Keep your business motivated whatever the distractions!

2010 seems to have been a year of disruptions and distractions that have affected many businesses. If it hasn’t been the weather, there’s been an election, economic spending review, ash clouds…the list is endless! All of these things are extremely disruptive, but in addition to this we have also experienced a lot of ‘waiting to see what happens’ type of behaviour as people are still concerned about the economy and the new Government plans.

This type of behaviour is understandable as it is a worrying time for all, however I firmly believe small businesses have an advantage in this economic climate to be flexible and react quickly to very changing markets. We get people asking us all the time why the marketing activity that they have always done no longer seems to work. And it’s true; it’s a very difficult market out there.

What you have to do is really understand your customers, what is happening in their lives right now and what’s important to them. If you can respond quickly and tell them you have an answer to their problems you are going to be a winner. Determining customer needs is not easy and it’s not always obvious, it takes time and thought along with a lot of motivation!

The best way for you to understand your customers and your market is to plan! It may not be the most exciting task in the world, but if your business does quieten down during December it is an ideal time to plan for the year ahead, finalising your marketing plans, refocusing your message and marketing materials and updating your website.

Here are some key areas to cover when producing a marketing plan:

Situation analysis - this should be an audit of where your business is right now. You should asses factors that are affecting your business externally such as politics, the economy, social issues, technological advances, the environment and legal issues. Not all of these will play a part in your business but some will.

You also need to asses those factors that affect your business directly - look at your competitors and what they are doing, your customers and their buying behaviour, staff and how they are performing, suppliers and if they are still the best option for you and all other functions within your business.

Objective Setting - once you have established where you are now you need to decide where you want to be by this time next year and set objectives for your business. Objectives can be tangible such as increasing your profits by 5% or intangible such as improving levels of customer service from your team. The main thing is that they are Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Timebound (remember SMART).

Strategy - once you have decided where you want to be, you need to decide how you are going to get there. At this stage you need to identify who your market is, which segment of the market you are going to target and how you are going to position yourself in the market.

Tactics - this looks at how you implement the strategy. You need not identify communication/promotional tools, what your message is going to be and when you are going to carry out these campaigns.

Action - Once your tactics have been chosen you need to decide who is going to action them, when they will action them and ensure that person measures the success of the campaigns so that they can be reviewed.

Control - you have spent lots of time planning, you need to ensure that your actions are then controlled. You need to review the success of campaigns and if they are genuinely contributing to your objectives. If not, you need to review your strategy and tactics to get yourself back on track.

This may seem like an extremely time consuming task and you may think it is too onerous for a small business, but the truth is you can make your plan as basic or as detailed as you want it to be. But the more prepared you are the more likely you are to succeed.

So it’s a time to hold your nerve, to stay motivated and above all stay active with your marketing, to make sure your customers know you are there.

We work with many companies and some are flying, really taking advantage of their market conditions whilst many more are struggling because their traditional market is just not spending any more. Whichever position you find yourself in, marketing should be a big part of your business activity. If you are interested in talking to us to see if we can help your business give us a call on 01457 857111 or take a look at our website to see how we have helped other companies.