The 5 Ingredients of a Small Business Marketing Plan

NEW YORK, May 14, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- While a business plan helps to map out the direction for your small company, a well-executed marketing plan helps you to understand how to get there by providing detailed steps on ways to create brand awareness, increase sales and solidify customer relationships. You may not have the time or budget to create an extensive marketing strategy, but that doesn't mean you cannot create an effective one.

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In her latest article posted to PR Newswire's Small Business PR Toolkit, contributing author Claire Prendergast provides five ways to lay the foundation for a solid marketing plan:

1. Objectives. At this stage, it's easy for small businesses to place "selling more products and/or services" as the number one goal of their marketing efforts. Don't miss out on other opportunities such as building an online presence or nurturing prospective customers. Your marketing goal should be the core of which your marketing plan is built.
2. Customer profile. Uncovering and creating a detailed profile of your customer is an important tactic to any successful marketing plan. There are several ways to do this such as: researching buying habits, understanding your customer's wants and needs and identifying the various social platforms that they frequent.
3. Tactics. Be sure to include a list of tactics that will help you reach your targeted audience.  Depending on the type of campaign these tactics can include email marketing, direct mail, social, webinars, etc.
4. Budget. Typically, budget goes hand in hand with determining the workable tactics that will be included in your campaign. Prendergast suggests attaching a price to each tactic and then prioritizing the list to spotlight what item can be addressed first.
5. Completion date.  Pick a date and stick to it – the worst thing you can do is keep the creation of your marketing plan open-ended. Ensure your team members have their responsibilities clearly outlined and aimed at a common goal.

For further discussion on ways you can create a simple marketing plan for your business, read the remainder of Prendergast's article here: http://bit.ly/1FkDqtl.

PR Newswire's Small Business PR Toolkit is a comprehensive resource that provides small businesses and entrepreneurs the tools to develop an affordable public relations and marketing plan that helps generate interest from potential customers, engage with key audiences and grow their businesses. The toolkit features relevant content such as informative white papers, interactive webinars and how-to articles and premium access to educational resources, as well as the opportunity to take advantage of special offers designed specifically for small businesses. To request information on how PR Newswire can help your small business, click here. You can receive updates on new Small Business PR Toolkit content by following @prnsmallbiz on Twitter.

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