How to write a Small Business Marketing Plan

If you've got a small business, you may want to do some marketing, but perhaps you're not sure where to start. Here are the key steps I recommend you use to build a marketing plan that makes sense for your business.

As a small business you need to be savvy when it comes to your marketing. You probably have limited time and resources to spend on marketing, so you need to make sure you are spending it where it will have the most impact.

Follow these key steps to building a marketing plan that works for your business.

Understand Your Current Position

Before you decide you want to build a new website, start a new social media feed, or spend hard earned money on advertising, it's really important to know exactly what you are trying to deliver. Different types of marketing are designed to help you achieve different things. If you understand your business' position in the market, you will be able to clearly define goals that will tell you what type of marketing you should do.

For example, lots of businesses tell me they want to find new customers, but retaining existing customers is almost always considerably cheaper than acquiring new ones. So for those businesses where repeat custom is relevant, focussing time and resource on enhancing customer experience could be a much better use of resource than seeking to attract new customers.

One useful tool you can use to assess your business' current position is a SWOT Analysis. To do this, take the time to look objectively at your business' Strengths and Weaknesses compared to your competition and at the external Opportunities and Threats that will impact the success of your business.

Understand Your Customer

Knowing your customer well is crucial to the creation of a great marketing plan. Think about it, your marketing efforts might reach tens of thousands of people, BUT if they're not reaching people likely to buy your products then you won't generate any more sales!

Take the time to identify your target market's characteristics, such as age, location, gender, interests, buying power and pain points. The obvious place to start is to look at your existing customers, who are they? Why do they buy from you?

Market research is a great way to get to know your target audience better. There may be third party market (secondary) research available in your industry which will help identify trends in consumer behaviour important to your product development, placement or messaging. Or it could be your own (primary) research, something as simple as taking a close look at your Google Analytics can offer you a goldmine of information about your customers.

Finally, make sure to examine what your competitors are doing. What pain points are they addressing that are different to yours? How are they targeting their audience?

Depending on your business you may want to segment your target market into target audiences. That simply means that your different products may appeal to slightly different segments of your target market and you may want to target those different segments with distinct messaging or through separate channels.

Set Clear Objectives

Once you have completed a SWOT Analysis of your business and have clearly defined your target market, you will be able to identify objectives which make the most of your strengths and opportunities and mitigate your business' weaknesses and threats.

What is crucial when you are setting out these objectives is to be SMART. That means your objectives must be:

• Specific: your objective should be crystal clear, what is it you want to achieve, who will deliver it and how.

• Measurable: it's important to set out exactly how you will measure success.

• Achievable: it's great to be ambitious, but setting objectives that allow you to realise that ambition in increments is a great way to keep you and your team focussed and motivated. It also makes you more nimble because you can adjust quickly to what is working and what isn't.

• Relevant: you want to be selective about your objectives and choose those that best fit your business and will deliver the most value.

• Time-based: give yourself a deadline, a point in time where you will measure your performance against your goal. You can of course continue the effort after the deadline if it is producing results, but if it's not you can review and set new goals if necessary.

Define Your Marketing Tactics

Once you have your marketing objectives clearly defined, you can move to planning the tactics you will use to reach them. Which tactics you choose will very much depend on what objectives you have set out. You will need to research what tactics are the best fit, but here are some examples.

If your focus is on growing awareness of your brand to a specific demographic, you may look at targeted digital promotion to drive more of your target audience into the top of your Marketing Funnel.

If you are already generating lots of awareness but it is not converting very well into sales, then you need to improve your customer journey. Identify where customers are dropping out of your sales funnel and address any frictions eg too complicated a buying process, lack of trust, poor website optimisation, lack of customer evidence.

Or if your aim is to retain existing customers, you could look at creating a customer mailing list and running a series of promotional offers or creating a loyalty scheme to reward repeat custom.

Define Your Timeline & Budget

It is important to consider all of the costs that come with a marketing plan. It will not just include the money it costs you to place your advertising or commission a new website. There are lots of less obvious costs.

For example, if your marketing tactics include the use of special offers then the reduction in your margin is a cost. The time and money used by you and your team to deliver the plan will incur opportunity cost elsewhere. So all of these things should be accounted for.

Understanding the totality of these costs will give you a much clearer picture of the return on investment you have made when you complete your plan.

Alongside your budget, you need a detailed timeline of what needs to happen when. Most marketing plans have a lot of moving parts, so planning is key to timely delivery. There's no point planning a wonderful Valentine's Day promotion that you only roll out on 13th February! So make sure you allow the time you need to deliver your plan.

If you would like some help to build your marketing plan, please do get in touch!