CREATE YOUR MARKETING GROWTH PLAN

You have a marketing plan; now it’s time to put it into action. From your initial research, you can plan and budget for activities that will help you reach the type of consumer or business customer most likely to buy your products. It pays to prioritize the “low-hanging fruit” – the easy targets who are in your area or who have obvious problems your product or service can solve.

Allocate a budget – Your financial projections should include a budget for marketing. You can use this to cover the cost of placing online ads, taking part in events, or hiring specialist marketing or design services. Wherever possible, try to calculate the return on your spend by attributing sales to specific marketing activities.

Plan your contact strategy – It’s important to have a clear strategy for reaching your target market. That way you won’t waste money or effort on activities that do not deliver results. In the early stages, you should concentrate on raising awareness of your product or service and generating leads. Your strategy should also cover how you will follow up leads and convert them to customers.

Set your initial targets – Targets keep you focused on marketing and ensure you maintain momentum. The targets could be named companies or numbers of consumers you contact per week. By grouping your targets into categories based on their level of interest or readiness to buy, you can plan follow-ups or focus on hot prospects.

Create a social media plan – Building a presence on social media can raise awareness of your business in a cost-effective way. Use social media to post news on your business and to engage with customers and prospects.

Consider a launch event – A launch event can get your business off to a flying start by generating interest and awareness. Depending on your type of business, the event could take the form of a store opening, a talk by an expert at your premises, or a first day special sale.

Build measurement into the plan – Measuring progress against targets helps you integrate marketing performance with other metrics such as revenue growth. Measuring and comparing results from different types of campaign helps you identify the most effective ways to communicate with the market.