Start Working on Your Annual Marketing Plan Now!

2014 will be here before you know it. As a small business owner, you’re probably working on your 2014 budget. Now is a good time to work on your marketing plan for next year too.  

Where do you start when building your marketing plan for next year? Start by reviewing your 2013 Marketing Plan. As you look over your marketing efforts from this past year, ask yourself these questions:

• Did your sales objectives meet your expectations as a result of your 2013 marketing strategies?

• Did you reach the correct customers and prospects?

• Did you drive targeted audiences to your website?

You want to determine which parts of your 2013 marketing plan worked and which ones did not work. Some of your marketing campaigns may have worked well and produced decent results, while others were not effective at all. This is when you can start to make adjustments to your marketing planning for 2014.

Quite often, we find many small businesses do not have a marketing strategy in place at all. They’re flying by the seat of their pants when it comes to implementing marketing campaigns and strategies.

As a small business, you need to focus on your marketing plan. The first thing you need to do when creating your marketing plan is to understand the needs of your customers.

By researching who your customer is, you will discover their “pain points”, what areas of concern they have, and how you can successfully fix their problems. Gathering this customer research can help you create a marketing plan for next year that will grow your business.

If the thought of writing a marketing plan scares you, know that Blue Dog Marketing is here to help you. Contact us!