Why is Strategic Planning So Important in Marketing?
Why is Strategic Planning So Important in Marketing?
Why is Strategic Planning So Important in Marketing?
By Jeremiah Tyson
As a business owner or manager you must realize that to bring in the customers you will need to market your products/services correctly. There are so many different methods you can use to get your name out there, but how do you know which ones to use and how to use them and achieve the best results? You can choose to hire marketing companies to do your marketing for you, or you can learn how to successfully market for yourself. This can save you a lot of money, though it will take more time and effort. But the knowledge is universal, if you ever sell your business or move to a different company, your marketing skills follow you and can be quite an asset to you.
Lay out a plan for yourself. Your marketing efforts will fail if you do not have a set plan that is executed precisely. Do all of your research before putting anything into action.
Your strategic marketing plan needs to follow the 80:20 rule. To get the maximum impact, your marketing plan must be clear, concise and simple. It needs to concentrate on the 20 percent of products/services, and on the 20 percent of customers, which will account for 80 percent of the volume and 80 percent of the profit.
Decide and Target your niche market
This is the absolute most important step in setting up your strategic marketing plan. While methods of mass marketing may reach a lot of people, unless you are offering something that the masses need/want, you should have a more precise market targeted. You want to target your marketing towards the people who are already looking for exactly what it is that you have to offer.
Decide what methods of marketing you want to use
After figuring out your niche market, you need to decide how you want to reach them. This will depend mostly on what product/service you are offering and what demographic you will be targeting. Television and radio would be examples of mass marketing methods that you could use to reach out to everyone. These will cost you A LOT of money, and will give you traffic, but general interest traffic. Whereas methods such as internet advertisements may cost you less and give you more niche specific interest.
When will you put into effect each marketing method?
Depending on what your product or service is, you may not want to launch all of your marketing methods subsequently. You may want to stagger some depending on the success of others. Say for instance you are an aspiring musician wanting to get radio time. You may want to try launching a myspace music page. You can easily gain the interest and support of thousands of people in a minimal amount of time for little to no cost. After you have established a good amount of people that are interested in you, you could launch your music on the radio.
Establish and Split Test
Even with strategic planning not all of your marketing will be a success. Failure is a part of business, as long as you don't give up you will prosper. So as you market yourself, split test multiple types of the same marketing methods. whether its television commercials or post cards, try two, pick the one that gives you the best results and then test it against another. Keep doing this for the entirety of your business life. Your marketing will only improve and bring more business.
Rinse and Repeat
The importance of being repetitive and consistent cannot be stressed enough. Once you have a plan, execute it over and over again constantly tweaking it in little ways to make it better.
A formal st marketing plan is essential in that it provides an clear reference point for activities throughout the planning process.
So why is strategic planning so important in marketing? Things can be easily overlooked or forgotten if everything is not mapped out exactly. If you want more information on how to become a successful marketer and learn how to grow your business come check out my website.
When we talk about marketing on the web, it is important to note that we still use the same models and methods as the real (off line) world.
The concept of marketing is at its essence one of the simplest ideas not to mention one of the most important marketing philosophies. The very core of this concept is customer satisfaction which states that the organization (the business) should always look to satisfying the customer's wants, the customer's needs while at the same time meeting the company's goal which is to create a profit. The major credo for this concept is "The Customer Rules". As simple as this is sounding, it helps to have an understanding how marketing has evolved through the centuries and how we can correlate this to marketing on the net.
There have been three basic philosophies/concepts over the centuries and they are "product", "selling" and "marketing". Each of these philosophies has had a particular time in its history when it was dominant, but the concepts did not die out, they instead evolved and merged with the other philosophies and are still actively used today by companies large and small.
Product philosophy was dominant prior to the industrial revolution (late 1800's- 1920's). To explain product philosophy we could use this definition "The Company (business) knows its product better than anyone". This did not lead to poor sales as some might think due mostly to the time period and the level of the technology of that time. Most products or goods were made by hand, the producing of the goods was slow and therefore the demand could not be met in most cases. The importance at that time was for a business was that very little marketing was required. It is fair to say that "Business was the king". The down side was that for the very same reasons of hand made and lack of technology, the demand always exceeded the supply. It is no wonder then a company did not have to consult with a customer on designing or producing their goods
The selling Philosophy was the shortest in dominance of the three philosophies. It became the leading concept around the 1930's to around the 1950's. The basic premise was that any business could sell any product or service it wanted.
The reason for the selling philosophy was the ever-rising number of goods available after the Industrial Revolution. Businesses became progressively more efficient in production, which increased the volume of goods. With the increased supply, competition also entered the picture. These two events eventually led to the end of product shortages and the creation of surpluses. It was because of the surpluses that companies turned to the use of advertising and personal selling to reduce their stocks and to sell their products. The selling philosophy also made it so that part of the business could keep its focus on the product through the product philosophy.
The main reason that the selling philosophy did not last long was that even though it was assumed that a well trained and motivated force could sell any product, it was easier to sell a product a customer wanted. When companies realized this fact, the selling philosophy gave way to the concept of marketing.
Now we come to the concept of marketing. The marketing philosophy simply says that a company should look to meeting the customer's needs and wants at the same time as meeting its goals. By understanding the needs of the customers, then designing the product for them, sales and profits are far more likely to occur. Some might argue
those customers can't always tell what they want, but through a variety of means such as surveys, focus groups etc. the marketing philosophy has been very successful and is considered a very beneficial marketing concept.
