Marketing Strategy
Have you taken a look at your books lately?
What worked in 2018? What could you do better in 2019?
I’m wrapping up my projects for 2018, and I’ve found a few things:
Here are the three ways to start 2019 off right:
Set your sales goals using this past year as a guide. If you’re planning on growing the business, use 2018 as your minimum goal. Your stretch goals will really be a stretch; either double your 2018 actual number, or add 50% or 20% depending on where you’re starting. Set a target goal somewhere in the middle - something reasonable that you could accomplish but it would take a little bit of careful planning. You’ll need to decide what is reasonable.
Set your marketing budget (I recommend calculating 10% if you’ve never set a budget this way before.)
If you are bringing in $300,000 in sales in a year, your 10% marketing budget would be $30,000.
The U.S. Small Business Administration recommends spending 7 to 8 percent of your gross revenue for marketing and advertising if you’re doing less than $5M per year in sales, and your net profit margin is between 10 and 12 percent.
New companies need to spend more of their budget on Getting Noticed - up to 20% or more of their first year in sales. Established companies spend more of their marketing budget on Being Remembered.
Larger businesses such as Walmart spend $1M on advertising, but that’s only 1 percent of their annual sales revenue.
Once you have your sales goals and marketing budget set, I can help you with number 3 - deciding how to reach customers.
Here is how that works for me.
I almost decided to delete what I wrote above and use generic numbers that are much higher. Inside I’m squirming - What if my clients don’t want to do business with me because they don’t like my sales goals? What if they think I’m too small? What if they think I’m charging to much?
I believe that people do business with others they trust. This is my offer of trust - being honest and using my real numbers.
Join me in 2019 as I share how the business end of my business is operating.
I help you Get Noticed and Be Remembered.
THE 5 Most Beneficial Marketing Materials for Rural Businesses
Rural business is not business-as-usual.
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Andrea Haverinen is the Marketing Engineer for rural businesses. She believes that parents deserve to enjoy the financial benefits of being self-employed AND the personal rewards of spending time with their kids while they’re young.
Through her one-on-one Be Remembered API ™ program, she helps business owners develop a strategy so that they have better customers returning again and again.
When she’s away from the business, Andrea teaches quilting classes and drinks every variety of tea.