Create a Marketing Plan

A marketing plan includes the following:

Identify your target market.

• Knowing whom to target in any marketing campaign is an essential step in planning for your business.
• The process of identifying your target market helps you to understand what kind of customers are interested in your product or service.

Evaluate your financial situation.

• Evaluating your business' financial situation will help you determine how much money you should spend on marketing.
• When assessing your business' financial position, look to see how you can improve it by increasing its revenue. Remember, increasing your revenue relies heavily on dedicating money toward your marketing efforts.

Develop a marketing budget.

• Developing a budget for your marketing campaign is another crucial step in planning for your business. During this step, you should determine how much money you plan to spend on your business for the year. With this, the golden rule of thumb is to take 10% to 12% of this budget and dedicate it to marketing endeavors.
• For example, if your yearly budget for your business is $100,000, you would want to set aside $10,000 to $12,000 solely for marketing services. In this case, if you took 12% of your budget, you should plan to spend around $1,000 per month on marketing efforts.'

Develop a sound marketing strategy.

• When developing a successful marketing strategy for business development, your marketing plan should lay out how you will accomplish your marketing objectives.