How To Create Your Marketing Plan. A Step-By-Step Guide for Small Businesses and Entrepreneurs

Developing a marketing strategy is vital for any business. Without one, your efforts to attract customers are likely to be haphazard and inefficient.

The focus of your strategy should be making sure that your products and services meet customer needs and developing long-term and profitable relationships with those customers. To achieve this, you will need to create a flexible strategy that can respond to changes in customer perceptions and demand. It may also help you identify whole new markets that you can successfully target.

A marketing plan may not be at the top of every new business owner's to-do list, but it should be. While a business plan helps map the direction for your company, a marketing plan helps your company understand how to get there by detailing important steps on the road to creating customer relationships.

Once you have completed each step, you will have a marketing plan that you are ready to use as a blueprint for your marketing activities in your small business.