|
|
|
How to run your greatest conference ever
Like most good achievements, a magnificent meeting depends on planning and preparation. These are essential to a good conference and this article explains the basics of what you need to do. Planning The first stage in organising any conference is...
industrial planning
Industrial planning. The troglodytes executed simple tasks. The planning of the troglodytes was completely processed in memory. The product that consists of six thousand components can be planned only with an electronic processor. The Elements ...
Present Statistics In Context
I didnt have 3000 pairs of shoes. I had only 1600 pairs. --- Imelda Marcos
Everythings relative. A million dollars sounds like a lot of money to someone who makes an average salary, but its a drop in the bucket to a Warren Buffett or a...
Questions to ask yourself to prevent costly errors on your printing jobs
I remember having to write about an article on how your graphic designer can cost you money. Sure, your graphic designer can have all the blame when you find out later that your material cannot be run through the press right away because there are...
Understanding Best Payday Loans to Make Them a Rule Rather than an Exception
Any loan resulting in a release of cash during times of
immediate financial crises would be termed as best payday loan.
It is only after the purpose for which the loan was taken gets
satisfied that we start thinking critically of the loan. It...
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Creating your Future with a Marketing Plan
Almost everyone who dreams of starting their own business is familiar with the fact that they should create a business plan. However, often thats where many people stop. When you created your business plan, what did you do with it? You actually have the base for the next step, which is creating your marketing plan. Without the plan of how you are going to market your business, the business plan is just an empty jumble of words speaking of dreams and desires. The marketing plan takes those dreams and creates a strategy for how to make those dreams come true.
There are several different suggestions on how to put a marketing plan together, but all plans have at least seven or eight steps. These steps include preparing a mission statement, describing the services provided, identify and understand the competition, spell out the marketing objectives and strategies, create the action plan, and create a monitoring strategy in order to determine what works and what doesnt.
Prepare a mission statement
The mission statement should clearly and succinctly describe the nature of your business, services offered, and markets served in just a few sentences. A mission statement is a statement of who you are and what you stand for. It answers the question of why you are in business. Although there are many, many different theories on what makes a good mission statement, here is a site of various examples; http://www.csuchico.edu/mgmt/strategy/module1/sld015.htm
List your ideal client
I cannot emphasize this enough. You have to know who your ideal client is, and what their issues are, extremely finitely in order to speak to them. You have to visually be able to see them in front of you and know what makes them tick. Be very specific in identifying your ideal client. Include age, sex, income, education, occupation, geographic region, lifestyle, attitudes, purchasing characteristics, etc. What are their values, what do they like to do. Really get clear who this person is.
Describe your services
Imagine everything you want to do, either currently or in the future. Its ok if you havent done it before: If its a dream that you provide in-home cooking demonstrations, include that in your list. You will later determine how to make it happen. Include all details of what you offer, where and for how much. Determine what your prices must be to cover your costs. Dont leave anything out even if youre not sure its something you want to do this year.
Who is your competition?
In order to know how to position yourself from your competition, you must know who your competition is. Do some research and determine what your competition offers, how they promote, what they charge for services, and what their strengths and weaknesses are. Dont rush through this section. Make phone calls, check the internet, and ask people you know. Feel free to call the people you find and ask questions. If you dont feel comfortable doing that, ask a family member or friend to do it.
Marketing objectives and strategies
Marketing objectives will indicate targets to be achieved across several marketing decision areas. Examples could include such things as what products/services you wish to offer, who you plan to offer them to, how you plan to make your services known, your promotional objectives, etc. Objectives should be clear, measurable, and have a stated time frame for achievement. Objectives included should include both marketing objectives and financial objectives.
Get very specific with your objectives, such as how many clients will you have by what date, how much revenue you will bring in by what
date, and exactly where these new clients will come from. Who will you include your marketing to? For financial objectives, you need to be clear about what growth percentage you expect and how you will achieve that growth.
Marketing strategy
This is your game plan to achieve your marketing objectives. You are now getting into the nitty-gritty. This is where its time to play and play big! The marketing strategy should include information about your product, your price, how you will promote or create awareness of your product or services, and how you will distribute that information.
Examples of basic marketing strategies include networking, brochures, ads in newspapers, various programs or presentations, press releases, to just name a few. Some may cost you a great deal, but there are many marketing strategies that cost you very little or just your time. Gauge what your time is worth and how busy you are to determine how much of these strategies you will do on your own. You will further determine this by the next step, however.
When a strategy works, repeat it. If it fails, and you did it right, drop it. Learning to develop strategies that work for your particular situation and personality will take time and practice.
Create the action plan
Once the objectives and strategies have been developed, put together an action plan describing the steps that need to be taken in detail. This is your actual game plan for how you will accomplish all that you have written about in your business plan and previously in the marketing plan. It will include what the specific objective is, exactly what and when the steps will be taken, what results you expect to see, the marketing tactics you will employ and so on. This will be your template for your marketing calendar that you will create in the following step to creating your business.
