At the end of October 2012 I started writing a series of blogs all about Marketing Planning and in this blog, I’ll give you a summary of all the points I’ve covered.

But first – why bother with a Marketing Plan at all? Why do I keep banging on about it in this blog and to my clients?

I started working with a large number of new clients towards the end of last year. Many of them seem to have lost their way with their businesses. They’re not sure where they’re going or how to get there – all they know is that they want to grow the business. Most of them have tried a bit of marketing – a few different tactics here and there; most of those tactics haven-t really worked and have cost more money than they have generated. The one thing all these clients had in common is a lack of a Marketing Plan. If you’re a regular reader of this blog, you’ll know that “Ad hoc marketing does not work” because I write it often enough. To get past this, you need a plan that shows you what marketing you’re going to do and when (section five of the plan); and you need to keep doing it consistently for great results (section eight). To know what marketing will work, you need to know exactly who your ideal clients are (section 4) and where they hang out.

The other secret of great marketing is to do more of the marketing that works and less of what doesn’t work. To be able to do this, you need to measure your marketing. This is covered in section 9 of the plan. There isn’t room in this post to list all the stages of the Marketing Plan you need to work through, so I’ve put them on my website. You can work through the stages and start to create your own Marketing Plan. Click here to see the summary! There are lots of useful help sheets on the site for you to download for free, too.

If you’d like more details on the stages of the 9 Minute Marketing Plan, you can order your copy of my book, Magnetic Marketing and work through them to create your Marketing Plan – click here to order it. Or you can attend one of our practical workshops – dates coming soon to our website!