Have you ever wished you could just pay someone 10% of your sales per year to feed you all the clients and/or customers you need to thrive? Yeah, me, too. But wishes like that only come true in our dreams. Real people, running real businesses, for real profits, have to have a real branding, marketing, and advertising plan to get there. And such a real, living BMA plan needs to be robusto, like Ragu Tomato Sauce, meaning, it all has to be in there, Ma.
What all makes a sellable marketing sauce?
Generally, a firm’s marketing budget should always include the following categories:
- Advertising
- Alumni programs
- Attendance at industry, trade or professional association meetings
- Charitable contributions
- Client entertainment and gifts
- Club dues and expenses (e.g., for whatever clubs allow interacting with targeted prospects)
- Collateral materials
- Continuing education seminars
- CRM system or client database
- Digital marketing
- Directory listings
- Events and seminars
- Graphic design and branding costs
- Internet directory referral fees
- Mailings and communications (e.g., newsletters, invitations, announcements, alerts and holiday cards)
- Marketing-related training
- Market research and client surveys
- Marketing staff professional development
- Memberships in industry, trade or professional organizations
- Networking activities (e.g., dues, membership, and travel)
- Proposals and pitches
- Public and media relations
- Retreats
- Social marketing
- Tickets and sponsorships
- Web site design and maintenance
While many people say, “The whole world uses the Internet now like the old world used the Yellow Pages then,” and while having a platform-responsive website that looks great on a laptop, a tablet, and a smart cellphone is maximally important, social-digital marketing is still not the only thing to think about in your marketing plan.
Take a moment and think about what all these things are, which of them you are doing, how much of each you are doing, what objective results are you expecting from each of them, and how you are tracking where each of your marketing components are taking you, and how effectively each is getting you where you want to be.
Come back to the next post and we will pick at these things a little more.
[reminder]How much marketing can you do yourself and still run your business and sell and deliver all at the same time?[/reminder]