A key ingredient in growing your business is developing a strategic marketing plan.

Developing a strategic marketing plan is one of the most important steps a company takes to reach business goals and attain long-term growth and success, yet it is many times ignored.

An effective marketing plan supports a company’s overall business goals and objectives, with detailed marketing strategies and tactics answering the essential questions of Who? Why? What? Where? When? How? and How Much?

Who? Who is the “situation analysis” of your specific marketplace, including company background, products and/or services and the company’s mission. This also identifies key prospects by distinct market segments (Who are they? How many? Where are they located? What are their needs and values? What are their buying motives? etc.) Who also addresses marketplace issues such as: Who are your competitors? What are their strengths and weaknesses in comparison to your company? What trends, issues and opportunities exist in the marketplace, and what strategic options are available in which to benefit from them.

Why? Why focuses on your company’s specific goals and objectives, and what role marketing will play in achieving them. The best goals are S.M.A.R.T. (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, with a Timeline for achieving them.)

What? What is the “game plan” through which marketing objectives are achieved. This determines the best marketing strategies to be used. The key aspect here is company positioning: the key benefit or promise your firm delivers; how your company is currently perceived by customers, and how it should be perceived; and how your company differentiates itself from competitors. It also forms the basis of the creative sales message that will be the foundation of your marketing.

When? When is the marketing timeline: the chronology and deadlines for meeting each task, by what date, and by whom.

How? How is the actual implementation or action plan. It specifies which marketing tools, tactics and media to use, along with timing and weight. This is where most creative work is done: advertising created, news releases distributed, brochures developed, trade shows attended, digital media created, etc.

How Much? How much refers to the budget that is necessary to fully implement your market program, and how to best allocate funds for each tactic.

Benefits of a strategic marketing plan:

• Encourages a thorough review of all factors that impact success for your business, and brings to light opportunities and pitfalls often overlooked by “winging it.”
• Provides a powerful direction and long-range view to minimize impulsive and costly decisions.
• Stimulates optimum use of marketing budget and re­sources.
• Provides an accurate market-driven foundation on which to build operating plans.
• Builds consensus and support with internal staff and departments.
• Fosters coordination and consolidation of efforts; maximizes efficiency and effectiveness.
• Empowers team members to take action appropriate and consistent with overall company goals.
• Facilitates an objective evaluation of past actions and results; fosters increased utilization of strengths, avoids repetition of mistakes, and indicates where improvement is necessary.
• Clearly delineates goals, facilitates measurement, course corrections when necessary, and recognition of superior performance.

Deirdre N. McCloskey, author of Bourgeois Dignity

In these tough economic times there has been much discussion of how to get the economy moving again: TARP, QE2, Keynesian Economics versus Supply Side Economics. Historically, however, Government is not what drives economic growth – innovation driven by intrepid entrepreneurship is the real engine.

National Review columnist Rich Lowry recently wrote an excellent article on this subject based on the book Bourgeois Dignity by Deirdre N. McCloskey, in which, she writes,

“In 1800 the average human consumed and expected her children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren to go on consuming a mere $3 a day. With their $3 a day the average denizen of the earth got a few pounds of potatoes, a little milk, an occasional scrap of meat.” The only people who enjoy more that a $3 a day existences were the few Lords and Earls of nobility, or the Bishops and Cardinals of the church – it had been this way for all of recorded history – in short, “all the world was Bangladesh.”

Literacy and life expectancy are rising – liberty is spreading
and tyranny is retreating

National Review columnist Rich Lowry expands on this excellent observation. “Then something happened that changed everything and even though the world has more than 6.5 billion more people than it did two centuries ago, starvation worldwide is at an all-time low and falling – literacy and life expectancy are at all-time highs, and rising – liberty is spreading and tyranny is retreating.

How did this happen? According to author Deidre McCloskey and expounded by Lowry, it wasn’t foreign trade (too small), it wasn’t imperialism (it didn’t enrich the ruled countries), it wasn’t the establishment of property rights (they had existed before), and it wasn’t the Protestant work ethic (hard work wasn’t new).

It was simply a new attitude toward wealth and its creation. McCloskey calls it the “Bourgeois Revaluation.” Her basic argument is that the world developed a new respect for the bourgeoisie – the creators of wealth. It afforded the shopkeeper the dignity that he had always been denied because he wasn’t a lord, a military officer, or a priest.

It began roughly 200 years ago in Holland and Britain. Combining this new dignity with liberty led to the amazing run-up in the world’s wealth over the last two centuries in contrast to what had been relative stasis throughout the rest of human history.
Innovation is the driver of wealth – the ceaseless search for
the new, the better, the cheaper.

In McCloskey’s view, many attribute this success to “capitalism,” but she argues the word is insufficient, because the mere accumulation of capital is not enough to bring about prosperity. Many kings and queens accumulated tremendous wealth, but there was no rising prosperity for their subjects, and no economic miracle ensued.

It’s innovation that’s the driver of wealth, entrepreneurial “alertness,” the ceaseless search for the new, the better, the cheaper.

While our nation struggles with 9.8 percent unemployment and the Congress and President posture to special interests that pursue anti-innovation trade and regulatory policies to protect the status-quo, Lowry and McCloskey reason that the basic recipe for economic recovery is simple, if not necessarily easy:

Celebrate, reward, and create the conditions
for entrepreneurial innovation.

You Received Some Great PR, Now What? How to Make the Most of Your Public Relations

Image savvy businesses work very hard and sometimes pay a lot of money to get positive press. However, after you’ve a great story in the media, look for ways to leverage the coverage to maximize its benefit.

I love to sail and was once featured in the Profits & Passions section of the Westchester County Business Journal. It was a great opportunity to build awareness of my business through my hobby – but I didn’t let it stop there.

Start Spreading The News

I added a synopsis of the article to my email newsletter and sent it to everyone in my email database: friends, colleagues, clients, vendors.

You would be amazed at the conversations it sparked, and the connections that ensued. That’s just one way to leverage your press. Here are some other ideas to get the most out of your PR coverage:

1. Create a sell-sheet to mail to your prospects and customers.
2. Put a copy of your press coverage and any photos on your website.
3. Refer to the story in your blogs and on social media sites. Put links to the story on your website.
4. Create a “Media & Press” section in your website. Include links to newspapers, TV, or radio stations in your market or industry. Include photographs, videos and podcasts as well.

Recycle and Refresh!

Don’t be afraid to recycle your press coverage; the more your name is out there, the more apt it is to be fresh in the minds of prospective clients, vendors, and future employees.

The bottom line is, don’t let the public relations end with the story. Use it again and again in any number of ways to get the word out on your business, product, service or event. Click here to view PDF of Profits & Passion article.