Are you a planner or do you prefer to stay nimble and grasp opportunities as they come?
Business owners often fall in to two camps – successful entrepreneurs with a well thought through and structured business plan; and those with equally thriving businesses that operate ‘by the seat of their pants.’
Whether you’re a list junkie who creates detailed plans in advance and loves a calendar that’s packed out for the next few months, or you adopt a more take-it-as-it-comes approach, there is much to be said for having a written specific marketing plan to support your business.
- The marketing plan can act as a ‘north star’ for your business. Having a written document which sets out goals, objectives and a calendar of activities can act as a reminder of the core tasks you’ve set for yourself or your team. Combined with a simple calendar entry or diary reminder your marketing plan it delivers a method to ensure you stay on track with your plans.
- How often do we look back and think ‘wow, how did that happen?!’. Setting some simple measures of success in tangible numbers (for example, new enquiries generated, number of phone calls enquiries taken, number of visitors to your website etc) provides a way of knowing whether or not all your hard work has produced results. Or not … in which case you can change tactics to ensure you’re not wasting time and money on marketing activities that simply are not working for you.
- A marketing plan that has clear stages to it laid out over the short, medium and long term offers a pathway to growth to support your business. For example, if you’ve set a goal to double turnover, employ more people, build value in the business to enable you to retire you’ll be able to tell how well you’re doing by reference to your metrics without relying on perception only.
- Having a plan doesn’t mean you can’t be nimble. The flexibility to react as something happens in the marketplace or to change direction will always be there. Having the plan there means you’ll be making a conscious decision to adapt the plan rather than just running around like a headless chicken.
- Referring to the plan avoids wasting money because it aids the decision making process. If you know you’ll generate return from a particular activity – it’s an easy decision. Making decisions in a vacuum is not and can leave you open to the persuasion of a wily sales people.
- Avoids apathy / doing nothing – at the very least you’ll do something that’s positive and proactive instead of doing nothing at all.
Solve Legal: supporting you to take time to plan
Of course it’s a perpetual challenge to find the time to plan when you have a busy caseload and a thousand different demands on your time. That’s why Solve Legal Marketing are offering one day marketing workshops which are designed to take you out of the melee for just one day to really focus on what you want from your business – and what marketing you need to do to support those goals.
This is not a marketing theory session. Yes, we’ll use some tried and tested models and a bit of academic background to support the day; however the main focus is decidedly practical. You’ll leave the session with a clear idea of what marketing will work for you and with a plan of how to put the ideas in to practice.
All of the courses are run by Chartered Institute of Marketing-qualified professional marketers with a background in marketing legal services. Previous courses have received a 100% satisfaction rating. For more information on our marketing workshops please email info@solvelegal.co.uk
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The views expressed in this article are those of the submitter and not those of Today’s Wills & Probate.
