How to create a marketing strategy that ensures a constant flow of business

To better market your business, you will need to think about your marketing strategy. It is not enough to do sporadic marketing activities. A successful plan will help you establish a steady stream of new business and allow you to more accurately forecast your staffing needs.

1. Describe your target market in terms of demographics (age range, income level, occupation, marital status, geographic location, gender).
2. Describe your target market in psychographic terms (lifestyle, desires, perceived needs) This information, along with demographic information, will help you find where your target market is located. Regardless of what you choose in terms of marketing activities, you always want to be sure that you are in front of a significant number of members of your target market.
3. Calculate the size of your target market. The larger the target market, the easier it is to reach them. That being said, however, a target market that is too large can be difficult to reach because there is so much variation within it. You want to choose a target market that is small enough that when you speak or write to them, they feel like you are speaking or writing directly to them.
4. Analyze your competitors detailing their strengths and weaknesses and where you see opportunities to compete with them and also where you see threats to them or to you in terms of competition.
5. Describe the product/service you offer and what is your competitive advantage. This is an opportunity to clarify your value proposition: why customers choose you over the competition.
6. Put it all together in a positioning statement that takes the form of this: The target market for my business is (describe customers using information from 1 and 2 above) who have this problem (what is the compelling reason they need this service?). The service offered is (describe the service as you did in #5) is different from the competition because (describe the competitive advantage as you did in #5)
7. Describe how you will deliver this product/service. Will the customer/client come to your office? Will you go to the customer/client? Is the service delivered over the phone or over the Internet? Can the client/customer get the service by regular mail?
8. How will you price your product/service? What is the competitive pricing environment? Are there any restrictions that limit what you can charge? Do you have a specific markup you must earn? How much do you estimate it costs you to deliver this product/service? What do you base your price on? Is it cost, quality, leadership, revenue generation?
9. What are the marketing actions and follow-up actions you will take to convert your prospects into customers? How often and where will you market your services?
10. How will you measure the effectiveness of your marketing strategy? This is the only way to know how successful your marketing strategy is. After 3-4 months, if the strategy doesn’t work, you’ll want to modify the plan and try again.