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How to Create a Marketing Plan to Meet Your Goals

By Sydni Craig-Hart

reaching goalsAs you think back over the last year of your business, are you pleased with your results? I hope so. I am proud of what you accomplished and you should be too! Are there some goals that you didn’t quite reach? If so, you’re not alone! Being goal oriented and stretching yourself is part of being an entrepreneur. But, for a variety of reasons, sometimes you miss the mark and don’t get the exact results you were looking for.

Fortunately, achieving your goals and creating your version of success is yours for the taking with a little planning, organization and consistent effort. Whether you’re looking for more clients, more visibility or more income in your business, you can reach all of these goals by creating and following through with a marketing plan.

If you’ve struggled with your marketing efforts in the past, you may be wondering, “Sydni, where do I start?” The answer is simple.

Based on what you’ve accomplished so far, what would you like to accomplish next? And what is the gap between where you’re at now and where you want to be? Once you’re clear on the gap, then you want to determine exactly what you need to do to bridge the gap. While it’s nice to think “I want to increase my income by $1500 each month” or “I want to attract six new clients,” you’ll never see those goals accomplished unless you’ve got a marketing plan to back it up.

Keep these questions in mind when you are planning your marketing activities for the next year:

  • What would you REALLY like to accomplish? Setting clear and SPECIFIC goals for the next year is the first step to filling the gaps in your business. You need to know exactly where you want to be in the next year in order to outline the steps you’ll need to take to get there. If you didn’t reach your goals from the previous year, that can be a good starting point for next year.
  • What are you currently doing to market your solutions? Look back over the last year and analyze the steps that you’ve taken. Does your marketing plan support your goals? What kind of results did you get from your marketing activities in the past year? Using your current plan (or lack thereof!) is a good starting point for developing a new plan. You can see exactly what went well for you and what didn’t based on your previous results.
  • What will you do differently in the next year? Identify opportunities to make changes in the way that you do things so you can be more consistent and more effective with marketing. For example, you can use a tool like Postling.com to schedule your social media updates. You can create a content calendar so it’s easy to put together blog posts each month. You can hire a Virtual Assistant to take care of some of your follow-up activities or handle admin tasks so you have more time for marketing.
Spending some time answering these questions and formulating a new plan NOW will help you create more profits in 2012. If you’d like, I can guide you by the hand and walk you through the same process I use to create my own plan. Simply register your spot at www.CreateYourMoneyMap.com and I’ll give you all the tools and step-by-step instruction you need to create a rockin’ plan for 2012 that gets results!

What goals are brewing in your head for 2012? Do tell by posting your thoughts in the comments below!

YOUR “TAKE ACTION” PLAN FOR THIS WEEK:
  1. Determine what you want to accomplish in your business within the next 6-12 months. Look back to last year’s goals and plan out goals for the next 6 to 12 months. Do you want a certain amount of income? Do you want a certain number of clients? For best results, be SPECIFIC.
  2. Analyze your current marketing activities. Are they in line with your goals? If your marketing plan doesn’t support your goals, it’s time to make some changes. (You have to take different action if you want different results.)
  3. Set yourself up for success! Register for my upcoming “Create Your Money Map” training, so I can walk you step by step through how to create your customized plan. You’ll also learn how to set up systems and what specific strategies that you can use in order to market your business consistently to meet your goals.

Filed Under: Business Management, Marketing Advice, Marketing Strategy, Planning Tagged With: Business Growth, Goals, Planning, small business marketing plan, Smart Simple Marketing, Sydni Craig-Hart



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Sydni Craig-Hart

Is your organization looking to gain market share and deepen loyalty with small businesses, women or minorities? Sydni Craig-Hart is CEO of Smart Simple Marketing and a 4th generation entrepreneur. Since 2006, her team, having worked with over 8,000 small business in 79 different industries, has been helping companies to drive engagement with sought-after, growing market segments. If you want to increase the value of existing-customer spend, recapture marketing investments, grow customer lifetime value or decrease attrition, contact Sydni to discover how her team is doing this for companies like Facebook, Google, LinkedIn and more.

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Comments

  1. Albert Bernard says

    December 31, 2011 at 10:35 AM

    Good ideas i like it very much, keep up the good work, thanks for the sharing.

    • Yury says

      February 8, 2012 at 1:15 PM

      […] in the midlde of writing a series of posts about Bite-Size Marketing Plans. As part of that series, I’ve asked for feedback and comments from […]

  2. Nelly Grey says

    February 7, 2012 at 3:30 AM

    I certainly believe that a business success never stops and a person who continues to be successful improves her ways.

  3. Delores Lyon says

    April 9, 2015 at 12:59 PM

    Thanks for sharing this advice on marketing your business better. It really is important to have a strong plan, especially if your business is new. You need to be sure that people know about your company, or it’s destined to fail. In fact, I think that marketing is just as important as your business services!

    • Sydni Craig-Hart says

      April 16, 2015 at 7:17 AM

      You’re most welcome Delores. What kind of business do you have? Do you have any specific goals you’re working in for the next 90 days?

Trackbacks

  1. Writing Your Private Club Membership Marketing Plan | MiniSite Crusher says:
    November 19, 2011 at 12:38 AM

    […] How to Create a Marketing Plan to Meet Your Goals | Smart Simple … Posted in Develop a Marketing Plan | Tags: Develop a Marketing Plan, Marketing, Marketing Plan, Plan […]

  2. 6-step Model for a Simple Marketing Plan | MiniSite Crusher says:
    November 19, 2011 at 8:27 AM

    […] How to Create a Marketing Plan to Meet Your Goals | Smart Simple … Posted in Develop a Marketing Plan | Tags: Develop a Marketing Plan, Marketing, Marketing Plan, Plan […]

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