Where Marketing Plans Go Bad - 5 Marketing Plan Mistakes to Avoid

<span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; COLOR: #1d1d1d; FONT-FAMILY: 'Trebuchet MS'; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA"> As we close in on the end of the year, it’s time to pull out the old marketing plan to give it a refresh for 2009. To help with that review, or if you haven’t ever put one together, here are a few problems you’ll want to make sure you’re avoiding. (And for a good list of what every plan should include, take a look back at the January 8, 2008 Grey Matter – <a href="http://www.lbrbmarketing.com/010808%20marketing%20plan.html">The Essentials of a Great Marketing Plan</a>.) Death by Data One of the biggest contributors to the death of a marketing plan is too much data. Now, don’t get me wrong, numbers are great. It’s very important for you to lay out the specifics of your market and competition. But I’ve seen marketing plans that present scores of pages that detail all the minutiae relating to the business and its market, then fall way too short in laying out goals, strategy and tactics. You need to know your basic demographics, both customer and competition. Collect that information, plug it in and move on. Your marketing plan is supposed to present an action plan. That is, what you’re going to do to stimulate sales (read grow business and profits), grow your brand and proactively pursue your target customer. If you’ve got existing customers and have collected any type of data in them, use that. You should also collect qualitative feedback from them to help you nail down your core value proposition and to ensure that you’re providing the goods. Many people get sucked in to a black hole when searching for market data online. There are an infinite number of web sites providing data on any topic. Don’t let yourself get lost in the mountain of numbers. For smaller businesses, data should only take up about 2, maybe 3 pages, unless you’re launching a completely new, revolutionary, ground-breaking product or service. No Big Picture Strategy Too many marketing plans get bogged down in numbers, as stated above, or jump directly into the tactics – i.e. direct and email campaigns, outdoor advertising, etc. The problem is they don’t clearly state any big picture strategic objectives. Why do direct mail? Why exhibit at that trade show? If you don’t have a big picture outcome laid out, you’re running the risk of wasting a lot of cash and time. Here’s an example of a big picture objective:             Grow sales revenue by 10% in Tigard. When you have that objective figured out, you can plug in the tactical aspects much easier. You’ll also be able to tie the objective and tactics to clearly defined financials. Here’s what some tactics might look like for this objective: <ol> <li> Create 6 piece direct mail campaign targeting b2b prospects along the Pacific Highway <li> 12 month advertising campaign in the Tigard Times <li> Join the Tigard Chamber of Commerce</li></ol> As you can see, when you’ve got a clearly defined strategic objective, defining the tactics to achieve it becomes much easier. A couple more things about big picture strategy… Set achievable goals. As a business owner, you have big goals in mind. Break them down into smaller, well defined goals. For instance, in the example above, if you’re a business that serves clients throughout Washington County, growing your business by 10% is a very large goal. The list of tactics you can use to achieve that goal is virtually endless. By breaking it down to increasing sales revenue from Tigard by 10% you’ve got much more focus on what specific tactics and targets you’re aiming for. And finally, keep your list of big picture strategic goals limited. This is especially important if you’re a one or two person business. By attempting to achieve too much, you can very quickly spread yourself too thin. As a wise person once said, ‘slow and steady wins the day.’ The Devil’s Advocate Plays No Role OK, so you’ve written your marketing plan and it feels really good. But has anyone, other than you, given it a read? Take the time to run your plan past someone else before you commit to it. This can be a colleague, a spouse or significant other, or your employees (this is a great group to get feedback from, plus you’ll get their buy in). I’m not saying you need to open the plan up to a committee. That can cause issues all by itself. The goal with this review is to ask the reviewer to be a “Devil’s Advocate.” The person or people you ask to review your plan should do it with an eye toward asking questions and providing perspective that you hadn’t thought of. Be clear with the reviewers that this is the type of feedback you’re looking for. You’re not looking for them to provide a list of typos or to completely re-write your plan. Ask them if your market is well defined, if your big picture objectives are clear and if your tactics appear to support them; and if your financial metrics seem rational. The Trail of Crumbs Doesn’t Lead Back to the Business Plan If you’re marketing plan isn’t connected to the core values, goals and objectives set forth in your business plan, you won’t achieve the outcomes you hope for. If you don’t have a business plan in place – get one. (Vickie Olson of <a href="http://www.beavertonbusiness.com/L/business-plans-laplanette.html">laPLANette</a> specializes in helping companies create and implement business plans that work – you can reach her at 503-312-4810.) Every good marketing plan includes a budget section, where you outline the various initiatives and activities you’re going to pursue and their respective projected investment. This budget also gets plugged into your business plan. No Dollar Metrics Many marketing plans will include demographics and a budget section. What they often miss are the ‘dollar’ metrics. Now, there are a lot of people who are mesmerized by the idea of the “marketing dashboard” concept. I’m not one of them. Don’t get me wrong. I believe your marketing should be producing results. But I’ve been in marketing for a lot of years and I can tell you that when it comes to marketing there’s a whole lot more that can’t be measured than can. The only thing I can honestly say doesn’t produce results is doing nothing. There are many complicated formulae for measuring marketing effectiveness. The problem is that every business is different and has unique goals. It’s difficult to apply a canned, complex equation to most businesses, particularly service businesses where you don’t have the benefit of using inventory as a part of the equation. I’m a believer in simpler is better. Know the value of a customer (see <a href="http://www.lbrbmarketing.com/010808%20marketing%20plan.html">The Essentials of a Great Marketing Plan</a> for details on how to measure customer value) over a lifetime, or more simply put, what each customer represents in revenue. Relate that to your marketing expense and you’ll have a pretty good measure of success. Also, don’t discount the customers you already have. Your marketing dollars do go a long way toward retaining them, even though you are deliberately targeting new customers. 2008-10-27T17:03:38Z

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where-marketing-plans-go-bad-5-marketing-plan-mistakes-to-avoid

2008-10-31T14:34:06Z

Learn about the most common mistakes business owners make in their Marketing plans.

Where Marketing Plans Go Bad - 5 Marketing Plan Mistakes to Avoid

2009-02-24T09:46:48Z