Set Your Marketing Objectives

What do you want your marketing to accomplish in the coming year?

• Grow revenue to $1 M
• Increase profitability to 20%
• Build market share by 30%

These are some clear and simple objectives that are pretty easy to measure.  Some other more complex ones include, introducing new products, changing the product mix or addressing a new target market.  Set 3 or 4 simple objectives to guide your marketing strategies.

Define Your Target Market?

There are multiple ways to define a target market.  Geography and demographics list where your potential customers live and general characteristics like age, income and family situation.  You can also describe a market by the way they think and act, a psycho-graphic description.  Pet lovers, fitness junkies, health nuts and environmentalists are all categories that describe how a person might feel about your product or service.  One other way to segment an audience is by behavior or special events in their lives.  “Black Friday” shoppers act and buy differently that one day of the year, and ladies who are recently engaged suddenly become prospective buyers of wedding dresses, flowers and caterers.

What You Should Say

Messaging consists of 4 or 5 critical points that your target market needs to know.  Think through the specific value to your customers and the things that make you different.  A photographer might focus on the importance of preserving the moment and a restaurant may communicate the experience of a night out in their unique atmosphere.  Each advertisement, press release, business card, elevator pitch and Facebook post should reflect a part of your message – the part that’s most important to the audience of that specific media.

Select Your Media Channels

Any place a message can be communicated is a potential marketing media!  However, not every media channel is right for your marketing objectives.  Print, direct mail, billboards, social media, online ads, email – the list goes on.  As a business owner your biggest decision is to choose which of these will MOST effectively communicate your message to the target market to meet your objectives.  If your target market is adults in the United States that watch football, and your objective is to make people aware of your product, (and if you can afford it!) a “shocker” commercial during the Super Bowl might just be the ticket.  But, if your trying to generate traffic to your local restaurant, coupons in the local paper or search engine marketing, or both, may bring better results for the money.

Developing a Marketing Budget

Setting a marketing budget can be a little tricky.  Most small business owners underestimate how much marketing is needed to reach their objectives.  We underestimate in both money and time.  How many people started their “free” Facebook page only to find out that it requires “being social” several hours per week to have any effect!  Start your budget by pricing out (both money and time) the media that you would like to use over the year.  Then adjust to the funds and time available, realizing that your revenue and profitability objectives may have to adjust accordingly.  This will at least give you a list to compare against when the advertising sales people and sponsor requests start flowing.  Keep an eye out in your industry pubs and newsletters to get a feel for what others are spending so you have a better measuring stick in the future.

Keeping it Simple

If you are just getting started don’t over complicate the marketing plan.  One or two pages is a great start if they include the basic information listed above.  The purpose is to help you focus on making the best decisions through the year based on a plan.

I’d love to hear your thoughts, questions and ideas for building a practical marketing plan!

For those who don’t have time to do the deep analytics and research to create those great strategic goals we see in all the text books, here are a few practical tips:

Focus. Look at Me, I Said FOCUS!

Many of us over reach with our goals and try to do way too many things.  It’s ok to set big goals, but when you pick too many, it’s easy to lose focus on what’s really important.  It’s easy to make a goal out of everything that comes to mind, but much more difficult to pick only the most important and set everything else aside.

It’s Great to Measure, But Don’t Make That the Focus

Any consultant worth their weight in sand will tell you that your goals have to measurable.  I certainly don’t disagree, but don’t set a great strategy aside because you can’t figure out how to measure it or because it is just to hard to measure.  As small business owners we have the privilege of evaluating our own performance, and we usually do it without a ton of numbers.  For instance, this year I want to do more with web site.  I’m not sure exactly what that means yet, but I know it’s important.  Eventually, I will measure by revenue produced or traffic, but for now I have a gut feel for what I want and my goal is to “Make my web site a significant contributor to the Sigma College business model”.

Keep Them in Front of You

In one conversation at a Small Business Roundtable discussion last January someone recommended putting your goals somewhere where you will see them every day – it will help you focus (see number 1:-))  I’ll add something to that, find someone to share your goals with, someone who will help remind you, challenge you and encourage you!

Keep it Positive

Setting goals and then accomplishing them should be an encouragement.  Don’t beat yourself up when one falls by the wayside, just reset and move on to the next.  I always have a personal goal for my exercise regimen (or lack thereof).  I used to get dejected and stop if I couldn’t hit my 5 times per week goal.  Then I realized that 2 times per week is better than none!  Most of the time the work towards the goal has the real impact, so keep at it.

Do you have any tips for goal setting that have kept you going?  Let us know with a comment!

