Your Marketing Plan Outline

You can create a good marketing plan outline by answering the twenty questions below. If an answer does not come to you, don't let it stop you. Give it your best shot. Write something in order to get started. Your marketing plan is a living document. You will be revising and refining these answers as you learn more.

For your convenience, I've compiled a list of small business marketing strategies, techniques and practices to help you brainstorm the right ones for your plan.

How much do I want to earn this year, and how much time do I want to spend working?
How much am I willing or able to spend on marketing in order to earn that?
What did I spend on marketing last year? (If you did not have a business last year, skip to question five.)
What did I gain from that investment? How do I know?
How can I measure the results of this year's marketing investments?
What is my Rule of Threes plan for the next three months? (Learn about Rule of Threes - a promotional marketing tool generating that most sought-after of marketing effect - word of mouth. )
What costs are involved in implementing my Rule of Threes?
How much time is involved in implementing my Rule of Threes?
What help do I need to implement my Rule of Threes?
Where will I get support in implementing my Rule of Threes?
How will I repeat my Rule of Threes and/or leverage it?
How will I make my prospective customers feel confident of the benefits of my work?
What do I need in order to be confident and consistent about implementing these approaches?
What could go wrong? How will I address that?
How can I inject some magic into my marketing? How can I give it personality, vitality, sparkle?
How will I measure results?
How will these measurements show me that I am on the right track?
How often will I repeat these practices?
How will I stay on track?
When will I review and revise this plan?

Your Marketing Plan Evaluation
Take your marketing inventory by reviewing your "twenty questions" marketing plan outline with at least three trusted friends or colleagues. Ask them to help you evaluate your plan for completeness, practicality, inspiration, and authenticity.

After you have reviewed your plan with others, go back over it and rate your answers to each question on a scale of one to 10, with one being "not at all adequate" and 10 being "completely satisfactory."

Give yourself a pat on the back for any area in which you score seven or higher, and see if you can identify ways to raise your scores. Jot down the ideas as they come. What is it about these high-scoring aspects of your marketing plan outline that makes them so satisfactory?

Look at the areas in which you score fewer than seven points. How can you raise these scores? Write down your ideas, along with cost estimates (time, money, other resources). If you don't know, pretend that you do know. You can always amend your answers as you learn more about your business.

Who can you ask for help in areas that you don't have answers for? Write down the names of these contacts and the questions you would like to ask them, as well as the results you would like to get from their assistance.

Review what you have written and make a running "to do" list that includes tasks to maintain what you are doing well and step-by-step actions to improve the weak areas of your marketing plan outline. Each week, choose three action steps that you will implement that week to improve your marketing plan.

Congratulations, you have a marketing plan!

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Develop Your Small Business Marketing Plan - Index
Writing a marketing plan || 20 helpful questions for creating a marketing plan outline
A list of small business marketing strategies for developing your marketing plan
Gratitude as a component of a marketing plan || Your Marketing Plan Evaluation
Marketing Plan Resources || Reprint Terms for Marketing Plan Articles

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Learn more about Authentic Promotion - a comprehensive small business marketing resource that turns marketing and promotion into a path of increasing self-awareness, authenticity, and right livelihood. In particular, the principles you apply and the tools you learn build the solid foundation for writing a marketing plan that works.

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Contact an acknowledged expert on small business marketing Molly Gordon at:

Shaboom Inc. Life could be a dream…
PO Box 195
Suquamish, WA 98392-0195
mgordon@authenticpromotion.com

As a business coach and small business marketing consultant, Molly Gordon, MCC, is available in Greater Seattle Area and internationally