Marketing Plans

Okay, this is quick and dirty, but here are the basics of a marketing plan:

1.  Who do you want to reach?  Who is your target market?  For the love of Pete, don’t say “everyone”!  As LABCs, our target market is generally middle class women ages 35-55 with lots of room for variation – just please don’t say “everybody”.

2.  How much money do you want to spend?  In general, new businesses could potentially spend up to 10% of desired sales levels.  For an established business, 3-5% of expected sales is generally sufficient.  Make sure you include the cost of your yellow page ads, cost of your Avon brochures, posters in the store and well as the obvious of coupon ads in the local paper.

3.  Take into account your target market and the amount of money you have budgeted to spend then develop an action plan based on those two variables.  This is where you make with tactical decisions – where to advertise, how big the ad, what to say.  PS – Women ages 35-55 still really love coupons.  Of course, not everything costs money – social marketing is an example of that.

Even if you write it all out on just one page, take the time to write up a yearly marketing plan for your store.  Then transfer the plan to your big wall calendar or your small paper planner or your computer calendar.  Whatever you do, set up the schedule of your plan for all tasks, be they daily, weekly, monthly, by campaign, special events or stuff you do just once a year.  Believe me, if you take the time to schedule it out, it’s more likely to happen.  Plus, you’ll see where any gaps exist.  Maybe June or September look pretty empty.  Maybe not much happening there.  Find something to add excitement to the month.  Use your marketing plan as a way to ensure continuous marketing efforts – which helps better ensure continuous cash flow.  And as one of my favorite professors used to say all the time, “It’s the cash flow, stupid.”

We all need money to come in on a regular basis.  If nothing else, bills sure do come in on a regular basis.  Help yourself out and roll out your marketing plan on a regular basis.  Your checking account will thank you.

Good luck,
Elizabeth Demas

Retail Help

When trying to turn things around, it’s not enought o just SELL, SELL, SELL.  You need to focus on strengthening the foundation of all areas of your business.  The fact is, what you do in one area affects the others.  Turing your business around shouldn’t be just about increasing sales, but about sahocking the system into moving closer to your vision for your business.

“When you begin to create strategies, objectives and action plans, you need to evaluate everything you do in relationship to your vision”  Tony Jeary, Strategic Acceleration

Before changing anything, decide where you want to go, what you want to achieve.  What was the original vision for your business?  Where is your business today?  Sometimes when things are tough it’s easy to become complacent and just accept the way things are.  However, if there is a gap between your original vision and where you are today, you owe it to yourself and to your business to take steps to close that gap.  Take time for a focused scrutiny of your business to help you achieve your vision.

In my next posts I’ll cover the main areas you want to fous on: finances, employees, operations, customers & sales, marketing and yourself.  For now, take stock of what you want and how far/close you are to that original vision.