How to keep your marketing plan simple and effective

Many business owners spend a great deal of time and effort always trying to come with innovative and unique ideas for marketing their business. While there is nothing against being unique sometimes the efforts to stand out from the competition result in a marketing plan that is overly complicated and ineffective. Worse yet, in the pressure to design a marketing plan that is unique many businesses end up spending too much money. The bottom line is that that marketing needs to be both effective and affordable for it to do your business any good. This means that sometimes the simplest marketing plan is the most effective. Here is what you need to know about how to keep your marketing plan simple and effective-

- Know who your customers are-The first step in putting together a simple but effective marketing plan is to know who you are marketing to. You must be able to have a clear idea of exactly who your target market is and where you can find them. Do not make the mistake of thinking that everyone will want to buy your product or service. This is simply not true. Instead you should focus on finding that segment of the population who is most likely to want to buy your product or service. Once you know who these people are you should determine why they would want your product or service and why they would want to buy it from you. Having this knowledge will be the basis for developing a marketing plan that is both simple and effective.
- Know what your customers really want-Once you know who your customers are you will then need to determine what they are really looking for. You should know how and why they will use your product or service.Will your product or service satisfy a need or a want? Will you be selling a staple or a luxury good? Will your customers want value or will price not be an issue? When you have this type of information you can cut any superfluous information out of your marketing message and get right to what you want your customers to know.
- Know what is the right level of exposure-The next step to designing a simple yet effective marketing plan is to determine the right level of exposure. While you certainly want your customers to know what you have to offer and where to find you, it is important to take steps to make sure that your marketing is not overdone. When businesses send out to much marketing it tends to have the opposite effect. Customers become annoyed at frequent ads, texts, and emails. This will be even worse if your marketing methods are not easy to understand. You want to determine what the right level of exposure is for the product or service that you sell so that you don't turn your customers off with your marketing.
- Know what you can offer your customer-When you are designing your marketing plan you need to focus on what you can offer your customers versus your competition. Do you specialize in better customer service or more personalized service? Do you have a feature to your product or service that no one else has? When you know what makes your business stand out from the competition you can use that as part of your marketing message. Focusing in on an element that you can provide your customers with (and your competition doesn't), is a simple and yet effective way to get your marketing message out and attract both your existing