A close friend and I were chatting about how we plan to make 2010 a great year for our businesses. And she asked me a question that made me stop and think.
“What will you do differently this year?” she said? After all, if you do what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you’ve always got. I have to be honest, for a minute I was stumped! My marketing strategy is pretty successful. And so my gut reaction was “more of the same” but why should “more of the same” bring in any result different to last year? Clare’s simple question was a wake up call to me to really focus on my marketing strategy and planning for the year.
And actually, when George and I sat down to finalise the planning in December I realised that I do have a lot of plans to do things differently. Launching the Flourish design and marketing agency (and all the marketing and promotion that will come with that), starting a networking group in my village, writing a second book and promoting the first more heavily. Add to that our strong presence in social media, my public speaking, new planned PR activity and several direct marketing campaigns and I think I’ve got a recipe for a (excuse the pun) flourishing business!
Sometimes it’s just about taking time out to see the bigger picture.
Here are my top tips for creating a marketing plan for a flourishing business:
1. Set time aside to focus. Remove all interruptions – turn off the radio, shut down tweet deck and close your emails.
2. Think about last year - what worked, what didn’t and why?
3. Look at the bigger picture. So you’re doing things that work – great, keep them up! What aren’t you doing?
4. Make a plan - and stick to it!
There, how easy is that? And if you’d like an expert to bounce ideas around with then George, our Marketing Consultant, has a limited number of New Year Marketing Audits available to our Marvellous Marketing Tips readers completely free of charge. She’ll also share with you our ‘recipe for a flourishing business’ wheel to help you clearly identify how effectively you’re marketing your business at the moment. If you’d like to book a one hour session with her simply call us on 01483 401 818 or email georgette.priestley@printing.com.
