Marketing Plans for Marketing to Businesses

Your biggest challenge, as it is for many is may be to “find qualified leads” and “attract prospects who want what we do.”

What’s holding you back?

For some marketers and small businesspeople it’s squeezing time from your day, as you’re caught in a juggling act between tasks and lead generation does not get the  focus it should. For others, it’s not having a course of action that’s well mapped out. That leads to prospecting and lead generation that’s slapdash and unpredictable.

This example of a Winning Marketing Plan provides a solution.

It hands you a direct path to more appointments and more clients. And that saves your precious time. You’ll be able to zero in on proven marketing tools that will be most effective for your unique organization and offerings.

7 Simple Steps: Client-Attraction Sample Marketing Plan

Business Marketing Plan Step 1 - State Your Desired Outcome

It may be to add 8 new A clients in 6 months; it could be to gain $10 million in sales in 10 months; it could be to become the premier family-owned businesses in the Atlanta region within the next year.

Just be sure you spell out your purpose in specific detail.

Business Marketing Plan Step 2 – Understand Your Target Market

We start with the “Who” for a strategic reason. The “Who” refers to your Ideal Prospects. Draw a sharp portrait of your Ideal Target Market with concrete details

How detailed?

You really want to grasp exactly what they want from you.

To do that you must be able to fill in blanks such as:

Their suffocating, won’t-let-go fears are __________

The roaring volcano of a problem that keeps them up at night is _____________

Their hopes, desires, and dreams are ______________

They live here __________________

The associations they belong to are __________________

There are additional vital questions that will fortify your marketing plan, but the point is NOT to build your plan on a shaky, wavering foundation.

Business Marketing Plan Step 3 – Differentiate Your Business To Leave The Pack Behind

We call differentiation your Unique Strategic Positioning. It starts with vital questions like these:

What are the strengths of our product or service?

How do we stand out as a business?

Where is my passion?

Then, you are ready to answer this one overriding question: How can I gain dramatic differentiation over everyone else in my field?

Business Marketing Plan Step 4 – Pack Your Plan With Proof

Proof is paramount.

You’ll need a superabundance of Credibility Builders and Believability Boosters to win over your skeptical prospects. People are more suspicious than ever. And this step is one that’s missing from most business marketing plans.

It’s a fact that most marketing plans fail to use one of the most powerful points of proof - testimonials.

We had the chance to brainstorm all our best proof-building ideas, and we came away with 14 ones that most marketers and small business people are not taking advantage of.

Business Marketing Plan Step 5 – Choose Your Marketing Tools

Now you’re ready to select the tactics that will be effective in accomplishing your purpose.

Create a list of possible marketing methods that seem to have potential for you. The more you know about yourself, your clients, and your ideal prospects the easier this step will be.

From a long list select your priorities . . . your marketing tools.

Warning: We said marketing tools. That's "tools" in the plural. Relying on one, and only one, marketing method is reckless and foolhardy.

The best marketing plan sets you up to engage in a sequence of contacts with various media over time. One marketing tool reinforces the other for extra marketing oomph.

A Word About Your Budget: It’s vital to invest time, money, and people into marketing. But how much? Two numbers are important in this decision: the cost to bring in a client and the lifetime value of your clients.

Know those figures and you’ll know how much you can afford to invest in marketing.

Business Marketing Plan Step 6 – Generate A Marketing Action Guide

In the Action Guide you fill in the who, what, when, where, and how of your marketing plan. One contact is never enough in the real world of distractions, clutter, and overload. Here’s where you set out your marketing sequence in full detail.

Don’t let your action guide disappear in the clamor of day-to-day business. Instead, put it where you can go face to face with it daily.

Business Marketing Plan Step 7 – Assess Your Results and Improve Your Plan

Keep a record of where each prospect and every client came from. Then, you’ll know with certainty how well each marketing tool is performing.

Lily Tomlin, the actress, said,
“The road to success is always under construction.”

At the end of your 6 month or 8 month plan, start over again. Pursue with all your might what is working. Drop the duds, and add a new twist or a new marketing tool to your mix.

For more information about developing your marketing plan we invite you to contact Bob Hanson here