Ready, Set, Market ... What to Do Before You Start Marketing This Year

Well, the New Year is upon us and that means it's time for a fresh start. Time to set new goals. Time to get excited about all the possibilities for our business. Time to put the wheels in motion on all our new product and service ideas. And time to get down to the business of marketing our business.

So ... are you ready? Ready to launch a fresh marketing attack for the new year? Before you rush out and just start marketing, here are 10 steps to take first to ensure your marketing gets you the results you want. Take the time to take these 10 steps now and you'll reap the rewards all year long.

1) Review your results from last year

If you haven't done so yet, now's a great time to review last year's results. Take a look at your financial reports. How does each month measure up against the marketing you did? Look at your most successful months and take note of the marketing you did to generate those sales. Review your marketing tracking reports, too, to determine what worked well and what fell short of delivering the results you wanted.

2) Create a clear vision for your business

What kind of success do you want to create with your business this year? How does it compare with your vision for last year? Take last year's learning and experience and create a new and improved vision for the coming year.

3) Set new goals for the year, based on your vision

Once you've clarified your vision and the success you want to achieve, write down a few goals that represent your vision. For example, your goals may include launching an ezine, creating and offering new products or services, how big you want your business to become or how and where you want to work.

4) Establish at least one, measurable objective for the year

Out of your vision and goals, write down one objective that you can easily measure. Your objective may represent how much revenue you want to generate or how many clients you'd like to have or how many hours per week you want to work.

5) Compare last year's goals and results, with this year's goals

If you were in business last year, you have a track record for the marketing you did and the results you achieved. Use last year's track record as a benchmark to help you create this year's marketing plan. Scale your marketing up or down to help you reach this year's goals.

6) Ditch, or revamp, the marketing activities that didn't deliver last year

If you tracked your marketing and results, it should be very clear which marketing activities generated the biggest results and which ones fell short. Now's the time to take a good hard look at those that didn't deliver and either make them over for 2006, or drop them from your plan. If you didn't track last year, make a note to do so this year.

7) Beef up the marketing activities that worked well

Hopefully at least one thing you did last year worked well. Now's the time to consider spending more time and energy on this activity to see if you can generate an even greater return.

8) Add new marketing activities to replace those you retire

If you've chosen to retire a few marketing activities, replace them with something new. Consider other ways you can reach your ideal clients and build these into your new plan.

9) Create your marketing calendar for the year

Once you've decided what you want to do this year to market your business, map it all out on a 12-month calendar. This will help ensure you're covered all year long and it will make it easier to manage your marketing tasks.

10) Create a corresponding marketing budget

Assign dollar amounts to every marketing activity you have scheduled and create a marketing budget to help you manage your cash flow throughout the year. Now's the time to make sure you've got the budget available to support the marketing you have planned, and if necessary, scale up or back your goals and your plan to fit the budget you have available.

Once your plan is done, it's time to get working on all those activities you have scheduled. If you stay on top of your marketing calendar and activities every month, you'll find it a lot easier to manage and you'll start seeing your goals and vision come true as the year progresses.

(C) Copyright 2006 Debbie LaChusa

About the author:

Debbie LaChusa created The 10stepmarketing System to make marketing your own business as simple as answering 10 questions. Learn more about this unique, step-by-step system and get a free 10-week Marketing E-Course when you subscribe to the free, weekly 10stepmarketing Ezine at http://www.10stepmarketing.com

Written By: Debbie LaChusa