SMALL BUSINESSES DEVELOP STRATEGIC MARKETING PLANS FOR JUST $299

Strategic Marketing, once touted as just for large corporations, is now being applied to businesses across all levels and of all sizes. Becoming increasingly more affordable and less standardiSed, strategic marketing has been heralded as the most important element of the marketing mix for many businesses that are looking for sales acquisition and growth. Without it, marketing activities remain unmeasured and lack appropriate ROI.

What has emerged is a need for businesses of any size to develop strategic marketing plans based on their overall business strategy with key performance indicators ranked according to desired ROI calculators.

There are many reasons to engage in strategic marketing rather than adhoc marketing initiatives that have no set deliverables or KPI’s and are not aligned to the overall business strategy.

It’s like closing your eye’s and hoping that your marketing dollar lands where you want it to at that particular time and produces the results to keep going. The ‘blind-folded’ approach is well known in small business as many companies feel that hiring a marketing consultancy is too expensive and that they are not quite ready to hire a marketing manager in terms of commitment to a fulltime resource and affordability of $100k+ salaries.

The basis of strategic marketing is being able to:

(1) Articulate specific business goals,
(2) Succinctly define target audience or key customers,
(3) Develop campaigns to support core business goals, and
(4) Maximize ROI.

The issue arises for small business owners when ascertaining how they can operate with much more limited resources than their larger counterparts if in fact a marketing strategy actually works. The answer is that small businesses can if their marketing strategy addresses the specific growth and retention needs that are unique to the business.

Global corporations use strategic marketing to communicate initiatives and messaging across the entire company. A small business can use strategic marketing to help shape growth, develop advertising campaigns, public relations, client retention, customer acquisition and manage resources. Implementing strategic marketing into business practices can help business owners target key customers, effectively allocate resources, and improve business processes with more quality results at a lower implementation cost of both monetary and personnel resources.

With the growing trend of freelance consultants and small, highly specialised marketing consulting firms, small businesses are now able to contract a marketing professional to develop a strategic marketing plan and help implement the necessary business structure.

Affordability is key for small businesses when looking at outsourcing their marketing strategy development, but let’s face it, who can afford not to have this in place?

Marketing Eye is helping 10 businesses develop their own marketing strategies with the guidance of a marketing manager who has worked with over 200 companies on developing marketing programs.

All businesses have to do is register to be part of this day of strategic marketing on http://www.marketingeye.com.au/menew/eventform.html and for a small fee that is affordable to every business from a startup, you will walk away with a strategic marketing plan.

Mellissah Smith is the founder of 4 businesses and works as the Chief Executive Officer of Marketing Eye Pty Ltd. Marketing Eye has helped over 200 companies develop marketing programs aimed at growth, expansion and customer retention. A strategic marketing plan is integral to achieving these goals and 10 lucky companies will have the opportunity to explore their businesses in details and develop a strategic marketing plan with the guidance of Marketing Eye.

Friday - and I am pissed off!

It's Friday and everyone should be happy, but guess what? I am not!

Firstly the day starts with this second rate web development company that has been working on a simple website for an education company for more than 6 months and still it is incomplete. The design was crap, the attention to detail - non existent and customer service - terrible.

Here we are trying to fix the mess... and keep the client from ringing the web companies neck. Hard work let me assure you.

Then, I am reminded by a man in his 70's just how great Paris Hilton is. According to this elderly gentleman, she is good looking and runs a great business. To his credit, he is right on both accounts. However, I am tired of being reminded about people who make it by walking the 'easy road'.

Here I am slogging it out in front of my computer 12 hours a day and being zapped of energy by the demands of staff, clients and sometimes friends.

On the flip side, I love my job. I can't wait to get to the office every morning and I dream of the next great marketing campaign that I am going to work on.

Mostly, my clients are adorable. They always engage in banter with me on topics ranging from the newest marketing technique to the colour of my shoes or my dogs behaviour.

Currently we are engaged in a pretty big PR campaign for Carbon Expo Market on the Gold Coast next week. Over 50 journalists are in attendance and after giving lessons to my inhouse PR team on effective ways in which to get media to respond, they have now been inundated with calls. He he... us older marketers still have a few tricks up our sleeves.

Next week I am off on a road trip to see two clients that are intelligent, enthusiastic and full of life. Should I really be complaining? Possibly not.

With a company that is currently recording 20 - 30% growth year on year and boasts some pretty talented individuals, I think I am fairly lucky.

So, what is there to complain about? Not too much. It's all in a days work and things are getting done.

Hope you have a great weekend!