Topic: Four Questions Leaders Need To Answer When Creating A Small-Business Marketing Strategy

In my many years helping small businesses grow, business owners have often sat in front of me, overwhelmed and exhausted, asking which specific marketing tactic will help them get more customers. My response is always to ask what they’re looking to accomplish, which isn’t always an easy question for them to answer.

After being in business development for 15 years, with five of those specifically helping small businesses grow with a market-focused business strategy, it seemed to make sense to outline the steps my team and I have developed over the years. This approach has helped hundreds of small business owners create long-term, sustainable plans for a business they love.

To develop a plan, you have to do some soul searching. Recently I came across a shocking statistic that 50% of small businesses in the U.S. operated without a marketing plan in 2019. No wonder so many small-business owners seemed to have the same problems. Yogi Berra’s famous quote comes to mind: “If you don’t know where you are going, you’ll end up someplace else.”

See, the truth is, creating a strong plan is what many small-business owners don’t take time to do. After all, creating a plan can be daunting because it takes research, a lot of effort and a lot of time. But without a plan, you’ll likely feel like you are constantly 10 steps behind and lost o how to move forward. With little direction and strategy behind your efforts, you risk wasting money as well.

In my experience, a few more reasons your business needs a marketing plan include:

• Direction: A marketing plan forces you to think about where you want your business to go, in addition to what’s working and what’s not.

• Purpose: It sets measurable goals.

• Motivation: I’ve found a marketing plan creates motivation. Even better, once the plan is in place, it allows you to delegate and have more time to work on the things you’re good at and love.

• Time: You’ll spend less time reacting to things if you are working proactively.

• Value: You can provide more value to your clients because you’ll be laser-focused on their needs, challenges and motivations.

• Organization: Your marketing plan will organize your time and prioritize what you are doing. If everything is equally weighted as a priority, nothing is actually a priority.

• Revenue: Your plan has the potential to help you maximize all marketing dollars you spend because it’ll be well thought out, and you’ll put metrics in place to measure if it’s working. Also, you’ll generate more business from the clients with whom you actually want to work.

Topic Discussed: Four Questions Leaders Need To Answer When Creating A Small-Business Marketing Strategy

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