Eleanor Roosevelt said, “It takes as much energy to wish as it does to plan.”

One of the most frequent mistakes small- and mid-sized businesses make is not developing an annual marketing plan.

Marketing planning can be fun and creative—at least it is to me, but to most I think it’s seen as a chore—and that’s a shame because a plan is one of the most valuable marketing tools that successful, disciplined businesses use to focus their budget and track their return on investment.

A marketing plan details the goals for the business overall and how those goals are going to be accomplished through marketing and sales activities.

Marketing planning is a process, and the end result is a written set of objectives, messaging, defined target audience segments, strategies, tactics and a calendar.  A good plan should also include the metrics that will be used to measure success.  A budget is often helpful too.

A marketing plan doesn’t need to contain paragraphs of narrative—a bullet point format is better because it’s faster to complete and easier to read for ongoing use.  It’s more important to go through the strategic development process, using critical thinking to analyze the marketplace and your business’s position in it than it is to write cleverly crafted prose.

To receive a copy of our very basic marketing plan outline, which contains examples and explanations to help customize a plan for your business, please send me a message.

And, if your business would like assistance from the experts at N+A to consult with you and personally guide you through the process, we would be glad to help you define your objectives and strategies, then choose the most effective and efficient tactics to accomplish your goals. Please feel welcome to reach out to me or Vickie.

Plan on!

We’ve all tightened our belts a bit.  Maybe you’ve cut out a Starbucks or two, enjoy dinner at home instead of going out, think this year’s vacation might be a wonderful stay-cation.  More and more we want our dollars to go farther.  We want to feel good about how we spend and the return.

In marketing, advertising is considered an investment. Unfortunately that’s not a universally accepted notion outside the marketing profession. An advertising budget is often the first to be cut when cuts need to happen.  I’m a realist, so understand a budget is what helps keep a business solvent.  Rather than cutting just for the sake of cutting, I recommend maximizing dollars by making the medium nuances work for you.

In a nut shell, and focusing specifically on television and radio advertising, here are my top eight strategy beliefs:

I use several other strategies when I develop a media plan; however what rises to the top as most important will vary depending on the business and identified target audience.  If you have questions about the strategies that are best for your business, call me, and I’ll help you create a “reality-based” plan that eliminates the “drama” of uncertainty.