The plan
An essential part of any marketing is to have a plan. The more effectively you plan, the more efficient your activities will be. You won’t be wasting time and money on unplanned or ineffective marketing activity.
The plan doesn’t have to be a novel, but should contain certain things to ensure it’s comprehensive.
More details on what to include in your plan can be found in the advice sheet on the right of this page.
Obviously when drafting your plan you should include the types of marketing you will be using to reach certain audiences. For a brief overview of techniques that can be used, see the Methods of marketing page.
The most important thing to remember with plans of any type is to evaluate. Evaluation of your plan on a yearly basis will ensure any activity that has been unsuccessful either won’t be repeated or will be revisited to make them more relevant and effective. The more you ‘tweak’ your marketing, the more effective it will become overall – and the more cost effective.
For some tips on how to carry out evaluation and some links that may help, see our How to carry out evaluations page.