“To Continuously Be Successful You Must Do Different Things Continuously!”

 

Without a 2013 Marketing Plan you are setting yourself and your business up for failure.

For the small business owner, online marketing procedures and tactics can be a never ending headache. This is especially true for those businesses without a marketing plan.

What makes it even worse is the mountain of so called experts and gurus sipping cocktails on sun drenched beaches in the Bahamas, promising you can make millions.

Having worked with many small business owners over the past years, I am yet to find the magic trick that will allow me to lay on a banana lounge on a sun drenched beach and achieve massive success. As a business owner or if you are starting a business, you’ll be aware that marketing is the lifeline of your business and without a marketing plan your target audience simply will not find you.

With the correct marketing plan and system in place your business can attract a regular flow of clients, leads and sales to your business. These days many small businesses are hiring marketers to do this for them which eats considerably into their marketing plan. This is great if your business can afford it however, many people starting from scratch or even in their first couple of years would rather put their marketing budget into tools and systems that will help their business run more efficiently.

Having a marketing plan in place will be the difference between a successful 2013 taking forward steps and scratching your head half way through the year wondering what you are doing wrong.

Here are a few steps to take into consideration to optimize your marketing plan.

Understand your target audience

 

Understand your target audience and why they need your product or service, why they buy, know their pain and ask questions via online surveys to get to know what your client needs from your business. This is also forming a better relationship with your client/customer that will last a lot longer than trying to sell them on your product.

What value are you giving your clients? Perhaps you need to re-evaluate what makes you stand out from your competitors and what makes you unique and the way you communicate with your clients and prospective clients.

Your marketing plan should also include the following…..

A mix of paid and free marketing strategies should be implemented into your marketing plan. Facebook advertising, banner advertising (online display) on high authority websites or Google advertising are  a few examples of paid marketing strategies and should be a strong backbone to your marketing plan for 2013.

Not everyone can afford paid marketing strategies however, I would advise you not to go full speed ahead into a Google Pay Per Click marketing campaign until you are more experienced in this strategy as I have seen many marketers come unstuck after spending thousands of dollars with little or no results.

Assuming your website is already up and running on the WordPress.org platform or has a WordPress.org blog attached to it, you should be good to go with the next strategies. If your website is not yet set up, it’s not difficult to start today and be up and running with a basic website within 24 hours. You can find more information on how to set up your new website here.

Content

Be sure all your newsletter and website information are targeting the right audience. Write a plan for your content at least a few months in advance and know how you are going to distribute your content so it reaches your audience though search, display and social media. Always have a call to action at the end of your content so your readers know the next step to take to obtain what you are offering.

Onsite conversion strategies

Test different calls to action to find what works best and gets your customers to respond. Be seen as an authority to be trusted in your field by having client testimonials on your website, association badges and ratings, case studies and a privacy policy. Mobile marketing will be the way of the future so make sure your website is mobile responsive.

Don’t forget the many other marketing strategies to implement in your marketing plan such as video marketing, email marketing, press releases, engaging with your clients via social media, content sharing and a consistent SEO plan to see your business make new heights in 2013.

January 2013 marks a new beginning, a new month, a new quarter, the first month in 2013 and a new chapter in your business. 2012 may not have worked out the way you planned and that’s ok, just don’t drag your old ways of 2012 into 2013.

Part of your marketing plan should be to know and how to implement the different marketing strategies within your business. These are many and varied as mentioned above and if you are only using one of two of these strategies you could be losing customers and new leads into your business. Without a marketing plan that covers most of what I have spoken about here you are missing out on genuine customers that want what you have no matter what your service or product. Let’s face it….. if your business was right under you customer’s nose where they are looking for what you have…. You wouldn’t be reading this now.

The biggest problem with most marketing plans is that many business owners don’t know how to implement most of these strategies and don’t know where to go to learn how to implement these powerful marketing strategies. The internet is a BIG place where you can easily get lost in the amount of information online, spend thousands of dollars outsourcing to the wrong people or on PPC (pay per click) advertising as I mentioned above.

The biggest factor to my business success over the past few years has been… having a support team when I’d come across online obstacles. Being able to find answers to my questions and having the support and experience behind me that has helped grow my business.  You can’t run a successful business online by yourself and have success, if you don’t have the network and support to turn to when you don’t know the next step. You would now be thinking to yourself “what has Sandy’s business success have to do your my marketing plan for 2013″?

I certainly would not have had the success I am seeing in my business if I only used one or two marketing strategies in my marketing plan. Over the past 4 years I’ve learned every marketing strategy possible which makes it possible for me to implement and grow my business into the future. Of course as the internet changes I need to keep up with these changes so I can continually reach my target audience who are searching Google for what I offer.

Make 2013 your year to be a success online.  Extend your marketing plan so that your business can grow not just for this year but growth to sustain your business for years to come.

 

 

 

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• 5 tips for creating an online marketing plan

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