Freelance
Writers' Series
Career & Business Development Help
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To sell your product/service, you must have an effective, consistent marketing plan in place. Following are the exact steps you need to take to create an effective, automatic marketing plan:
1. Choose two marketing methods you can implement all the time. Why two? Four reasons. First, marketing requires variety; second, your business will grow faster; third, you can use one method to target existing customers and another to generate new leads; and fourth, you can combine one low-cost with one free method. To make it easy, choose two that are within your skill set and price range. For example, if you don't have strong writing skills, you might not want to start with a sales letter. Two that I started with were: 1) e-mail campaigns (because they're low-cost and target existing customers); and 2) article distribution (because it's free and they garner publicity, which generates new leads). 2. Work the Numbers: Decide on a financial goal. How much do you want to make this month, quarter, year? Make it a number you can realistically achieve. If you are new, you may feel a little bit in the dark here. But if you are starting a business, you should at least have a rough draft of a business plan. Go to the financial portion of this plan and pull out some figures. Pretend your goal is $25,000/year. Breaking it down by day, that's roughly $68.50/day, or $480 week (7-day week). Looking at the price of your product/service, how many pieces do you have to sell/hours you need to bill to reach this goal? How many prospects do you have to convert to reach your goal? This exercise forces you to see in black and white what you need to be doing on a daily, weekly, monthly basis to reach sales goals. 3. Write a Schedule: Now that you have chosen two plans to implement and know how many sales you need to generate, you need to write out a schedule to meet these sales goals. You are much more likely to accomplish goals if you write them down. RECOMMENDATION: At the beginning of every quarter, write out a marketing schedule. Literally break it down by weeks, then days. This way, you will know what marketing tasks need to be accomplished every day. As with any new task, adhering to a strict schedule in the beginning is crucial because the habits have to become ingrained. Your schedule might looking something like this:
Monthly
Goal: 2 Email Campaigns; 4 Articles
Week 2:
Week 3: It seems so simple once it's written out, you'll wonder why you didn't do it beforehand! Tip: A constant part of marketing is finding new places to pitch your product/service. You can outright buy a direct mail list to get started.If you can't afford to purchase a media/customer list list from a broker, scour phone books, the Internet, membership directories, etc. for the contact information of any person, place or organization you can think of that uses your product/service. Your local library is a good place to start. Add names and addresses to your database. In no time, you will have put together your own in-house list -- the best kind. 4. Follow Your Written Plan: Don't write it and put it away. Put it in a place where you can see it every day — all day, if necessary. In fact, finish your marketing objectives first, then tackle other responsibilities. After all, if you don't market, there won't be anything else to attend to. Good luck! *********************************
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