Sales in small business are usually all that keeps the lifeblood of the entire set up going and hence it’s no big deal to conclude that the marketing plans are nearly the soul of every business strategy making. When the strategy goes wrong – everything goes wrong and when the real damage has been made, there is hardly any ‘good fix’ available for the solution to make a comeback. Though it may seem to be a little boring to some entrepreneurs but they are required to invest some portion of their quality time to develop a market plan that is not just operative but also recession proof.
Marketing plans should be made to ensure business success in the long run but there are various factors that might affect the entire setup and one of them is recession. However, when you know you have taken time to get back to the basics and walked on the path you were expected to, even recession fails to hamper your business productivity. Curious to know what they are? Very quickly, we will tell you about the pointers you should keep in mind while designing your small business marketing plan that would also help you boost your small business profits.
So who is your target market?
This is one of the concerns that may be sounding obviously noticeable but unfortunately not many prefer to have an eye for detail on this one. If you are not thinking on this one at an early stage, you are probably going to spend a lot of your time and energy sometime soon. You are wasting a lot of your budget, time and effort when you are not figuring out your target market. Here are a few more pointers that can help you with this
- It is always better to design immensely great and effective marketing campaigns which are also designed keeping in mind the much smaller audience than targeting wider audience poorly
- It is not always possible to offer and be everything for every group or market; it is rather advisable to focus entirely on a smaller section that is your target audience and work in that direction
- Look for the other businesses in the same sector and find out how and what they are marketing and to whom. You can also join their online communities and learn a few things from them but don’t plainly imitate
How are you going to reach your prospects?
Now when you have explored your target audience, the next obvious concern in line should be – how you are going to get your message delivered to them. A lot of entrepreneurs feel that keeping their active feet on social networking websites is going to serve the purpose completely – this is a prevailing myth! You can choose to focus on your local market first, particularly when you are a local small business. Your presence in some much notable industry trade show should do the needful. A good telecommunication campaign should also be capable of serving the purpose.
You will actually require a good mix of the marketing channels in order to reach to your target market rather than chasing every ‘looks to be promising’ networking channel without identifying your goals.
Are you going to keep your marketing strategy ‘agile’?
This is going to be one of the toughest calls – full of challenges. It is extremely important for you to ensure that your business has adopted agile marketing approach to the strategy in place. Since the modern and the digital marketplace are well known to change at the blink of an eye, it becomes important to position your business in a way such that it is open to marketing strategies. This will ensure that your business remains recession proof which means adaptability is the key.
Make sure that you analyse and also measure your marketing strategy from time to time rather than looking through it after months. Don’t forget that it is equally important to have a good deal of flexibility in your small business marketing plan. This would also help you in smartly adapting to the changing customer requirements and the shifting markets. This would further ensure that your small business can not only generate the desirable leads but is also capable of bringing on the new prospects even during the most unpredictable times! Face the recession and challenge the market with your recession proof strategy and by now you know that it’s possible!
About the Author: Colin Boykins is a passionate blogger and social media addict. He is currently associated with a UK based supplier of platform trucks – Flatbed-Truck.co.uk.
