If you need more control over your sales pipeline and want high-paying
work from better clients -- instead of taking whatever comes along --
our Marketing Plan Process may be right for you.
Or if you have ideas about the marketing campaign your firm should have
in place, but you have neither the time nor the distance on your
business to create the plan you need -- our Marketing Plan Process may
be right for you.
Either way, what you get – your Marketing Plan – is a nuts ‘n bolts,
step by step marketing plan, designed for and tailored to your
business, your target market and your marketing resources/budget.
Your firm is a good candidate if you can say “yes” to any of these:
Most of your work comes through
word of mouth. Lately, things have slowed down or the work you’re
getting isn’t the caliber or budget you need and it’s time to change
that.
You can help your own clients with their marketing but you don’t seem to have the distance or discipline to help yourself.
You have one or two “gorilla”
clients – a precarious position, you know -- that take up all your time
without paying you enough and you have no time to find better or more
clients.
Your current marketing is a
haphazard combination of efforts, done for the fun of it or because an
opportunity presents itself, but without any strategic underpinning.
You are overwhelmed by all the
possible marketing tools and aren’t sure which ones are most viable for
getting the work you want to be doing.
You have no “positioning” and don’t know where to begin.
Our Marketing Plan process involves up to two days of in-person,
in-depth discussion with Ilise Benun who brings over 23 years of
experience working with and guiding creative firms in business growth. (See a case study of exactly what we helped one client achieve.)
During that time, she will seek to understand your business and help
clarify your goals and positioning. Together you will identify your
most viable target markets, lay out the plan to reach the living,
breathing prospects in those markets and devise a step-by-step campaign
to convert the best ones into your clients. You can take it from there,
or engage us to help you implement the plan.
The primary deliverable is a written plan with practical steps tailored
to the needs of your firm. (Ongoing coaching and accountability to
implement the plan are also available as an add-on.) (Email for a sample plan.)
Day One: Focus on Positioning and Target Markets
We’ll begin by reviewing and critiquing your existing marketing
activities and materials – from your messaging to your web site – to
determine what’s working, what isn’t and why.
From there, we’ll discuss your goals, short and long term, the type of
work your firm is best suited to do and what kind of clients you
consider “ideal” – outlining the criteria so you can go recognize them
when you find them. We’ll discuss marketing budgets and how your budget
should be allocated according to the resources available.
Then we’ll begin to tackle positioning, the cornerstone of your marketing. Your positioning will:
Identify your firm clearly to the
market you are serving, so there is no question, no blur in their
minds. They will know who you are and how you can help them.
Present your firm as a market
leader. Once you come out and say who you are, you can build from there
using thought leadership marketing tools (speaking, writing, PR, etc.)
to position your firm as the authority.
Get everyone in the market to
support your position. No one can support your position unless you
state it first. But once you do, it spreads like wildfire, growing and
gathering momentum.
To determine your positioning, we’ll approach from two sides:
Who is your competition? Not who do you consider the competition, but who else are your best prospects talking to?
What sets your firm apart from the
competition? Not only which qualities and characteristics differentiate
you from others like you but, more important, what qualifies you to
best serve the needs of the people/companies you serve or want to serve?
Next, we’ll turn our attention to target
markets, with a wide-ranging discussion of which possible markets to
consider, based on your existing experience, samples and connections.
We’ll discuss the viability of each market, as well as outline the
characteristics of your best and most lucrative clients and projects.
Day Two: Focus on Marketing Tools
On Day 2, after a short recap of Day 1, we’ll review and solidify your
positioning and narrow down the target markets so we can determine
which are most viable, which offer the best access for your marketing
efforts.
With that foundation in place, we’ll spend the bulk of the day on marketing strategy, covering:
Which of your existing marketing tools and activities can be strategically adapted for the new positioning and markets?
Which marketing tools would most effectively complement your current efforts?
Do you need to start from scratch
with all marketing materials based on the new positioning? Can this be
done as a phased process?
Depending on the strategy chosen, we may
spend the afternoon brainstorming a content strategy for your social
networking and/or thought leadership efforts, outlining specific ideas
and topics for case studies, blog posts, articles and speaking. Or we
may critique your in-progress web site revamp, comparing and
contrasting it to the web sites of other firms. It all depends on what
exactly you need to get to the next step.
Either way, by the end of Day 2, we’ll have a fairly good idea of which
markets you’ll explore, which tools you’ll use and who’s responsible
for which tasks. All of that will be written into the Marketing Plan
document and delivered within a few short weeks after the meeting.
