Creating a marketing plan does not need to be a complex task. It is possible to opt for a simpler method. Learn what you need to add to for it to be effective.

Creating a marketing plan does not need to be a complex task. It is possible to opt for a simpler method. This article explains how you can create a marketing plan that will enable you to meet your goals for a wider reach at a faster pace whilst keeping to your budget.

In order to create a marketing plan that can get your products and services in front of thousands of eyes, there are a few key elements that are essential to keep in mind.

Set measurable goals. For example it might be that you want 500 unique visitors per day to your website or 10 new clients in the next 6 months.

Put into place a measurement system for each component. This might be a tool such as Google analytics, so that your results are being recorded for online work. In order to track offline methods, you might develop a process to capture the source of a client such as a customer survey.

Understand what you are getting right so far. Where is your traffic coming from and what can you scale up.

Use multiple methods of marketing. You may want to include local media such as radio or newspaper in addition to online social media, video marketing and blogging.

Each market is different and will take some time to understand how best to market to your audience. It is most probable that you will need to tweak and measure as you go.

Each component or method will need to be tweaked and edited to find it's most powerful and effective version. Plan to split test each one for optimal performance.

Your marketing plan should take into account the next six months. It would include all channels that you want to market through. It would also detail the demographics of your clients, new products and critical actions for each product and market. Here are some marketing methods that you might like to include in your plan:

video marketing

Social media Google Adwords campaign

LinkedIn advertising

blog

trade shows

free seminars

The ideal marketing plan should be created by brainstorming and then adding more detail such as specific tasks and dates. Break down each campaign into smaller tasks, prioritize each task and assign a budget. Once you are clear about what needs to be done, then it will be a lot easier to implement the plan. If you find it an overwhelming task to build a marketing plan, remember to start small and build it up.

By planning all your marketing for the next six months, you should be able to stick to the budget at hand, whilst getting your products and service seen by your prospects.

Remember to measure as you go. Track which marketing methods are bringing you the most clients, and add that to your ongoing marketing plan, scaling up where possible and appropriate.

Copyright (c) 2010 Andrew Holtom