The strategic plan for a small business owner is different from a large company because it is joined at the hip with the personal vision and desires of the business owner. Sigma College of Small Business understands this difference and we work with clients to build their strategic plan over time, outlining the big decisions that need to be made in order to achieve the dream that got you started in the business! Small and medium business strategic plans should include the following key components:

• Exit Strategy
• Business Organization
• Value Model
• Vision and/or Mission Statements
• Strategic Goals
• Key Marketing Strategies
• The Big Actions
• Strategic Planning Services

Sigma College of Small Business professionals can work with you and your management team to develop a business plan for daily decisions or to use with banks and investors as you raise capital for growth.

Business Planning for Small Business

The business plan for a small business owner should be a very simple and practical tool for making key daily decisions. Taking its direction from the strategic plan, the practical small business plan should be focused on matching products to current market needs, then selling and delivering those products to customers in a way that builds the value of the company through profit or growth. A good small business plan will include:

• Market Need
• Product Definitions
• The Value Match
• Detailed Financial Projections
• Marketing Plan
• Operations Plan
• Business Planning Services

Sigma College of Small Business professionals can work with you and your management team to develop a business plan for daily decisions or to use with banks and investors as you raise capital for growth.

Marketing ideas for small business is the easy part, coming
up with the time and resources to consistently execute those ideas, even when
you’re swamped, is the hard part.

Small Business Marketing

Small Business Marketing is different because they are limited in resources and time to spend creating big campaigns.  At Sigma College of Small business we understand this difference and help small business owners understand the fundamentals of marketing.  Then we help them figure out what the BEST tools are for their business and how to use them in the most effective way.  Typical tools that work best for small business owners:

• Web Site and Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
• Search Engine Marketing (Adwords)
• Social Media Marketing – Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Blogging
• Email Marketing – using Constant Contact and other tools
• Professional Networking – Chambers of commerce, BNI, Lead sharing groups, events
• Referral Based Marketing – business by word of mouth
• Public Relations – Press releases and generating news stories
• Sales Promotion – Coupons, give-aways, contests and other promotions
• Advertising – Newspaper, Yellow Pages, TV, Radio and other media
• Branding

Marketing Plan Services

Sigma College of Small Business can help you develop marketing strategies, a plan and budget for your business.  In the consulting process you will also learn the fundamentals of marketing so that you can make the best decisions in the future.  This will set you up to find the best marketing professional to take your business to the next level.

List of training materials for Marketing

Small Business Sales

Hiring that first sales person is one of the scariest things a business owner faces!  How can another
person understand the value and put the passion behind the sale like you do every day?  At Sigma College of Small Business, we know what it takes to find and hire a sales team that will generate results for small business, without the risk of hiring the wrong person.  Here are the things we focus on for this big decision:

• Sales Goals for the Business
• Compensation and Commission Structure
• Paying for Your Desired Results
• Sales Organization and Position Description
• Advertising, Evaluating Resumes and Interviewing
• Negotiating and Offer and Making the Hire
• Sales Force Management and Incentives
• Integrating Marketing and Sales

Small Business Sales Services

Sigma College of Small Business will prepare you to build a sales force by developing a Sales Plan that includes compensation structure, sales goals, incentives, organization and management plans.  We can also help you evaluate and choose contact management and sales management software to suit your needs.

List of training materials for Sales

• Tax Impact on Business Decisions
• Valuing Your Business
• Using Legal Entities in Your Business Strategy (C-Corp,
  S-Corp, LLCs)
• Reading and Understanding Financial Statements (Balance
  Sheet, Income Statements)
• Budgeting to Reach Your Business Goals
• Return on Investment Decisions – Which investment is best
  for me?
• Cash Flow Management
• Detailed Financial Projections

Accounting and Financial Planning Services

Sigma college of Small Business will help you understand the financial decisions that are impacting your business by developing detailed financial projections.  These financial projections will identify critical areas of decision and provide the analysis necessary to make a more informed decision.

Realizing your full potential as a leader and manager are
very important to the long term success of your business.  Sigma College of Small Business helps
business owners be better at business by developing your business leadership
and business management skills through our classes, seminars and business
management services.

The professional development of your key employees in the
areas of leadership and business management is also very important.  Even though they may not have the time, money
or desire to go back to school for their business degree your managers, and
team leads can still learn about management.
Sigma College of Small Business offers practical and affordable business
education resources designed for small business managers – practical,
convenient and affordable.  They will get
something out of every session that they can use in your business tomorrow!

• Business Strategic Planning
• Writing Business Plans
• Vision and Mission Statements
• Setting and Achieving Goals and Objectives
• Leadership Techniques
• Managing People
• Critical Management Skills

Technology and Innovation are the great game changer for
small business.  However, staying abreast
of that technology and promoting innovation for your company can be very
difficult.  Sigma College of Small
Business keeps track of the technologies available for business and filters out
the useful from the junk for our customers.
We also help Small Business owners innovate their products and
processes, keeping them ahead of the competition.

• Small Business networking
• Buying computers
• Using the Internet for Business
• Managing data
• Network Security

Developing a web site