Knowing who your customers are, what they want or need, and what motivates them to buy are the keys to effective marketing. If you're marketing to consumers, define your audience profile based on demographics, including age, gender, marital status, income level, education, and other relevant characteristics. Business-to-business marketers should list their target audiences by category, such as physicians practicing a specific specialty or consultants who work with legal practices. Precisely defining your target audience will make it easier for you to implement your branding program.

Set marketing objectives. Now that you have a sense of where you stand and who your customers are, you must elaborate on your branding program by determining how you want to position your business to get the results you want and incorporate this information into clear marketing objectives. For example, do you want to increase sales? Build awareness? Launch a new product or enter a new market? Your objectives define the basis of your marketing plan.

If one of your objectives is to increase sales, be sure to be specific and make the objectives measurable with a stated time frame for achievement. For example, an objective might be to increase sales by 10 percent in the next 12 months by introducing a new product. And remember, while it's important to be optimistic in creating marketing objectives; you must be realistic as well.

Determine marketing strategies and tactics. Now that you've outlined your objectives, it's time to determine the best strategy to achieve them. This is essentially the heart of your marketing plan. For each objective identified, create a tactical strategy to help you accomplish it.

For example, if your goal is to increase sales of a new snack food among teens, a strategy might be to give out free samples at a local concert or high school sporting event. The tactics, which show all the actionable steps you must take to carry out the strategy, become your "to do" list. For this example, you might need to get permission from the concert promoters or high school athletic department, estimate how many samples are needed, arrange for getting them to the site, and so on.

Establish a budget. In the final section of the plan, document the costs of everything needed to fund it. If, for example, your strategy for increasing awareness calls for an exhibit at two trade shows during the coming year, estimate the costs involved for renting exhibit space, designing a booth, staffing it, and stocking it with marketing materials.

Once all costs are documented, take a realistic look at how much money is available for marketing. From there, beef up or pare down the plan, depending on your financial situation. Keep in mind that while overextending yourself is inadvisable, it's critical to allot adequate funds to reach your markets.

Refer to and update your plan frequently.CPAs say a marketing plan is only as good as the work put into it and how useful it is. Refer to the plan often and judge how well you're meeting objectives. And remember to update it on a regular basis. The tactics that proved successful one year may fall flat if market conditions alter drastically.

The GSCPA is the premier professional organization for CPAs in the state of Georgia. With over 10,500 members throughout the state, the purpose of the GSCPA is to promote the study of accountancy and applicable laws, provide continuing professional education, maintain high ethical and work standards, and provide information about accounting issues to the membership and the public. For more information, access our web site at www.gscpa.org.

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