Business Perspective:Creating marketing plan to meet your goals for next year

In terms of payment rewards there is no job which pays well like that of sales and marketing, but truth be told-it is also one of the tough jobs, it needs a patient person. Sales and marketing is the core of every business, if this department dwindles then it means the company is out of business; and therefore this is one department that needs planning for in advance. The year has almost come to an end, so most companies are now looking at making plans for their marketing department come the following year. Most of the time there are a few goals that were not reached and therefore are forwarded to the following year. Whether one is looking for more clients, more visibility or more income in your business, you can reach all of these goals by creating and following through with a marketing plan.Usually there are many questioned to be asked. Have you accomplished some of your goals? And if not what is the gap between where you are at now and where you want to be? Also what would you like to accomplish next if at all you have reached where you wanted to be? Once you are clear on the gap, then you want to determine exactly what you need to do to bridge the gap. Unfortunately one might never see these goals accomplished unless you have a marketing plan to back it up. So when you are planning your marketing activities for the next year there are few points to be put in mind; What is your number one priority on the list? Setting clear and specific goals for the next year is the first step to filling the gaps in your business. You need to know exactly where you want to be in the next year in order to outline the steps you will need to take to get there. If you didn’t reach your goals from the previous year, that can be a good starting point for next year. What solutions do you have for your marketing? Look back over the last year and analyze the steps that you had taken. Does your marketing plan support your goals? What kind of results did you get from your marketing activities in the past year? Using your current plan is a good starting point for developing a new plan. You can see exactly what went well for you and what did not based on your previous results. What changes need to be put in place come next year? Identify opportunities to make changes in the way that you do things so you can be more consistent and more effective with marketing. For example, you can use a tool like facebook or twitter to schedule your social media updates. You can create a content calendar so that it is easy to put together blog posts each month, this is an easy way for follow up on your marketing activities.Being in business is a tall order, because for one to be successful a lot of time in planning is needed, good organisation and consistent effort; put all these in place and go smiling all the way to the bank. Kayitesius@yahoo.com