Every small business owner dreams of drawing up a good marketing plan, implementing it and seeing revenue increase. It is worth taking a look at the elements of a strategically relevant plan that is detailed enough for the business person to assess the suitability of a large number of available marketing tactics appropriate to the business concerned. There are seven key areas involved when it comes to creating a strong and efficient marketing plan for your business.

1. Vision. There has to be a marketing vision that mirrors the overall business vision. So for instance if you marketing vision is to expand your market into previously untapped markets but your business vision is to carry on doing the same old thing, the two are not matched. This will weaken your marketing efforts and produce negligible results.

2. Awareness. For your marketing efforts be effective you have to comprehend and accept the particular needs, concerns and assumptions of your target audience. If you neglect to do so the result will be poor communications and reduced return on investment.

3. Competition. It is vital to analyze your competitors in the marketplace whether direct, indirect or variable. Your direct competitors are self explanatory e.g. shoe shops compete directly with other shoe shops. Your indirect competitors compete for the same budget in the same general area e.g. movie theatres compete with restaurant for family entertainment spending. Variable competition refers to external factors that could disrupt your business e.g. a bridge is washed away in a flood preventing customers from reaching your offices.

4. Message. It is important to work out the communications element, i.e. the basic message, you want to get across to your audience. An inappropriate message could do your marketing campaign more harm than good. It could even benefit your competitors.

5. Media. Once you have clarity about your marketing message it is time to decide how precisely the target market is to be reached. Try to eliminate personal preferences from the mix. Just because you like SMS campaigns does not necessarily mean it is appropriate for your business or your target audience. Endeavour to use a wide selection of media.

6. Analysis. Determine how you are going to test, measure and tweak your marketing efforts in the short and long term. Build these methods into your marketing plan. This is very important. I would go so far as to say that you should eliminate any media where your efforts cannot be measured precisely. If your intention is to gain new markets then you must make sure that the success of this plan is measurable. This is the only way you will be evaluate and adjust your marketing campaign as required.

7. Funnels. These are marketing systems whereby you should define the process whereby your target audience is addressed, your prospects garnered, how they will be informed and how they will eventually become customers. By designing your funnel you will be able to streamline the process and instill continuity for staff and customers alike.

Large corporations dump several hundreds of thousands of dollars into PPC to
get customers for their products using direct response because they can
simply afford to spend as much. As a home business owner, you don’t have that type of money to sink when using direct response either in TV infomercials
or Google AdWords.

I want to impress upon your mind that the next level of successful marketing
is in building relationship with every prospects that come your way.

For instance, let’s say you are using PPC and you want to get people to buy
your products. If you take the buyer straight to your products sales page,
you will not only make little, you will also spend a lot of money in PPC
fees.

However, if you had instead, sent the prospects to a page where he can get a
free report on your market that will give him all the information about the
products he is looking for, you will succeed in getting nearly 40% – 50% of
all your website visitors to download this e-book.

Once the e-book is downloaded, you can follow up with this prospects by sending him only relevant information in that market and products.

Once your reader sees that you offer value and you treat him as a person, and not like an electronic email, he will respect you for that, and will respond
to buying your products when you make them available.

If you ask me, I think the future of marketing anything online and offline is going to be through this avenue. Build a list and relationship in a market
and sell it to those who trust your recommendations. This work better than
direct response advertising.

1. Greater Liquidity. According to the Bank of International Settlements’ 2007 Triennial Central Bank Survey, the average daily turnover in traditional foreign exchange markets is estimated at $3.21 trillion. The overall turnover in the forex market is more than 10 times the combined daily turnover on all the world’s equity markets. For traders, this means that it’s easier to get in and out of trades at the price you want. At least from this perspective, the forex market is safer than other markets.

2. Leverage. To put it simply, leverage is the ability to trade with borrowed money. Many brokers offer traders 200:1 leverage at no additional cost — meaning traders can trade 200 times the amount of capital they’ve deposited in their account. Leverage allows traders to more precisely define the amount of risk they want to assume, and can allow for above average returns as well. It should be noted that leverage needs to be used cautiously; in fact, poor usage of leverage is one of the primary causes of forex traders losing all the wealth in their account. Used prudently, though, the amount of leverage the forex market offers — which is far greater than what other markets offer, and typically comes at no additional commission cost — can help traders earn greater returns while staying maintaining a level of risk that is appropriate for their investment portfolio.

3. 24 Hour Availability. The forex market is truly a global market; it is open 24 hours a day. While many stock markets have after hours trading, those markets are often very illiquid during those times; in other words, prices can be more volatile, and it can be harder for traders to get in and out of positions at the price they want. On the other hand, the forex market is active 24 hours a day, as banks across the world are active participants during their hours of operations.

4. Abundance of Direct Access Brokers. In most equities and futures markets, most brokers do not provide traders with direct access to the counter party of their trade; in other words, traders have to give their trade to a broker — who in turn adds a fee, and then passes it on to the party that actually takes the trade. In the forex market, though, online forex brokers typically are the counterparty to the trade. This allows traders to enjoy trading at a lower price. For active traders, this can end up resulting in significant savings over time.

These advantages are a big part of the reason why forex trading has become more common amongst individual traders over the past decade, and why its popularity continues to accelerate.

Regardless of the size, a small business must focus on marketing, just like any business of a substantial size. Unlike big businesses, small businesses have a lot of factors that make marketing more difficult. Primarily, these efforts are hindered by budgets and resources.

A marketing strategy is a step-by-step process that examines a business situation or environment. The plan identifies a target client/market, key competition, challenges and opportunities in the market.

Marketing is such an important part of the business process. It’s what brings consumers and products together in a market place.

When you have a well thought out plan in place, you generate more sales because you capture the attention of the market quickly. Small business marketing often has to be especially innovative to overcome the challenges of the limited resources. Your marketing plan forms the foundation for your business decision making, and acts a reference point for making decisions about direction changes. Marketing plans allow you to work towards your predetermined goal.

Primarily, this type of marketing focuses on developing a product or brand identity. A good marketing plan begins with understanding your company’s unique selling position in the marketing place. What is it that makes your products or services unique? Your brand incorporates that unique selling position and establishes an impression of your company in the mind of the target customer.

Many small businesses choose to use some simple methods of marketing their products and brand to their clients. Some methods of marketing include development of a web site, direct mailing efforts such as postcards or brochures, or email marketing campaigns, including newsletters. These marketing efforts are very cost effective – they allow you to contact clients at very little cost and begin the steps of developing brand recognition.

One of the advantages a small business has is flexibility. Although a small company doesn’t have an unlimited amount of money to invest in marketing, they have the advantage of being able to make decisions quickly. If a marketing strategy isn’t working, these businesses can quickly change direction and respond to the needs of a changing market place. Small businesses do have some advantages over the giants – how many can change their marketing strategy within a week?

Marketing for a small business is something that has to be consistently done, almost on a daily basis. You can easily implement a number of marketing tools, such as daily emails, blogs to your website, flyers on windshields or door hangers, etc.

One option a business has is to partner with another business and stretch marketing. Look for a small business that offers a supporting product or service and try to partner with them. Working in partnership with another company gives you flexibility to share expenses, such as graphic designers, printers, web site designers, etc. By sharing resources and times, you may stretch your budget much farther.

Small business marketing is necessary for success. In many cases, your best marketing tool is word of mouth – from satisfied clients. Marketing is essential part of any small business success. Whether you focus your time on developing a marketing plan yourself, or use the advice of experienced professionals, marketing will help establish your company brand and image.