How to Create a Store Marketing Plan
A lot of people think that all they need to run a business is just to have a business plan and then everything would go smoothly from there. Although you already have everything set up for your business, you’re going to have to find ways to get people interested in it.
A lot of stores have to think about this as there’s always going to be a lot of competition that could very well take away their customers and clients. So, to prevent that from happening, one has to learn how to create an effective store marketing plan and this article is going to teach you how to do just that.
Steps for Creating Your Store Marketing Plan
Unlike a business plan, the primary focus of a simple marketing plan is to make sure that your business is able to win customers. It will help you develop the strategies that you need that include numbers, facts, and objectives. Basically, a good marketing plan should be able to easily spell out the different tools and tactics that you are going to utilize in order for you to achieve your sales goals. It’s a guide that will help make sure that you stay on track to ensure that you are doing whatever is necessary to attract customers to your store. And, unless you’re using your marketing plan to help you gain funding, it doesn’t necessarily have to be really long or contain too many details. So, here are the steps that should help you create an effective marketing plan for your store:
1. Conduct a Situation Analysis on Your Store
The first section of your marketing plan should be able to give a description of your business along with the products and services that it offers, then show how your products, services, customer service, or just about any other characteristic of your business differs from your competition in a way that makes it unique and attractive to both customers and clients.
No matter what industry you’re in, you have to understand that positioning your small business and its products and services will require an understanding of the market. You need to be able to provide information regarding what you are planning to market. Not only that, but you must also have a clear understanding as to what your competitors are willing to offer customers and you need to show that whatever you have to offer has way more value than whatever the rest of your competitors have. Simply put, you’re just trying to show everyone that they should go over to your business instead of your competition as you have way more to offer than they do.
Make your situation analysis a succinct overview of your company’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. When it comes to strengths and weaknesses, then you’re thinking about the internal factors of your store. If you know that your store has strong customer service, then make sure that you capitalize on that and ensure that it remains constant throughout your entire business’ run. If your business has any internal weaknesses such as low-quality products, then do what you can to fix it immediately. When it comes to threats and opportunities, then these would be external factors that affect your business. When it comes to opportunities, think about what you have that gives you a competitive advantage over your competitors and use that. If it’s threats, then it can be things such as the rising prices of certain materials that your business will need or the lack of experience of certain staff members.
Positioning your products and services would require two steps. The first being that you’re going to have to properly analyze the products and services you offer and figure out what makes them special and sets them apart from that of your competitors’. The next is that you have to think about the kind of people who are going to avail of whatever products and/or services that your store offers. What are you selling? Convenience? Quality? Discount pricing? You can’t offer it all. By knowing what it is your customers want, you will be able to figure out what you should offer. You may also like printable marketing plans.
2. Describe Your Target Audience
You need to be able to describe the ideal customer for your store. So, you can simply come up with a one-paragraph profile of your prospective customer. You’re going to need to write down information such as age, sex, family composition, earnings, and geographic location, and possibly even the lifestyle of the people that you want to sell your products and services to. You have to think about certain questions: Are the people that you want to sell to introverted or extroverted? Leaders or followers? Aggressive or timid buyers? Traditional or modern? How often do they go out to buy things? Are there specific behaviors that you should watch out for? How often do they purchase what you have to offer? How much are they willing to purchase every time they visit your store? You may also like marketing plan outlines.
These are the type of questions that you’re going to need answers to if you want to be able to properly define the target audience of your business. No matter who your target audience is, you’re going to have to accurately define them in this section of your sample marketing plan. The reason for this is because this will be your guide on how you are going to make use of the different methods available for you to market to them.
3. List Your Marketing Goals
You need to think about what it is you want your marketing plan to achieve. Is there a specific goal that you’ve had in mind or is there a number of goals that you want to achieve? You’ll have to think about this in order for you to develop the marketing strategies that will help ensure that your business is able to attract customers and take away those of your competition. If you’re going to come up with goals, then you have to create a short list to put them in so that you can keep track of what they are. You have to make sure that these goals are measurable so that you’ll know when you have achieved them. Also, you have to make sure that whatever goals you’ve written down are actually achievable. Lett’s say that you’re hoping for a 30% increase sales within the following week. Unless you have superhuman staff, then there is no possible way for you to do that. So, make sure that the goals you make for your marketing plan are realistic enough to achieve within the time that you have designated for when you have to achieve them.
4. Develop the Marketing Communication Strategies and Tactics You Will be Using
This is the main section of your marketing plan. In all of the previous steps, you’ve made an outline of what it is your marketing plan should be able to accomplish as well as identify your store’s target audience. Now that you have all of that figure out, the next step is to come up with the different tactics in detail that will help you reach out to your target audience as well as help in achieving the goal of your business. You may also like marketing business plans.
A good marketing program targets prospects at all stages of your sales cycle. There are a couple of marketing strategies such as direct marketing, public relations, or any other form of advertising that are great for helping you reach out your target audience who aren’t exactly taking the initiative in buying what they need. Then there are also those marketing strategies that will work well with warm prospects (people who have already been exposed to your marketing message and who might have already done business with your store). You’re going to have to come up with the best tactics that will allow you to know which is best for either of them. So let’s say you’re trying to reach out for warm prospects, then you should know that they best respond to permission-based email, loyalty programs, customer appreciation events and much more.
In order for you to complete your tactics session, outline your primary marketing strategies, then include the variety of tactics you’ll use to reach out to potential customers and clients at any point of the sales cycle. Remember that you have to find the best ways that will allow you to attract both cold and warm prospects as both are important in ensuring the success of your business.
To identify your ideal marketing mix, find out which media your target audience turns to whenever they try to gather information on what your store is as well as what it has to offer. You have to choose the type of media that suits well with your store and one that reaches out to those potential customers and clients who are most receptive to your message. So if you think that having a social media page and creating something like Facebook posts will help your store, then make sure that you do it in an effective manner.
5. Set Up Your Marketing Budget
You’re not going to be able to market your business if you don’t even have the budget for it. You’ll need to devote a percentage of projected gross sales to your marketing budget. Sometimes you may even have to resort to borrowing money or even financing the marketing yourself with your personal savings. You have to consider your options before you decide on the kind of sample marketing strategy that your business is going to go for. Considering that fact that there are a lot of methods in which you will be able to market your business, what you are going to have to do is think just how much each of these methods costs and figure out which of them you are going to use that will fit in with your marketing budget.
As you begin to gather costs for the marketing tactics you outlined in the previous step, there’s a possibility that you might have just exceeded your marketing budget. When that happens, then all you have to do is go back and adjust your tactics until it’s able to meet the simple budget. Be sure that you don’t commit all of your money to marketing, only to make use of the strategies that will help you gather more customers if you have the money for it. If not, then stick with one that’s cost effective yet still works for getting people to know what you have to offer.
If you would like to learn more about how to create a marketing plan for your store or anything related to this particular topic, then all you have to do is go through any of our available articles on our site and make use of whatever information you are able to gather to help you and your business out. You may also see strategic marketing plans
More in Plan Templates