Monitor results
By monitoring results, you can determine which of your strategies are working and which are not. Identify strategies that generate increased business. This involves tracking and evaluating clients responses to each marketing strategy. Conduct regular surveys in order to find out what clients like and dont like.
Client comments are invaluable for creating or enhancing your market literature. With permission, these comments can be used as testimonials.
Creating a marketing plan is not something enough people take the time to work on. I have found this to be the hardest part for anyone in small business and have had to spend many hours, myself, struggling over some of these answers. I cant emphasize how important it is to do this work, however. Skipping this step can mean the difference between success or failure. Many people who start a small business are aware of creating a business plan, and stop at the stage of the small market plan topics listed in the business plan. However, the business plan is just the first step. The marketing plan is not the final step, either! This document is the template for creating your marketing calendar that will set your projects in motion for the year. You are creating your future with the marketing plan, and then watching that future become reality with your marketing calendar.
About the Author
Marjorie Geiser is a registered dietitian, certified personal trainer and life coach. Marjorie has been the owner of a successful small business, MEG Fitness, since 1996, and now helps other health professionals start up their own private practice. To learn more about the services Margie offers, go to her website at www.marjoriegeiser.com or email her at margie@megfit.com.
|
|
|
|
|
| Oral Presentation Advice |
| Your presentation should not replace your paper, but rather whet the ... Below I consider goals for academic interview talks and class presentations. ... |
| www.cs.wisc.edu |
|
| Presentation Skills |
| This site contains annotated links to resources concerned with presentation and communication skills. |
| lorien.ncl.ac.uk |
|
| Presentation Helper - Free PowerPoint templates, help, advice and ... |
| Resources on how to make effective presentations. Includes tips on PowerPoint and topic ideas. |
| www.presentationhelper.co.uk |
|
| Neurobehavioral Systems, Inc. |
| Neuroscience stimulus delivery software can be used for cognitive psychology, fMRI, erp and single unit research (Windows). |
| nbs.neuro-bs.com |
|
| Why tables for layout is stupid: problems defined, solutions offered |
| Why tables for layout is stupid:. problems defined, solutions offered. Tables existed in HTML for one reason: To display tabular data. ... |
| www.hotdesign.com |
|
| The Gettysburg Powerpoint Presentation |
| This presentation prepared with the help of Microsoft Powerpoint Autocontent Wizard. ... Permission is granted to use this presentation in any course or ... |
| norvig.com |
|
| Presentation Zen |
| I love the clear presentation of the ideas in the book and the fact that the ... In the context of presentations, moving info away can help you and the ... |
| www.presentationzen.com |
|
| Presentation Tips for Public Speaking |
| Better Public Speaking & Presentation - Ensure Your Words Are Always ... On the Job: Public Speaking Tips - Twelve Steps to Great Presentations by Elise ... |
| www.aresearchguide.com |
|
| Presentation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia |
| Presentation is the process of presenting the content of a topic to an ... You should plan to rehearse your presentation out loud at least four times. ... |
| en.wikipedia.org |
|
| OSCON 2005 Keynote - Identity 2.0 |
| A barn-burner of a presentation. I loved this. - Cory Doctorow. I watched it twice, and greatly enjoyed it both times. - Jon Udell ... |
| www.identity20.com |
|
| Presentations - Effective Communication - Public Speaking |
| Tips and tools for creating and delivering presentations: text, techniques and technology. |
| www.presentations.com |
|
| Presentation Information Resources - Presentation Technology News ... |
| Presentation Information Resources - Comprehensive presenter's resource providing instant access to up-to-date information on technology and techniques for ... |
| 199.249.170.231 |
|
| Effective Presentations homepage |
| In addition, the skills needed to prepare an oral presentation can be used ... A spiffy presentation discussing Effective Teaching with Powerpoint from the ... |
| www.kumc.edu |
|
| Impress |
| Your presentations will stand out with 2D and 3D clip art, special effects, animation, ... Slide show Animation and Effects bring your presentation to life. ... |
| www.openoffice.org |
|
| PRESENTATIONPRO - experts for Microsoft PowerPoint |
| A series of products and services to help enhance PowerPoint presentations with templates and backgrounds. |
| www.presentationpro.com |
|
| Leadership - Presentation Skills |
| Presentation, PowerPoint, and Leadership. ... Presentations and reports are ways of communicating ideas and information to a group. But unlike a report, ... |
| www.skagit.com |
|
| Presentation: See what people are saying right now on Technorati |
| See all blog posts tagged with presentation on Technorati. |
| www.technorati.com |
|
| Secretary of State Addresses the U.N. Security Council |
| My friends, this has been a long and a detailed presentation. And I thank you for your patience. But there is one more subject that I would like to touch on ... |
| www.whitehouse.gov |
|
| Rubric |
| Organization, Audience cannot understand presentation because there is no sequence of information. Audience has difficulty following presentation because ... |
| www.ncsu.edu |
|
| Presentation Skills |
| Presentations are one of the first managerial skills which a junior engineer ... This article looks at the basics of Presentation Skills as they might apply ... |
| www.see.ed.ac.uk |
|
|