While a business marketing plan cannot guarantee success, it can make the difference between success and failure. Basically, a well-researched marketing plan can help turn your business into a “purple cow,” according to Seth Godin, a famous American entrepreneur, marketer, author, and public speaker.
What does it mean to be a “purple cow”? Shortly, it means being unique and remarkable in a world of homogenous competitors. But a marketing plan goes far beyond uniqueness and remarkableness, helping you succeed where others have failed. Are you still in doubt? Read the next five points to discover the reasons why your business needs a business marketing plan.
Create a solid marketing strategy.
Your brand and reputation are the foundation of your business. But building a great brand and good reputation is impossible if you don’t know who your customers are, what they want, what your competition does to meet and exceed their expectations, and how to make prospects understand that your products and services are better than those offered by your competitors. Fortunately, the development of a marketing plan will require you to focus on all these aspects and many other details critical to business success.
Take a proactive approach to change.
The business environment is changing constantly and rapidly. One way to ease transition difficulties, overcome challenges, and grab new opportunities is to develop a comprehensive and coherent business marketing plan. Once you have a strategic marketing plan in place, you can identify new trends, avoid potential threats, and capitalize on future opportunities. Additionally, a marketing plan encourages brainstorming, enabling your organization to discover and implement proven theoretical business models and even map out new strategies to manage change. For instance, working with your team to create a marketing plan could help you find new ways to fine-tune your business practices and organizational climate to better respond to your customers’ needs.
Plan for growth.
When it comes to business, what goes up mustn’t come down; at least, not if you have a consistent marketing plan. As you develop your plan, you’ll identify all the factors affecting your business along with the resources your organization needs to grow. Specifically, you’ll discover the marketing tools (e.g. email marketing, social media, website, etc.) you could use to reach prospects and customers regardless of where they are in your sales funnel; set measurable goals that could help you understand how your products and services meet your customers’ needs; identify your competitors, their strengths and weaknesses; and last but not least, figure out what you need to do to set your business aside from the competition.
Control your business.
A comprehensive marketing plan will give you complete control over your business. For instance, you could use the marketing plan to set goals, milestones, targets, and even budgets. In addition, you can identify new ways to get and allocate resources, motivate your team, promote teamwork, improve productivity, increase performance, and boost marketing efforts for better results.
Get a more balanced view.
A business marketing plan provides an overview of your strengths, weaknesses, and potential risks relating to your product and service lines, markets, target audience, sales, etc. Though you may already know much of this information, the only way to get a balanced, meaningful view of your business activities is to have a marketing plan that includes all this information along with a relevant to-do list.
To find out more about how to create a “game plan” for your business, we invite you to schedule a consultation with our marketing professionals specializing in web design, social media, SEO, and other digital advertising areas.
