You Need A Marketing Plan

Yes, you do.

Lots – if not most – small businesses don’t have a written marketing plan and can't say who their ideal customer might be.  This leads to a lot of wasted time and money and some of us saying, “marketing doesn't work”.

This is much like living in Fort Worth and driving to the World Series of Barbecue© at the American Royal in St. Louis and…

Where to?

• You've never been there and you know little to nothing about the geography or roads between here and there.
• You use no map or GPS or even Google Maps on your phone.
• You just aim your car in a generally northeasterly direction on the first road pointing northeast.
• You hope you can spot the right road signs to get you there along the way.

When you (eventually) get to the St. Louis area, you find out that the American Royal is actually in Kansas City, on the other side of Missouri.  http://www.americanroyal.com/

After that whole experience, you then throw up your hands and say, “Driving to places doesn't work.”

That’s what trying to do marketing without a plan is like.  And you don’t have to be a Fortune 500 company to have a marketing plan, and it doesn't have to be a ten page document with lots of marketing jargon and discussion about “paradigm shift” and “incentivize” and junk.

I can help you with that.  Contact me and let’s get to work.

World Series of Barbecue© Copyright ©2013, American Royal Association. All Rights Reserved.

Do You “Do” Marketing?

A friend of mine was telling me about a business owner she knows that proudly states that he doesn't “DO” marketing.

I’d love to talk to the guy, because I want to understand what he means.

Is he running his business by the “Field of Dreams” method of marketing – build it and they will come?

Has he been burned by people selling him yellow pages ads, or direct mail campaigns, or social media, or some other channel, and he got diddly-squat from those efforts?

Is he just an introverted kinda guy, happy to have enough business to pay the rent and working off of referral and drive-by business (both of which are marketing, but let’s pretend it isn’t – same deal with Chamber membership and a listing in any kind of business directory).

Because, honestly, marketing encompasses all activities that involve exchanging goods and services for money.  ALL of them.

Don’t believe me – believe the standard definition from Dictionary.com: Marketing

So, no matter what, if you’re in business, you do marketing.

Will you do it with purpose and a plan?  Or will you just throw things out there and hope for the best?

Which method do you think would be more successful?

(Of course I know the answer, but I’d love your feedback on this one).

The Journey of A Thousand Miles Starts With One Step

Well, here we go.

I’ve just passed the threshold of starting my new business, Abanico Marketing.

People have told me I should do this for years, and finally, I’m going to do it.

I'm a little bit nervous - who isn't, when they are starting a new business?

But I love what I do and I believe in it passionately.  If you know me personally, you know this is true.

I’m not completely up and running yet, but it’s getting there - after all, done is better than perfect.

I blatantly stole that expression from the brilliant Mike Massie – he focuses on martial arts businesses but I think his advice applies to most of us: Martial Arts Business Daily.

So, as time goes on, things will change and improve.  I'll let ya'll know when new posts and additional pages are added to this site - I'm working on making it AbanicoMarketing dot com versus the blogger address, but I'm not actually a geek in this regard, so it's taking me a bit to figure it out.

Welcome, and I hope you enjoy your journey as much as I think I’m going to enjoy this one.