Plan, Cross-Market, Track … 1, 2, 3

For today I’m going to review the various information you’ve received over the last week and try to summarize it a bit.

Three key elements of your marketing should be:

1. Plan
2. Cross-Market
3. Track

Advertising and marketing is one of THE most undervalued and emphasized components of most small businesses.  Lack of advertising/marketing is on many Top Ten lists of why small businesses fail. Of course it goes deeper than that and there are often very valid reasons why businesses don’t sufficiently advertise. The most common being a lack of funds another common reason being a lack of know-how.

But with a bit of effort, perhaps a bit of help and mixed with a bit of creativity, every small business can improve their marketing.

Planning - I recommend starting with an outline for the year, followed by a bit more detail for the next six months and then a complete breakdown, full detail and creation of your initiatives for the next three months.  There isn’t a whole lot of point in fully creating all of your marketing for the full year simply because things will change and then you’ve wasted time and possibly money.  However, leaving each piece of marketing to the last minute is also a bad idea as it simply won’t end up being as good as it could be if more time and thought had been put into it.  Allowing a month to get setup for each three month segment should be sufficient in most cases, however, do be heads up if you are planning to use something that may take a longer production time – like imprinted promotional products.  Order and book everything you need in advance so that when it comes time for implementation, you’re ready and waiting and can make it happen with very little effort. 

Here’s an example of outlining the year:

March

– Plan and create initiatives for April, May & June

June

– Plan and create initiatives for July, August & September

September

– Plan and create initiatives for October, November & December

December

– Plan and create initiatives for January, February & March

For your initial planning, keep doing whatever you have been doing during your first planning month – something is better than nothing, you don’t want to stop everything just so you can plan.

Now list out the key events/focus related to each particular quarter that either directly or indirectly relate to your business.

For example:

April, May & June
- Spring
- Easter
- May long-weekend
- Home clean up (spring clean)
- Auto seasonal checkup, tune-up etc
- Last stretch of school

Also note any annual sales or events that are already part of your business – perhaps your business’ anniversary is in June.

By outlining this for the year you stand a much better chance of being pre-prepared for important things to come rather than scrambling at the last minute to throw something together for something as important as your anniversary.

I’ll come back to detailing your plan in a future article - I’m almost at 600 words again!  lol

Cross-Market – At very least, aim for three different marketing methods, but better yet, try for six and just remember the more the merrier. Repetition and saturation are two very important elements in all marketing initiatives.  But smart marketing takes time and research to ensure you are getting the best possible deals with the most effective application.  When you’ve picked your methods, map them out in your plan with a timeline and topic/focus for each thing you do. 

Tracking – Focus your tracking on the bigger picture to start with and put more emphasis on tracking whole campaigns rather than individual initiatives – otherwise you’ll drive yourself nuts and inevitably arrive at the conclusion that this media or that media doesn’t work and all you’ll do is thwart your own marketing efforts resulting in no marketing working because you stop doing it.  Trust in numbers, trust in your customers and give everything you try a fighting chance to prove itself.  Most importantly, if you feel a particular campaign isn’t working, question your message/focus BEFORE you question your choice of media.  At the end of the day, EVERY form of media works for advertising/marketing – gimmicks that “don’t” work fade away never to be heard from again.  But methods that have been around for centuries, or even decades, still exist for a reason.

Remember, the point of your advertising/marketing is to increase traffic/inquiries.  NOT to directly and immediately increase “sales”.  If you’re receiving more phone calls or more visitors, then your advertising IS working.  If that increase is not resulting in an increase in sales, then something else is wrong – your advertising methods are not to blame.