Adrian is currently away on a holiday adventure so we thought you’d enjoy a dip into the archives to re-visit some posts that you may not have seen. Enjoy.
Originally posted on December 18th, 2009
…..after the Who comes the Why, Where, What, How and When.
In a recent post I talked about investing time getting to know who your ideal customer is. Now that you have a picture(s) of your ideal clients the next thing, when planning for growth, should be a consideration of the Why, Where, What, How and When in relation to your customers. Follow these steps and it will help you put in place a simple and straightforward marketing plan for the coming period.
Below are some questions to better explain the meaning and application of each question:
Why
Describe the key need your customers have in relation to your product/services. Remember that your customers may not want what you actually deliver but rather the results that your product or service delivers.
Where
Describe where you would find such clients in large concentrations
Will you restrict your search to certain locations, at first?
Where do you think you could meet such companies or where do they congregate?
What
Describe the key elements and benefits of what you will be offering/delivering to these clients, what makes you different, why it should matter to them and how can they be certain that you will deliver.
How
Describe here the strategies that you would use to connect with these target clients
When
When is all of this going to happen?
What resources are needed to enable these activities?
Is any preparation work needed beforehand?
What follow up is needed afterwards?
Do you have enough resources to complete all of these at the same time?
If not, then how should you sequence them?
Put all of this together and you have got yourself a marketing plan. Easy.
Thanks to jamesmorton for the image.
3 Comments
Adrian Swinscoe on August 27, 2010 at 7:30 am.
Key questions to ask to create an effective marketing plan @ http://bit.ly/dbwmT4
Matthew Needham on August 29, 2010 at 1:15 am.
Firstly Adrian, I hope you have a great holiday.
Too often I see businesses failing to plan, so giving any framework has got to be a big step forward in ensuring that businesses are prepared to take advantages when they arise.
Matthew Needham´s last [type] ..A time for reflection
Adrian on August 30, 2010 at 12:28 pm.
Hi Matthew,
Back from a great trip and thank you for your comment. I agree that many businesses do fail to plan properly. Sometimes they fail to realise that often it’s not the plan that really matters but the act of planning and thinking through what needs to get done, when and by who that is the most useful thing.
Adrian