This short review on targeted marketing is a simplified but very effective marketing plan. Why? Because if you get this right this is all you need to successfully promote and grow your small business.  

Note: Your marketing plan is more than a document – it is a tool to develop your marketing game plan. It is a tool you use continuously to update and modify your strategies and tactics. Your marketing plan evolves and adopts as your business, your marketplace and your competitors change on a daily basis. Developing targeted marketing is necessary for effective marketing planning. 

Your Targeted Marketing Plan should explain your strategy for the next 12 months. The strategic points of your marketing plan will have long-term impact on your business (more than 12 months in the future) however the marketing tactics and approaches will generally change in the next 6 months. Developing and maintaining current marketing plan is a learning process. For example, at this point in time your advertising strategy is based on your current beliefs, knowledge and market development such as pricing, competition, media, etc. 3 to 6 Months from now some of your assumptions will change, competitors will make changes, you will develop new and better approaches, etc. Your marketing plan is part of your overall business plan just like your financial and operational plan but you should see your marketing plan as the leading force in growing your business - generating new business, developing new offerings, acquiring new customers…

Simple and Effective Approach to Targeted Marketing

As you probably know there are different ways to develop and organize your marketing plan – there are many templates and outlines explaining what to include in your plan however most of them are so general so they don’t help people who are inexperienced in business planning. Use this simple and effective approach to develop a winning targeted marketing strategy. 

1. Who is your customer?

What is referred to as target market in marketing planning and strategy development is actually answering this simple question “Who is my customer?” Answering this question means defining the part of the marketplace you are going to focus on. For example a good way to answer this question is to be specific rather than general. Here is an example: my small business focuses on customers who are between 25 and 35 years old, live not more than 5 miles from my retail store and make at least $40,000 a year. Why this is a good example? Because it clearly defines the market you are going after and this is a foundation of developing your targeted marketing. Once you clearly define this step it is easy to target your customer segment. For example you can buy a mailing list based on your defined customer segment and use direct marketing promotion. Another useful approach is to analyze your target customer segment and learn in more details about their habits, preferences, activities, places they go, etc. For example, places your customers or potential customers go to are good place to advertise and promote your business and improve your brand. Knowing about your target customer habits will help you position your customer service to better serve them. 

The following link can help you come up with different approaches to identify your customers: Customer Segmentation     

2. What do you offer to your Customer?

The next question is “What is my offering?” Now you need to define your products, services, experience and whatever you offer to your customers. Let’s call this part “offering mix”. Why? Because even if you sell products only – let’s say you are a manufacturer - you can still offer different services to differentiate your business. On the other hand if you are 100% service provider you can “package” your services with products and experiences in order to differentiate your business. There are two sides of this story:  

This means that at this stage you need to think about what your customers need and what your competitors sell and try to find your “perfect offering mix” for your business. Even if you compete with strong competitors you can differentiate your business by offering different services and better customer experience by knowing what your customers need. The first step (defining your customer) helps you know your customers better than your competitors do.