Print   RSS

The Most Important Part Of Any Marketing Plan

Paul Douglas

January 23, 2007

	1.0/5.0 (1 votes total)
	Rate: Select 1 - Terrible 2 - Poor 3 - Average 4 - Good 5 - Outstanding

Before we get to the nitty gritty of creating a remote control marketing system, we need to cover some basics first. That basic is... Goals. I know, I know, if you are like me, and most people, you would rather sit in a dentist chair having a root canal while watching rejected American Idol auditions, than commit some time to planning and goal setting. I mean what can be more painful and boring? Not much. So let’s consider this step a necessary one, overcome procrastination and get it out of our way shall we.

The first step: In the story of Alice in Wonderland, the Cheshire Cat tells Alice and I am paraphrasing, "If you don't know where you want to go then any road will get you there". So to begin we need to know where you want to go. But at the same time we also need to know where you are starting from. So let's get started. To find out where you are starting from we need to gather some information. Write down the following for me.

• Your total sales from last year.
• Your total Net Profit last year.
• Your total marketing expense last year.
• The total number of clients that bought from you last year.
• The total number of days you worked last year.
• Write down your net income goal for this year.

Step Two: Now that we know where you have been, and have an idea of where you want to go, let’s figure out what needs to be done this year to reach your net profit goal. Let's put together the ratios we need for forecasting. These will be our multiplier constants. Write the answers out.

• Sales constant: Last years total sales divided by last year's net profit.
• Client Constant: Last year's total sales divided by last year's total clients. This gives you a sales volume per client.
• Marketing constant: Last year's total sales divided by last year's total marketing expense.

Step Three: In this step, we will create our goals for this year. It will get a little exciting.

• To determine this year's sales goal, just multiply your net income goal by your sales constant.
• To determine the number of client's you need this year just multiply your sales goal by your client constant.
• To determine the number of client's you need per day, just divide this year's client goal by the number of day's you will be open for business.
• To set your marketing budget for the year, just multiply this year's sales goal by your marketing constant.
• Divide your marketing budget by 12 to determine your monthly marketing budget.

Summary: Now I am willing to bet that process was painless wasn't it. And let's look at what we accomplished.

• We now know how much you want to earn as a net income this year.
• We now know what you need to accomplish in total sales to earn your net income goal.
• We set both your annual and monthly marketing budget.
• We created daily benchmarks to keep you on track. And we did it without root canals and rejected American Idol Auditions.

As we bring this article to a close, we now know where you want to go, and we know what needs to be done to get there. Congratulations. Join me for my next article where I share the only three ways to increase sales.

 Feedback   Submit Article