"Sample Marketing Plan"

Here is a sample marketing plan for your small business.  Take a look and you can get an idea of how you need to develop such a plan for your business. 

Having a plan is important for several reasons.  First it keeps you and your company on track.  If you ever find your self losing your may in your business you can usually go back to your marketing plan and see what it is that has caused such a slow down in business. 

Another reason to take from this sample marketing plan is it will allow you to always have your sales pipe line filled.  Too many entrepreneurs advertise only when they thinks it appropriate to get business.  When in fact you should have a pipe line filled so you never run out of customers. 

This way you will not find yourself running scared to get customers.  Marketing is business and something should be done everyday in order to flex marketing muscles.  You wouldn't just go to the gym once, workout and say ok I am in shape now.

Marketing works in the same way.  Practice it everyday and you will reap rewards from your business.  A very important lesson to take from this sample marketing plan indeed.

Learn from the masters what you can.  People like Dan Kennedy and Jay Abraham both have marketing courses that can teach you how to really market for your type of business.

Marketing is also about knowing your numbers.  Knowing what marketing activity worked and what didn't can mean a lot to your bottom line.  Why spend money on things that don't work.  You are only wasting valuable cash that can be used in other areas of your business.

Sample marketing plan

Company summary.

Here you talk about your company and the products and services you offer.  Put down as much here as you can think of. 

Target market

Here is a very important part of your marketing plan.  This is the place where you identify your customers and prospects.  This is important for a few reasons.  You don't want to waste money going after people who are not your market.  If you properly identify who is your market then you stand a better chance of success.  This way you will know exactly who to go after and what to say to this market.  Take your time here to identify your market.  It's critical to your company's bottom line.

Distribution

With this part of a marketing plan you will focus on how your will get to your customers.  Will you use sales people or will you use other approaches like media, direct mail and such.

Media

Here is where you figure out how you will deliver your message.  There are free and paid methods.  You could start out with free methods if you are low on fund and then graduate to paid methods later.  This sample marketing plan covers them below.

Free advertising and marketing methods are:

• Press releases once a month
• Article marketing
• Cold calling
• Joint venture with other companies
• Handing out flyers to companies and people
• Putting up flyers at local coffee shops, and other stores
• Buzz marketing
• Viral marketing
• Asking high traffic business's to include a stack of your business cards at the checkout

Low cost paid methods are:

• Press release blast to media in your market
• A self made company website
• Direct mail to prospects

Tracking summery

One thing to take from this sample marketing plan is, make sure you know exactly how you will track your marketing.  If you don't then you are just throwing money away.  If you use direct mail, when people call ask them how they heard of you.  Or you could have them go to a special website where you could track the results and try to get people to fill out an information form.  Bottom line is track everything you do.

Sample marketing plan Summary in closing

In this article I have uncovered some of the most powerful parts of a marketing plan.  While a marketing plan can get very involved especially for large corporations.

However, if you are a small business and don't have a lot of money focus on the methods above and you will be that's much more ahead of the game. 

But, please do seek out the advice of a licenses planner before you attempt to put together a marketing plan and spend your last dollar.

Having a good understanding of marketing can be the difference that makes your business prosper and not a sinking ship. 

If you find your self without customers from time to time you may just need to look at the sample marketing plan above and take massive action with your marketing muscle.