What Is An Effective Marketing Plan?

Marketing & Sales Promotion Techniques

When it comes to marketing, there are a plethora of plans and ideas to be considered. Many times, the point of a marketing campaign is based on whether the target audience is existing customers, new customers or simply trying to achieve brand recognition through penetration into the market segments you’re aiming for. Over time, depending on your end goals, effective marketing plans can wind up being a lot of different things.

Small businesses tend to do a lot of direct marketing, either through mail, email or even contact marketing with the phone or door to door. While the last two types of direct contact are more effective after an initial contact is made through email, kiosk or trade show/conference connections are made, there is still a certain level of effectiveness that can be expected through statistics alone. Using postcards and flyers through the mail is one way to establish a connection, although door hangers, especially those with a product attached can be effective as well.

Medium to large businesses need to reach larger volumes of people. This requires more widespread effective marketing plans through print media as well as broadcast media. While local radio and TV stations have a certain level of appeal to small business, connecting to syndicated broadcast groups enables larger advertising bases to be established and leveraged into sales.

However, today’s world being what it is, the huge unknown is the internet. While the internet is its own universe of untapped potential, finding the ways and means to use that potential to market your product or service can be a daunting challenge. Even today, some 20 years after the internet became “public,” the ways to use the internet’s marketing ability seems barely established. While banner ads have become passé, and audio and video blurbs are becoming more the norm, the internet is still so cutting edge that no one really seems to know how best to use it.

That’s where a combination of efforts makes for the most effective marketing plans. Using mail and print media to establish a level of connection to the customer, finding the ways to incorporate bigger audience connections like radio and TV for a broader base, then using those media to drive users to internet portals to collect sales and perhaps drive towards a customer establishing other direct contact via telephone or email creates not just points of contact, but an environment where the client or customer is attracted, informed then ultimately delivered a product or service that takes care of their need or desire.

No longer do we live in a world where someone has to make a purchase without doing due diligence, and by helping them to do so at every step of the process ensures the brand and the name is well ensconced in the customer’s mind. This not only creates a sale, but creates a customer for life by delivering on all aspects of the purchase. The need, the information and the product. This could well be one of the most effective marketing plans of all.