In sports, they always talk about getting back to the fundamentals. Does your business need to get back to the basics in its marketing and sales efforts? The challenge most business owners face is they tend to stop doing the fundamentals and get complacent in their efforts after having a successful year.
You just came off a successful year and you are gearing up to make the new year even better. You think like the business owner that you will do the things that made you successful last year. The only problem is that last year was last year. In my early years of being a business owner, I fell into this same trap of doing the same thing because it was successful last year. The only challenge was I did not take a hard look at my sales numbers to see where my business was coming from. I just continued my marketing efforts or even worse yet, I just increased my budget but did not analyze which marketing efforts gave me the greatest returns.
Let me share a strategy you can use to help your business continue to grow and analyze the results that give the greatest return on your investment. I created a template for business owners to use to take a look at creating their own Marketing & Sales plan for an entire year. Let me share with you how it works so you can implement it today:
- First, you fill out the Annual Revenue Projection for your company. This would be the gross amount of sales you project for the year.
- Figure out the Net Profit Projection you want for this year. If you don’t know your previous years, do the research. This is where you decide if you need or want more profit for your bottom line.
- Think about your overall marketing strategy for this year to increase your sales. Create some bullet points you will plan to work towards during the year.
Once you have identified your overall picture for the company now we are going to break down your marketing and sales plan for each month. We will look at 3 key areas to help you achieve your revenue targets.
- Marketing strategy for each month, things like promotions, social media, advertising, sales fliers, database email campaigns, etc. This is anything you will do to promote your business during that month.
- Sales strategy for each month. Think of sales items such as:
- Buy two, get one free
- Special incentives for your customers
- Incentives for your staff
- Closeouts, clearance items, new arrival sales, etc.
- All items that will drive your sales to your business.
- Events for the month. This is where you get very specific with what events you will hold at your business. If you do offsite events it is time to decide which ones you will attend. These are revenue-generating events. Remember if you promote your business outside of your normal operation, that is when you gain exposure of your company to new customers.
I want you, the business owner, to feel the success of achieving your revenue goals for this new year. Most business owners hope that their sales will increase. By creating a Marketing and Sales plan you are dictating your future success. This planning time at the beginning of the year will set up your business to hit your revenue targets. I recommend reviewing your plan each month and updating it as the year progresses.
Remember your success is based on solid planning and then taking action on your plan. If you would like to get my Marketing & Sales plan template just click on the link to receive the download. http://1676514.hs-sites.com/sales-and-marketing-plan-template
Let’s make this your best year yet!
Make it a GREAT Day!
Gary Wilbers
