Coming up with a marketing plan
In today’s business world there are a million and one ways to market your brand. You can advertise with a website,social media, newspaper ad, phone book, T.V. commercial, radio, and the list goes on and on and on.
Advertising is like cooking a meal when your hungry. You can choose a quick meal with instant results like putting a couple hotdogs in the microwave. It may not taste the best but it can the job done. On the other hand, the slow cooked meal like a steak and lobster with potatoes plate. The meal may take longer until you get to eat it and your mouth may be watering the whole time waiting for results, but when it’s done you’ll be glad you went that route.
What is a brand?
In short, a brand is the emotional connection people have towards your organization. For example, when we make friends we look for the people with strong integrity, kind, fair, funny, etc. In a way those characteristics
are ideal for what we look for in a friend but also in a “brand”. A strong brand inspires trust, loyalty and a sense of excellence. Without it, an organization cannot stand out from the crowd. And of course the more you stand out from the crowd the more your noticed which in turn means more profits!
Points to consider
So the most logical question I can think of would be, “what’s the best advertising for my brand?”
To answer that would be different for everyone but a few things to consider would be:
What does your brand do to create income (Service offered, Product sales?)
Where are you located (Busy city, Suburbs, Two hours from civilization?)
Where is your market (Local, State wide, World wide?)
There are more key points to every business but these 3 here are the most important to me. Some points only the business owner theirself would know after being in business for awhile and getting a feel for his customers and how they found his company, etc.
Almost every brand will need multiple forms of advertising to increase sales. But most brands will have different results from the different forms of advertising.
Being able to incorporate these aspects into a marketing plan is the difference between a brands success and failure.
Putting the points into the right perspective
So, if my brand is a small one store company that sells a product to my local community like a discount cigarette shop for example. I would not get a lot of bang for my buck if I were to advertise on a local T.V. commercial because most of my customers will be centrally located around my shop. Most people won’t drive past a couple stores that offer the same quality product that I do. Also, the cost for a T.V. commercial is probably not going to excedd the amount of extra sales I receive. So in this instance I’m limited to advertising in my local community. Maybe a community news magazine or something of that sort.
Another example would be a home business that sells candles. The local market would be a good start. But why stop there? Say there is a population of 50,000 in my local market, with a well built website I could potentially expand my now seemingly little local market to a much bigger nationwide market.
