You Cannot Develop a Marketing Plan if You Don’t Know Where Your Business is Going

Marketing cannot exist in isolation from the overall business strategy.

Before you can establish and implement an effective marketing plan, you must first define the overall strategic goals for the business. For example, the marketing plan for a business to grow from $5 million to $6 million will be quite different to the marketing plan to grow from $5 million to $10 million.

Any business planning process involves three elements:

• Establish where you are now
• Identify where you want to be or what you want to achieve
• Determine how you are going to get there.

The critical difference that impacts the planning process for Small to Medium Enterprises (SMEs) compared to large organisations is that, in most SMEs, the owner / managing director and his or her family are directly involved in running the business to achieve personal goals. Whereas, in large companies, the business is generally run by professional managers to achieve corporate goals.

Therefore, the starting point for a business marketing plan for an SME is to have a clear understanding of what the goals or personal mission statements are for each of the stakeholders. Only then can you develop a clear vision for the business and define the business goals. The marketing strategy can then be developed to achieve the business goals.