The Marketing Plan

Marketing plays a most vital role in successful business ventures.  Unless a business is budgeted to hire an Advertising Agent, the task of promoting your business is a on going process that requires a lot of time but is well worth the work. How well you market you business, along with a few other considerations, will ultimately determine your degree of success or failure.

The key element of a successful marketing plan is to know your customers--their likes, dislikes, expectations. By identifying these factors, you can develop a marketing strategy that will allow you to arouse and fulfill their needs.

Your marketing plan should be included in your business plan and contain answers to the questions outlined below:

1. Who are your customers? Define your target market(s).
2. Are your markets growing; steady; or declining?
3. Is your market share growing; steady; or declining?
4. As a franchise:  how is your market segmented?
5. Will the franchiser provide assistance in this area?
6.  Based on the franchiser's strategy how will you promote your sales?
7. Are your markets large enough to expand?
8. How will you attract, hold, increase your market share? What pricing strategy have you devised?

Pricing and Sales

Your pricing strategy is another marketing technique you can use to improve your overall competitiveness. Get a feel for the pricing strategy your competitors are using. That way you can determine if your prices are in line with competitors in your market area and if they are in line with industry averages.

Some of the pricing strategies are:

• retail cost and pricing
• competitive position
• pricing below or above your competition

The key to success is to have a well-planned strategy, to establish your policies and to constantly monitor prices and operating costs to ensure profits.

Advertising and Public Relations

How you advertise and promote your goods and services may make or break your business. Having a good product or service and not advertising and promoting it, is like not having a business at all.

Many business owners operate under the pretense that the business will promote itself, and channel money that should be used for advertising and promotions to other areas of the business. Advertising and promotions, however, are the life line of a business and should be treated as such. Our clients receive many referrals of services that they are available to help them grow and advertise their business.  Contact your Envision Tax & Accounting representative today and find out how you can join our family of clients.

GO BACK