Way to Create A Written Marketing Plan
How To Create A Written Marketing Plan To Build Your Business
Picture this: You’re at the airport, walking down the jetway as you board your plane. As you walk onto the plane, the pilot greets you: “Hey, welcome on board! I’m really glad you’re here. I don’t actually have a flight plan and I’m not really sure where we’re going. But sit down, make yourself comfortable, and enjoy the flight!”
How would you respond? I’d get off the plane as quickly as I could, and I bet that you would too. That’s why it’s surprising how many entrepreneurs are operating their business without a plan. They don’t have a business plan and they don’t have a marketing plan, and so they’re flying blind. They’re drifting in the wind instead of moving purposefully toward their destination of choice.
That’s the reality for too many business owners today. And here’s what it looks like, in terms of day-to-day reality:
• Unpredictable cash flow.
• “Boom and bust” production cycles: One month, they don’t have any customers so they panic and start marketing. Then, the next month they’re so busy doing the work they’ve accumulated that there’s no time for marketing. So the next month there are no customers, and the cycle begins again.
• Little control over the types of clients and customers the business serves because they have to accept whoever walks in the door that day.
• No ability to project growth, which makes it difficult to know when to hire staff, invest in new equipment or move into a new office space.
General uncertainty and stress over where the next customer or client is going to come from.
Those are some of the most common side effects of operating without a marketing plan. The cure: Create a written marketing plan.
The really good news is that creating your marketing plan doesn’t have to be a scary, time-consuming process. The goal is to create a short, practical, action-oriented roadmap for your business and your marketing — not a 50-page “plan” that just ends up gathering dust in a drawer somewhere.
