Creating a successful marketing strategy and looking for opportunities to sell products and services as more effective contact with current and future customers is demanding. If you’re wondering if there are ways to make your marketing policy development more effective, consider the following:
• Have you formed an overall picture of your customers and identified the best prospects based on this picture?
• Is your customer information scattered in e-mail messages, documents, and databases?
• Do you need specialized marketing tools like a text to speech software but do not yet have a professional printer?
• Do your salespeople apply procedures to track sales opportunities?
The following information highlights critical marketing and sales practices that can help you develop a strategic marketing plan and sales processes to suit your business needs.
Create a marketing plan
A suitable marketing plan can shape the framework for communicating with your existing customers and guide you in attracting new customers. It can also help you determine the categories of customers you should target, how to approach them, and how to track results, so you know what is necessary to grow your business.
If you don’t have a marketing plan, you shouldn’t worry about creating it simple enough. A successful marketing plan doesn’t have to be complex or large, but it should contain enough information to help you create, direct, and coordinate your marketing policy.
To help you with this process, we have identified five steps you should take. These steps include collecting information before writing the marketing plan and updating the project after it is created.
When describing the process, we use a new travel company as an example, with a staff of 25, called Margie’s Travel.
Step 1: Place your products or services
To get started, remember the four key marketing elements: product, price, promotion, and placement. Your goal is to place the right product or service at the disposal of the right customers, at the right price, and at the right time and place. An excellent way to get started is to answer some basic questions about your business.
Step 2: Request the participation of trusted consultants
To make sure you have a clear understanding of your business, you need to collect information from everyone around you. Set up meetings with trusted friends, staff, consultants, and peer-to-peer businesses and request their participation for the following:
Step 3: Request customer and future customer participation
To successfully promote to customers, you’ll need to learn their view of your product, pricing, brand, or service—and generally anything related to your business. Ask some of your current and future customers to tell you what they think about your business, products, and services, the likelihood of buying your products as well as competitors.
Step 4: Write your plan
Now that you have feedback and a border, you can write your marketing plan. Start by summarizing your market position and goals and determine what you expect to achieve within a predetermined period. A standard marketing plan can be organized as follows:
