Why bother with a marketing plan?

Some might call it foolish, but this week I attempted to get 20 small businesses to draft themselves a marketing plan in just 2 hours.  The seminar was hosted by the Canterbury Christ Church University Small Business Forum and I needn't have worried - everyone was game and up for it and it worked even better than I hoped.  Clearly a plan produced in 2 hours is only a rough draft, but getting off the mark is often the hardest part.  And from the feedback everyone managed some sort of 'penny-dropping' moment that would change what they did next back at the office.

I was at pains to stress that it is not having a beautifully polished plan that is most essential (especially if it stays in the drawer) - just forcing yourself to do the thinking that is involved in creating a plan can make a big difference to how you focus and prioritise your resources, i.e. work out what you should really be spending your time and money on to get the results you want to see.  True for any planning process but a marketing plan is differentiated from other business or financial planning by the fact that it is externally rather than internally focused, relating directly to your market and your customers. 

Planning is something that few people I meet relish having to do - indeed I know that some of you would run a mile in the opposite direction rather than be forced to create a plan.  But deep down we all know it is something we should be doing, something that could help us avoid other potentially very expensive mistakes. 

In the seminar we worked, at a very fast pace, through the main areas that comprise a marketing plan - information about the business, analysis of the market, and the Marketing Mix action plan (product, price, place and promotion) that can then be created.  While I know promotion is the area everyone wants to get to in their marketing, it is deliberately last on the list because the decisions you make about your promotions after completing the thinking and analysis stages will be so much better, and will undoubtedly help you avoid expensive mistakes!

I'm confident that we proved that with just 2 hours planning you can make a difference - but I'm now looking forward to when we all meet up again in 6 weeks time to share how much more progress everyone has been able to make, and what impact their plans are already having on their business.  I'll keep you posted!