Crayons And Poster Board Will Work Well

Crayons And Poster Board Will Work Well
The Simple Way To Create A Professional Marketing Plan

by Anthony Tesoriero Jr.

I cannot stress how important the development of a professional marketing plan is for your business as you move forward and work to generate increased revenue. The value of having a plan will be more than 10 times the cost associated with creating one. A professional marketing plan will pave the way for your future business success providing a clear definition of your business that will help you eliminate costly mistakes, decrease employee dissention, increase awareness of your services, improve your customer retention and increase your bottom line revenues among the many benefits.

Well Founded Ideas

Experts have expounded on the importance and benefits of having a professional marketing plan for years, and there probably are no less than 1,000 or so books written on the subject. So truth be told, you may be reading this and saying this does not sound like such a groundbreaking route to business success. "Tell me something I don't know" might be the common reaction. However, before you cast aside this article and move on to your tasks of the day, keep in mind that if so many people have said the same thing, there may be a possibility that they are right.

The fact of the matter is you know the experts are right and you know you should have a professional marketing plan in place. However, if you are like myself and the thousands of other entrepreneurs who didn't have the luxury of a Harvard education and built your business with time and sweat, not books and plans, the idea of creating a professional marketing plan might just sound a little too intimidating and troublesome. Moreover, it may seem like a waste of time considering you have done fine so far without one.

However, just because you've done all right flying by the seat of your pants doesn't mean you couldn't do a whole lot better with a well-thought flight plan. In addition, it does not have to be as daunting and intimidating of a task as you might think. In fact, creating a professional marketing plan can be a fun and exhilarating experience that will enlighten and motivate you and all of your staff.

A Catchy Phrase

"Crayons and poster board will work well" is an expression I have used for many years to express the simplicity of creating a professional marketing plan. In fact, those exact tools are all you need--combined with some uninterrupted time, an open and creative mindset and a few colleagues to get the plan written in about a day.

A wise man once said, "If you don't know where you are going any road will get you there." This one sentence is the perfect description about the necessity of creating a marketing plan. Therefore, I would like to encourage you to begin this process right now, get a pen and paper or even some crayons and poster board, and begin to develop a professional marketing plan. A marketing plan does not have to be about complex business-school jargon with pie charts and ad slicks. Your marketing plan has to be nothing more than a hand-written road map and set of directions to get you to your destination.

A road map with directions, in fact, is a perfect way to think about your plan in the scope of what it should do for you and how informal it needs to be. A great way to look at how to create this plan is to simply think of your business as an individual, a unique entity with special qualities and talents that are desirable to others. Once you can begin to visualize, the plan will come together easily.

Getting Started

Considering your business probably is up and running, you already have started your journey. So before we determine where we are going, we have to know more about where we've been, what we are driving and what type of roads we are planning to take. This analogy simply means we have to define our business.

Thinking about our business in the first person can help us to create a great definition. Therefore, in the first part of creating this plan, we must figure out what makes our small business unique amongst all of the competition. We must determine precisely who are the customers we are seeking to attract and what our unique features are that we are going to use to attract them to our doors.

Start by writing down everything you can think of that your business does, what services you offer and what products you may sell. Do not leave anything out, examine your entire business and write it down. Next, try to think of all the unique features and distinguishing characteristics your business has to offer. There can be 1,000 different things from the speed of your sessions to the cleanliness of the bathrooms. If you examine your business under a microscope and ask others to participate in this process, you will discover things you never realized were there. Another great place for this information is to ask your customers what they think of your business, what they find pleasing and why they come to you instead of the competition.

Then take all of this information and filter it to focus on a very precise explanation of your business, who you are, what you sell and what makes you unique. As you do this, remember that customers have a very limited attention span. Although you may have discovered 12 different things your salon sells and 46 unique characteristics you are excited about, your typical customer probably is not paying attention. He or she is looking to your business for very limited reasons. Your job is to figure out what features appeal to them and make sure they become the focus of your business foundation and marketing plan.

The Road To Success

McDonald's could not have become the No. 1 selling hamburger restaurant in the world by marketing gourmet hot dogs. They may have become successful regardless, but they most certainly would not be known for the Big Mac and quick service. You must be able to tell potential customers the most important things they need to know, in the clearest way possible, in the shortest amount of time and in a way that is memorable. The goal is to make your business synonymous with the characteristics you have chosen to market.

This process of discovery will form the foundation of the entire plan. Nevertheless, there is one other important detail to cover and that is to determine who your customer really is. This information is vital because many thousands of dollars could be wasted in marketing to the wrong group of people. You want to make sure you spend your money the most-efficient way possible and that means focusing your efforts on the potential customers most likely to buy. You only will be able to do this if you know precisely who these people are.

I have eaten hamburgers before, therefore I might be considered a potential customer of McDonalds. However, if McDonald's put their resources into marketing hamburgers to me they would be out of business quite quickly, because I do not fit the precise demographic of a McDonalds customer. So, even though my money is green and I eat hamburgers, McDonalds knows better than to target me when they can be spending their vital marketing dollars on people who are listening more closely.

You should understand this same concept as you determine the profile of your customer. Many people tan with you throughout the course of a year but they do not all fit the profile of your best customer. You need to figure out who that person is and then you can determine how best to market to them.

The foundations of this plan are essential. If you answer the defining questions with vagueness and ambiguity, you will not be able to correctly market your business. In other words, if you say, "I run a nice tanning salon in a small town, and everybody is my potential customer," you are not creating an accurate description of your business. That is like saying, "I want to get from somewhere over here to somewhere over there, somehow, someway." So take some time and really think about an accurate description of your business, your uniqueness and your customers.

After you have accomplished that step, you then must find a way to quantify your definition of results. You must know what you are looking for. Tourists get lost, destination seekers always know where they're going. This means you must define your goals, whether it is to increase sales, generate larger per person sales, sell more packages, sell more memberships, increase traffic through your salon or maybe just create more goodwill. You must have a goal in mind before you set forth on your journey.

Once you have taken these necessary steps, you will have established the foundations of your professional marketing plan. Now, attend a few seminars, skim through a few books with marketing tips, scour the Internet and visit the library to grab a hold of a few dozen marketing and advertising ideas. Brainstorm with your staff and colleagues and then try to determine which ideas best suit your customers. In other words, select the effort that is best suited to the type of customer you are trying to attract.

Now, with all of these pieces in place, you can assemble your plan. Remember that crayons and poster board work well and, in fact, the plan does not have to be your greatest work of art. It just needs to define who you are, what you sell, whom you seek and how you are going to get them. Pick a few ideas that you brainstormed, get a calendar and determine exactly when you are going to implement them and make it a priority. Determine how much you are willing to spend and what your expectations for each project are and with that, you will have set reasonable goals. The only thing left for you to do will be to make sure you follow through.

Stick with your plan and you will achieve more than you ever have. If something works, stick with it, if it doesn't seem to be going well, drop it and move on--that is what successful marketing is all about. Use others as inspiration but never lose sight of what makes your business unique because that uniqueness is the one thing that will always separate you from the rest of the pack.

John Abaté International's™ Director of Salon Education, Anthony Tesoriero Jr., HbP, has actively been involved in both the tanning and beauty industries as a popular speaker and successful owner/operator of multiple salons. An experienced tanning expert specializing in motivational speaking, Tesoriero travels extensively conducting comprehensive educational seminars within a motivational format for both distributor and salon personnel, as well as at major skincare and tanning industry tradeshows. His highly celebrated Motivated to Market seminar has become an industry standard in salon training, securing Tesoriero as one of the most dynamic and sought-after speakers in the tanning industry.