Create a successful small business marketing plan in 6 simplified and actionable steps

Small Australian businesses that employ between 0-19 people have a 46% chance of failure, according to the Australian Small Business and Family Enterprise Ombudsman.

In addition to that, small Australian tourism businesses have faced more adversity, higher levels of unemployment and failure than most industries.

Some of the underlying factors that impact a business’s failure rate include (but are not limited to): unsuccessful marketing initiatives and inadequate business planning or no planning.

Marketing plans often require hours of strategic thinking and countless pages of research, information and business planning.  It is often something you do alongside an external expert to guide the holistic development of your business strategy and overarching goals. However, time is a big factor to consider so we want to focus on creating a small business marketing plan to suit you and your business.

We have kept the process of developing an actionable marketing plan as simple as possible. Therefore, whilst this is not the most comprehensive and detailed template, it does give you a sense of clarity about what you should be focusing on in your marketing moving forward and enable you to become more consistent and efficient with your marketing efforts.

A successful and actionable small business marketing plan includes:

1. Short to medium term business goal/s: the financial, sales, product developments or other critical, high priority goals you are aiming to achieve to have a healthy business.
2. Target markets and ideal customer personas: a clear definition of who you are aiming your marketing at.
3. Marketing objectives: outline what you are aiming to achieve through your marketing efforts and investment; and prioritisation of marketing channels.
4. Marketing actions: once-off online presence elements, marketing initiatives or marketing improvements.
5. Marketing activities: campaigns or regular marketing activities you will commit to.
6. Tracking and measuring: how you are going to track and measure the completion of actions and achievements against your marketing objectives and business goals.

Our challenge for you…

Brainstorm some dot points under each of the six steps above to help you create a streamlined and simplified small business marketing plan.

Moving forward, our team of specialised digital marketing and business strategy coaches are on standby if you wish to further refine, develop or implement your marketing plan to ensure it aligns with your overall business plan and goals.