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Snapshot Marketing Plan

By John Joyce, President
Red, Incorporated
Strategic Marketing and Design

While I am a new member of the Fairlawn Chamber of Commerce, I believe that an organization is only as good as its individual members. And paraphrasing the words of John F. Kennedy, I don’t ask myself what can the chamber do for me, but rather what can I do for the chamber?

With that in mind, the board has been kind enough to allow me to share my marketing expertise with our membership in this first installment of the Fairlawn Chamber's marketing tips column. Over the next year, I will explain the advantages of a solid marketing plan, and offer you fresh ideas to get your marketing wheels rolling. I hope you that you'll find this quick focus on growing your business fun and enlightening.

At the outset, I’ll just start with the basics – a “snapshot” marketing plan. Even if you already know something about marketing, this exercise will help you increase your marketing awareness. Read these questions as fast as you can. Don't spend a lot of time with them. Just write down your first thoughts as quickly as possible and move to the next question. Give these same questions to others in your organization and then compare answers. You’ll discover you know more about marketing than you realize. You just hadn’t taken the time to think about it – or you don’t have time in the first place.

1. How could we communicate more clearly with our customers?

2. What could we do to make our communications more compelling?

3. What offers could we make to encourage new customers?

4. What offers could we make to get our existing customers to buy more, or more often?

5. What new patterns in our customers indicate a market we need to tap into? (e.g. customers from similar industries, customer buying for similar purposes)

6. What could we do to make our product more desirable from the customer's point a view?

7. What could we do to cut costs without sacrificing quality?

8. What is our customer asking for that we don't have/do?

9. What can we do right now that would make our customers more excited and happy about us?

10. What can we do right now that would make our employees more excited and happy about selling?
    
    

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