Why Strategic Marketing Plans Can Be So Valuable

Here’s the problem…

It’s human nature. Rather than creating strategic marketing plans, most people simply select one or two tactics thinking that’s all they need.

By doing that they attract just a trickling of customers.

Most people don’t realize that strategic marketing plans can help provide a framework for bringing in mountains of those clients that are relatively easy to capture.

Also, when you are not periodically reviewing your entire situation strategically, it’s easy to miss incredible opportunities that are right in front of you — for more customers, higher profits, and much easier marketing.

The reverse is also true. Without creating strategic marketing plans most people and businesses are sitting ducks, easily overlooking serious problems and threats that may be looming, until it’s too late.

The simple solution…

Strategic marketing plans that are created and periodically updated — say every year or two — will help you to identify opportunities, avoid problems, and most importantly, keep you focused on a “campaign” mentality for generating growing revenues and profits, even during your slower periods.

They Help You Avoid One-Tactic Dependence

In marketing, you never want to put all your eggs in one tactic.

An exterminator I know, depended on half-page ads in the Yellow Pages to generate all his business. Initially, this single tactic helped him grow from a one man operation to 30 employees and more than 17 trucks in the field servicing all those clients. His business steadily grew for over a decade.

Then, along came the Internet and everything changed. With the advent of the Internet, he watched as his business slowly eroded and virtually collapsed.

This didn’t need to happen.

Creating Strategic Marketing Plans gets you to recognize changes in the marketplace early, and protect against them or capitalize on new and emerging technologies and methods.

Today as always, the tools and methods for marketing and business are changing. With coupon-giant Groupon and social media such as Facebook dominating the scene, marketers not reviewing and capitalizing on these or other relevant tools may be left in the dust by more nimble and aware competitors.

Remember, when it comes to business, ignorance is not always bliss.

Strategic Marketing Plans Protect Against a Changing World

Colonel Sanders invested his Social Security checks to launch his dream business, the first Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant.

In retail they tell you, the number one tactic is location, location, location, right?

So the Colonel carefully identified what he thought was the ideal location, near a major ramp to a critical highway.

Then the unthinkable happened. A few moths after he opened his doors, the city decided to close the ramp for six months for major construction, which all but bankrupted him.

His innovative solution to this horrifying experience was to go on the road and convince other restaurants to sell chicken specially prepared using his secret formula and methods, and using his Kentucky Friend Chicken name and logo.

The Colonel’s creative solution helped turn his KFC into an international success. But for most entrepreneurs who depend on a single marketing tactic to bring in customers, when something dramatic changes, that can spell the end of business as you know it.

But it doesn’t need to be like that…

See page 2: Strategic Marketing Plans as Insurance Against Failure