In this video marketing tip you will discover the most important ingredients to creating your marketing strategy. Having a marketing plan is crucial for any small business to succeed. The good news is that it doesn’t have to be that complicated!
The 7 ingredients we look at are:
– Your business vision, mission and values
– Your ideal client
– Research your competitors
– Look at your products and services
– Your unique selling proposition
– Your marketing strategies
– Your financial goals
Have you planned your marketing strategies yet? Please share your thoughts below.
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Christo: What’s up? What are you up to today?
Franziska: Uhm, just doing my marketing plan. Just some planning for my business.
Christo: Marketing plan.
Franziska: Yeah.
Christo: Cool. That’s pretty cool.
Franziska: Yeah.
Christo: Why are you doing that?
Franziska: Well, you know, I don’t know. Somebody said that it’s good to plan in your business. And so, you know, I just have a go. Do you plan in your business?
Christo: Well, as a matter of fact, yes.
Franziska: That’s right. Have you got some tips?
Christo: Yes, it just happens that I do. Good question.
Franziska: I know! What I think, I think there might be 7 tips.
Christo: I think there could be too. How about we start at number 1?
Franziska: Or number 3 or number 1?
Christo: Number 1, to plan your marketing, get clear on your vision, mission and values for your business. The first thing I want to do before you implement any marketing is think about what is the vision for your business. Why are you in business? What’s the point of it? What’s the mission? The mission is what you do on a day-to-day basis to fulfill that vision. And what’s your values? What does your business stand for? Is it about integrity? Is it efficiency as a customer service? Is it fun? Is it creativity, innovation? What is it that your business stands for? Get clear about those things. The vision, what’s the big picture for the business. Why are you doing it? What’s the mission, the day-to-day activities and the values? What does your company stand for?
Franziska: Cool. Number 2. Number 2, determine who you want to work with, so after you know your vision, your mission and your values- now think about who you want to work with, who do you want to attract? What kind of clients do you want to work with? And all you do is; like I do here, make a list of who you want to work with and describe that person. You can even give them a name because the more you know about your ideal client, the better your marketing will be because you can write to them- and we will record a whole other video about that. But just for now, think about who you want to work with and write it down.
Christo: Yes, good point. Number 3, do some research. So, research those people- who you want to work with, research them, find out what they want, run surveys, if you’ve got a database, send them a survey… Survey monkey. Once again… Research who they are? What do they want? What do they desire? What are their needs? What keeps them awake? Where do they live? Where would they like to live? What do they drive? What do they want to drive? What sort of language do they use? The more information you know about them, the more we can use in our marketing material because you’re writing to that person.
Franziska: You know what I think?
Christo: What’s that?
Franziska: That’s part of number 2. You know what I think number 3 maybe?
Christo: What would number 3 be?
Franziska: Maybe researching your competitors. I reckon, also researching your competitors and having a look at what are they doing, you know, what’s the industry doing? And the best thing you can do is look at what other people are doing and do it better. Always look at what they’re doing and think about what can I do better than anybody else because you want to be the go-to-person and you want to have the best customer service, the best products and services. So, if you do a little bit of research, you will get a lot of ideas. Don’t just copy it and paste, people. Copy and paste, people. Just think about what you can do better. Number 4?
Christo: 4 now? Let’s see if I can get on to 4 this time. Number 4, think about your products and services and package them- if you can create packages, especially in the service-based businesses, bundle your services. Bundle them in to a package, maybe you can offer your consulting or massage or whatever it is and have a little extra value added. Value add. So, bundle together everything you offer, think about how you can create packages, maybe it’s a series of sessions. So that it’s tangible for people to buy, maybe even if you’re selling jewellery for reselling this tangible, bundle it together and then sell it to shops so that it’s easy for them to buy, easy for them to make a selection. Have bundles and packages- it makes things a lot easier. And, if you create, a program which people sign up to if you’re in a service-based industry- then you can guarantee your own income, you can guarantee that the people will get fantastic results and you can make the decision making for them easy if they know how many times they need to come to you or they just buy the package instead of having to think about it.
Franziska: Correct!
Christo: I got 4.
Franziska: Number 5. That was 10.
Christo: Aye-aye, 5.
Franziska: Number 5 is be clear about why somebody should work with you and that’s also called your “Unique Selling Proposition” WOW. USP, people call it. It’s really just about how you can be unique. Think about what makes you different, what makes you unique.
Christo: Very good. And then once we know why we’re unique and who we are trying to target, then we can figure out the marketing. So the right marketing strategies to reach those people. So we’ve got unique point of difference, we know who we’re trying to target and then we find the right techniques to approach those people and to show them our unique point of difference in the market. So, we need to research those first, be the first to make sense before we start doing a marketing strategy. For example, you are advertising in a paper and suddenly you realize that, “Hey, your market is not reading the paper.” And it’s not a good way to express your unique point of difference. So find them, find your point of difference, then the strategies.
Franziska: Now, the last tip, number 7 is really just to have some financial goals as well. And most business owners don’t go there because they’re scared or they don’t have figures that they brag down, you know, if your goal is to maybe make a hundred grand a year or 50 grand a year or a million a year- write it down and also write down your quarterly goals. Maybe in the first quarter you want to make 50 grand, in the second quarter you want to make 70 and then in the third you want to make 70 again, in the last quarter you’re going to make 40 because it’s Christmas, you know, and you’ve got to maybe just spend a lot of money depending on your industry. Just write down your financial goals for the year and write down how much you would like for the whole year, even roughly monthly and then quarterly. And that really helps because your mind is set to those numbers, so you know that, “Okay, my goal is this much and I’m going to do this much.”
Christo: Very good, I like it. There you go, you got the 7 steps. Now, what’s your plans? Let’s hear about some of the plans with you- we’d love to see you post away down below, under this video. Feel free to post your comments- what’s your biggest goal for this year?
Franziska: Yeah. Yeah, that’s a good one. What’s your biggest goal? Share with us what is your biggest goal for this year and we’d love to hear from you.
If you like this video please share it on your social media networks; you can share it on Facebook, on Twitter, on Google Plus. You can even like the video below and also, please leave us a comment below just so you help us spread the love and share it with your friends and family. Thank you so much.
Christo: Yes, and if you would like more marketing tips and tricks for small business, go to BasicBananas.com and leave your name and e-mail address and we’ll definitely send you some cool stuff.