In the last year or so a new philosophy has been coming forward, which is a combination of all the concepts, but is leading the way to how Internet marketing is evolving.
Enter the world of relationship marketing using blogs as a way to create a presence. Relationship marketing can be defined as "- Marketing with the conscious aim to develop and manage long-term and/or trusting relationships with customers, distributors, suppliers, or other parties in the marketing environment. While big companies still have a big control over many of the markets, the everyday person can now learn how to use this form of relationship marketing to create a nice income on line, reminiscent of the "mom and pop" stores of the 50's.
"A good title is a work of a genius!" - E. Haldeman-Julius
E. Haldeman-Julius single-handedly sold over 100,000,000 (One Hundred Million) Books by only describing each book by its "Title Only."
Haldeman-Julius used to sell little blue books at $.05 each back in the late 1800's and early 1900's.
If a particular book didn't hit its quota of 10,000 sold a year, for a couple consecutive years, it would go to what he called the hospital. That is where he would analyze the book to see if he could improve the title to increase the sales and revive the book.
He did this with several books, even classics, and often increased sales drastically. Here are a few examples:
"The Fleece Of Gold" in 1925 only sold 6000 copies but in 1926 with the new title of "The Quest for a Blond Mistress" sold a whopping 50,000. "The Mystery of the Iron Mask" at 11,000 vs. "The Mystery of the Man in the Iron Mask" sold 30,000 copies. "The King Enjoys Himself" at 8,000 sold vs. "The Lustful King Enjoys Himself! Snatched From The Grave!" sold 38,000 copies.
This is only a few examples of the hundreds of books that he was able to increase sales with by improving the title.
Now this does not only apply to books. This applies to all kinds of things, even marketing life insurance.
Titles to Express a Message
Having the right title can serve you, and your life insurance business well. A company's name for example. Like Budget Rent-A-Car. The name alone conveys a message and appeals to a certain demographic.
Hertz and Avis have to do much more advertising to convey their marketing message. There are plenty of places to get your oil changed in your car quickly...but Jiffy Lube instantly comes to mind when I glance down at the odometer and realize that I'm over due for an oil change myself.
Some titles brilliantly convey a much desired promise of speed and ease. Minute Maid Lemonade Or Minute Rice Or Easy Mac.
Some titles convey superiority. The Ultimate Fighting Championship.
Other titles convey a trustworthy and desirable service, like Certified Retirement Planners, CRP.
Consider the Purpose of the Title
If you ever intend to put a title on anything: like a book, service, product, business or whatever...consider its purpose. Think about the message you want it to convey. A title is no less than a headline. It is often your first and last chance to lore in new prospects and clients. Take full advantage of the opportunity to stand out and make a good first impression.
Dean Cipriano is the founder and president of Insurance Selling Systems. Dean is a life lead generation expert and has helped thousands of agents get more life insurance leads then they ever though possible. Dean offers all life insurance agents a free report to review his system.
Appropriate Brochure Format For Your Specific Industry
Appropriate Brochure Format For Your Specific Industry
By Janice Jenkins
There are different brochure formats that are effective for different industries. Each format will usually require a different kind of brochure printing and maybe even special kinds of designs. If you want to know what is the correct brochure printing format to use in your business, let me tell you what formats certain industries use in terms of color brochures.
Brochures for sales.
Sales brochures are a classic staple for brochure printing. If you are into sales, you should probably already have a sales brochure of your own. If not, then it is time to print some. Sales brochures usually have lots of images of the products you want to advertise, along with the specific details about it. This is perfect if you are selling things like gadgets, machinery and other products that need some technical descriptions and information on it. So if you need to give a customer specific and detailed information about your products, you may want to produce some sales brochures.
Brochures for public relations.
Now, if public relations are more your forte, then a PR brochure is perfect to uplift that business image and get people to like your company. PR brochures are much like sales brochures, but they just advertise a company more than a product. Not only must you print the specific details of a company in a PR brochure, you must also give out the corporate philosophy, the vision of the company and maybe even some of its outreach programs and awards. Texts and images must come together to give a great impression about the business.
Brochures for customer applications.
If you are a business that requires customers to apply for an account, such as a bank or other service industry, then the perfect brochure for that are form brochures. Form brochures are simple brochures that also advertise a certain product or service. The difference here is that it has already an application form written on it. In this way, people can simultaneously read what the product is all about (such as a new savings account scheme) and then start to apply for it with the same brochure letter. This makes the whole process more streamlined and you save a lot of money printing since you do not have to print separate application forms.
Brochures for job recruitment.
Form brochures can also work if your business needs people, or if you are in the headhunting (recruitment) business. You can basically advertise the jobs that you want filled using a brochure, and maybe even add some unique backgrounds about the company that people will be applying for. Then on the same brochure, they can actually already fill out an employment application quickly because it is a form brochure. This helps you quicken the recruitment process and saves you some money printing application forms and PR brochures for employment.
Brochures for information dissemination and awareness.
Finally, if you are into the business of information dissemination and awareness, or you just need to spread the word of something about your company or products (such as a new manufacturing process) then brochures can help you out if you want them to. Information brochures are another classic staple in brochure printing, and most can easily make these themselves at home. These kinds of color brochures use mostly text to communicate with readers with only a sprinkling of images.
Hopefully you have found a nice brochure type that your business might be able to utilize by using the list above.
For comments and inquiries about the article visit: Brochure Printing
Janice Jenkins is a writer for a marketing company in Chicago, IL. Mostly into marketing research, Janice started writing articles early 2007 to impart her knowledge to individuals new to the marketing industry.
