Dive Your Plan

You’ve probably heard the expression, ‘Plan the dive. Dive the plan.’ That’s true for your marketing plan, too. Some people see marketing as the soft side of their business. I see it as essential. Diarise time for your social media, e-marketing, newsletters, sales reviews, meetings, and calls You can do these yearly, quarterly, monthly, and weekly. Don’t worry if you can’t do a yearly one yet. Start with a monthly or weekly plan and get into the habit of planning in advance. Lack of planning is widely seen as one of the major downfalls of small businesses. They have the passion, but lack the plan.

Without the plan, you can’t put your passion into action.

Once you’ve prioritised time for your marketing and sales activities, honour that. Make it non-negotiable, just as if you were planning time with your most important client. By taking this structured approach to your marketing, you’ll begin to see what works, what doesn’t, and why. Rather than trying to do all things at once, I recommend people try three major marketing channels at once and work those for all they’re worth, seeing them through. And rather than taking a scatter-fire approach, I suggest a combination of long-lead, medium-term and short-range activities.

For instance, getting an e-newsletter set up with a free ebook giveaway on your site is good for long lead generation. You earn people’s trust, display your products or expertise, and give people the opportunity to buy when they’re ready. It’s a non-invasive way to stay in touch. Blogs are good, too, as are some events. Trade fairs fall into all three types of lead generation, short, medium, and long, depending on your industry, the focus of your inclusion, brand awareness, product/service positioning, direct sales, or any combination of those. Short-term lead generation can be telephone sales, face-to-face meetings, and online purchases – but don’t be dismayed if some of those calls take a while to come through.

‘Touching base’ from time to time with someone that expresses genuine interest can make the sale for you. I bought my first home through a mortgage broker who kept touching base with us for over a year before we bought. We were so impressed by her service there was soon no other choice for a broker to buy through. We’d already become her client. I have no doubt that Catherine had follow-up calls diarised as part of her plan. Her skill was displayed in the style with which she approached those calls and her persistence paid off.

To your great success
Michael Neaylon

michael@mcme.com.au

This has been an excerpt from the forthcoming book, 'True Brand Toolkit: How to Bring in Big Money for Your Small Business.'