Creating a marketing strategy can be overwhelming. There are many places you can market your business, and it is easy to blow your entire marketing budget on a few ideas that may or may not work. So, before you start spending your budget, it is good practice to create an integrated marketing communication plan. The plan gives you a clear picture of what you need your marketing to accomplish, and will help you make an informed decision about your marketing budget allocation.

The following are key points that should be considered:

1. Internal Situation Analysis: What is your business doing? Are you expanding your sales, or are they shrinking? Have you made a lot of growth? Had any major successes or setbacks? Having a clear understanding of where you business stands and what it is doing will help in deciding what your marketing objectives should be going forward. For example, if your business is growing quickly and you are having trouble keeping up, you may be able to pull back on some of your marketing efforts and/or raise your rates.

2. External Situation Analysis: What is the state of your industry? Is it growing? Shrinking? What is the competition doing/saying? How is it affecting your place in the market? You want to have a clear idea of what is happening in the wedding planning industry that affects your business.

 3. Target Audience: Who are you trying to reach? This is especially important when deciding what marketing mediums you will be using for your campaign. For example, if your target audience are engaged woman age 20-30 then you might find more success reaching them via social media than at bridal shows. Unless you know where your audience spends their time both online and off, you will not know where to place your messaging.

4. Campaign Strategy: This is where you define all of the areas of the marketing mix you will be using. If you plan to use print, direct mail and social media you would define exactly how you will use them and what your messaging will be. This is also where you define your brand positioning, how you differ from the competition and how you can help them solve their problem

5. Marketing Tactics: What are the day-to-day actions that you will be taking to implement your strategy? If you are implementing a social media strategy, you will want a schedule to make sure you are posting frequently to your blog, Facebook and Twitter. This also applies to print ads, radio spots, direct mail and any other marketing medium you choose to utilize.

6. Marketing Budget: How much can you spend on your marketing plan? Know what you can spend on a monthly and yearly basis so you can allocate accordingly.

 7. Evaluation: How will you measure the success of your marketing plan? When executing a marketing plan you need a way to measure success. If you are not using some sort of measurement you will not know if it is working or if you need to try something else. Always ask how clients found you when you receive an inquiry and keep track of stats for any websites or blogs you advertise with so you will know if you are getting a return on your investment.

This may seem like A LOT of work, but the time you put in now will pay off later. If you approach your marketing plan with a focused goal and message you will save time and money during execution. Remember that a plan will not work overnight. Give any plan at least 30 days to see results and re-evalutate as your business grows or changes.

Today’s post is a guest post from Amber Peterson. Amber is the owner of Cheers Wedding & Event Planning in western Washington. She has a Masters Degree in Integrated Marketing Communications and previously worked as a marketing consultant for wedding industry professionals.