A Marketing Strategy And Plan? Why Bother?

How to overcome today’s struggles and fears by getting focused and organised for the long term

By Jane Heaton

In this article, Jane Heaton looks at 5 key areas of concern often highlighted by business owners and shows how the work involved in creating a simple, practical marketing strategy and plan can help address and overcome them.

“I seem to have endless difficulties with marketing – working out what to do and how to pull it all together. It’s all a bit haphazard and reactive. Text books and business advisors all say you need a marketing plan. I tried to sit down to do this several times, but it just seems too hard.”

Ninety five percent of the time when people talk about their marketing problems, these “problems” are about implementation …… “I’m writing my new brochure, but I’m going round in circles trying to work out what to put in it.” or “I’ve gone to a lot of networking meetings but no one there has bought from me.” or “I sent out a flyer with a discount offer but only one person responded.”

The truth is that at the root of this type of problem lies the fact that they skimped on or skipped the essential strategic up-front thinking – about who their prospective customers are, what they really want, and how they are going to turn them into paying customers. What do those prospects need to hear, understand and experience before trusting them enough to buy from them?

And they’ve ignored all this mostly because it was “too difficult”. Much easier to pick a few marketing activities, get on with it and make it up as they go along, struggling with endless questions and getting disappointing and bewildering results. And in truth wasting a lot of money.

“Forget the fact that I don’t know how to go about putting together a marketing plan, I can’t even find the time to sit down and get started .”

The operational side of your business and just making sure you deliver on time to the required standard can become all-consuming. We may have the intention to put time aside for business development and to plan … but somehow something else always seems to get in the way. Plus it’s hard if you are trying to do this all on your own – we all need someone with whom to bounce ideas around or act as a sounding board or help come up with creative new solutions.

Understanding how to set up your own planning process and getting support in place to help you take time out to work on your business and not just in it can soon become a habit – because you will soon start to reap the benefits and be able to achieve more with less stress.

“I have some ideas …. In fact you could say too many ideas. I feel overwhelmed at trying to work out what to do first.”

Once you shift your thinking from marketing as a bunch of separate activities, to a collection of actions organised in such a way as to leverage each other and happen in logical sequence, it becomes easier to choose techniques and ideas that hang together, that are likely to make the biggest difference and whose effect you can start to predict. This is the start of building a strategy. And because, by definition, being strategic means thinking longer term, you release yourself from the pressure of feeling you have to do everything today.

“I’ve got a web site and am doing a few things I’ve heard work well, like networking, but just don’t seem to be generating enough business.”

Chances are there are some holes in your marketing system. Probably because it’s come together by chance, rather than being designed from scratch as a system or a process. It’s all working well enough in places, but there are some vital parts missing. This means that either not enough people are aware of you or you are not giving them what they want when they want it in order to covert them into customers … or both.

Often this is because we are not as clear as we could be about who is actually going to buy from us and what they specifically want from our product or service. As a result our marketing message can be unclear to those receiving it, and we may have no effective way of establishing and maintaining a dialogue with them over time until they are ready or willing to buy.

“Business is actually quite good at the moment but I keep thinking it won’t last. It’s like I’m getting clients by chance, I’m not in control and the future sometimes seems very uncertain which makes me feel a bit panicky at times.”

Taking the time and making the effort to work out how you are going to turn strangers into customers and how many strangers you need to reach out to each month or each year in order to achieve your desired number of customers is key to gaining predictability and certainty and relieving stress. This is at the heart of creating your marketing strategy and plan because it is this that provides sustainability and a sense of purpose and direction … and a good night’s sleep.

Top tips

• Establish a regular marketing planning process that works for you to give continuity and direction
• Focus, focus, focus – don’t try to do too much
• Optimise your resources by selecting the best opportunities and playing to your strengths
• Use your feedback and measurement to continuously improve what you do
• Keep on marketing even when you’re busy – don’t wait until the order book is low
• During difficult times look to become leaner and manage costs but don't stop investing in marketing - ensure your customers and prospects know you are still ready and willing to help them!

Further reading: Four steps to a marketing plan that really works

Back to articles