What do you prioritize in your business marketing plan? Sales or Marketing?

The dilemma faced by small and medium businesses is to prioritize between sales and marketing. Without marketing no one will even know that your business exists, nor what is it about. On the other hand without sales, marketing cannot be sustained – classic chicken and egg situation.

Sales and marketing are like the 2 sides of a coin, needing equal attention; the actual transaction of selling needs a prospect, who has been identified, connected and softened by marketing.

Putting together a Simple Marketing Plan

So here is where Strategic marketing comes into play –

  • clear articulation of the product or service
  • identification of the prospect
  • the right pricing

Your ability to communicate to your prospects improves with your understanding of the prospect – the language they use, the channels which they use and the frequency of the message.

Does a marketing plan include a budget?

Yes, it does. You will have to earmark a budget for the marketing activity. Most often the business owner will be the main sales person or the brightest technical brain, with limited understanding of the marketing function. In such cases, the marketing budgets can get hit, as the general tendency is to use every rupee on the sales effort. While sales is a one-to-one effort, marketing can amplify your message and reach it to a sizable number of your target audience, taking you one step closer to a sale.

Once the budget is decided, identifying the marketing tools comes into the picture.

What tools will a good marketing plan include?

Website details: In today’s digitally connected world, a website becomes the focal point of all your marketing efforts. A natural tendency of a prospect is to the first search for a website as soon as he or she hears about a company. A well designed and informative website is just a matter of hygiene.

Branding and Collaterals:  a logo with a meaningful tagline, product packaging, a well-designed business card, brochures and a product demo if relevant, can take the marketing efforts a long way.

Digital Marketing: A combination of SEO, social media marketing, email marketing, content marketing

Offline Marketing: inside sales, events & forums, public relations and customer relationship marketing.

When it comes to Social media marketing, Facebook marketing has gained popularity, while Twitter and LinkedIn are not far behind. These are highly interactive platforms and careful thought and sensitivity need to be used while deploying these tools.

While Email marketing is a popular choice for many small businesses due to its cost-effectiveness, over the use of the tool can be damaging. Proper segmenting of the prospect base and tweaking the emails to meet the needs of each segment can improve the results of email marketing dramatically.

While there are various theories about content marketing, it is one of the best methods to prove your authority on the subject. It will also help your organic search ranking.

Events and forums help in establishing the subject matter expertise and help in establishing you as the thought leader in your industry. I have used active networking to my advantage in my career as a marketer.

PR trumps when approached with maturity and with the view to educate your target audiences. Media relations can be cultivated over a time and trust needs to be built. I know small business owners who have received great media coverage by carefully cultivating journalists from prime or mainline publications. The journalist treats the business owner as a subject matter expert and returns the favour by seeking him or her in interviews. This is a win-win situation for both.

A small business will do very well by bringing in a process to plan, implement, review and course correct the marketing function. Consistency and perseverance go a long way in building visibility for your business!

Once your marketing function is in place and the sales effectiveness has kicked in, fulfilling the promise made in the marketing & sales pitch is of very high importance for Word of mouth to spread!