Create a Sales and Marketing Plan

Creating a successful marketing strategy, finding opportunities to sell products and services, and connecting more effectively to current and prospective customers is a demanding job.

If you wonder if there are ways to make your marketing efforts more efficient, ask yourself these questions:

The information that follows highlights basic sales and marketing practises that can help you develop a tactical marketing plan and sales process that works for your business.

On This Page

	Create a Marketing Plan
	Build a Sales Process
	Implement your Sales Process
	Take Advantage of Technology

Create a Marketing Plan

A good marketing plan can shape the way you connect to your existing customers and attract new ones. It can also help you determine the types of customers you should target, how to reach them and how to track the results so you learn what works to increase business.

If you don't have a marketing plan, creating one is not difficult. A successful marketing plan doesn't have to be complex or lengthy, but should contain enough information to help you establish, direct and coordinate your marketing efforts.

To help you through the process, we've identified five steps to follow. These encompass information gathering before you write your marketing plan, the drafting of the plan itself, and updating the plan after you've created it. Along the way we use Margie's Travel, a new 25-person travel service company, as an example.

Step 1: Position your product or services
To start your plan, keep in mind the four "Ps" of marketing: product, price, promotion and place. Your goal is to put the right product or service in front of the right customers, at the right price and at the right time and place. A good way to get started is to answer some basic questions about your business. The following scenario for Step 1 is based on the marketing plan used by Margie's Travel.

By answering these key questions about your business, you can develop a solid foundation on which to build your marketing plan.

Step 2: Ask for input from trusted advisors
To ensure that you have a clear sense of your own business, it is a valuable practise to gather information from those around you. Set up meetings with trusted friends, staff, advisors and peers, and ask for their input on the following:

Getting feedback on these aspects of your business can help you prepare your marketing strategy as well as create targeted materials.

Step 3: Ask for input from customers and prospective customers
To successfully market to customers, you need to learn how they react to your product, pricing, brand or service — anything related to your business. Ask several of your current and prospective customers what they think about your business, products and services, potential to sell to them, and competitors. You can ask them by e-mail, telephone or marketing postcards. Incentives, such as discounts or samples, can encourage feedback.

Step 4: Draft your plan
Now that you have feedback and an outline, you can draft your marketing plan. Start by summarising your market position and goals, and define what you expect to accomplish in a specific time period.

A typical marketing plan might be organised in the following way:

With a marketing plan in place, you have a structure you can use to help keep your business on track.

Step 5: Track your results, update your plan
Reviewing your plan every six months helps you determine whether it is producing the results you need. You can easily track your progress with a spreadsheet, where you can also calculate your marketing costs and compare them with sales and other metrics.

You should also update your plan regularly to respond to changing market conditions.

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Build a Sales Process

A sales process is a series of customer-focused steps that your sales team can use to substantially build your customer base, generate repeat business and increase revenue. Each step consists of several key activities and has a predictable, measurable outcome.

If you wonder whether your small business really needs a formal sales process, see if you answer "yes" to any of the following questions:

Having a well-defined sales process can help your sales force identify and qualify leads, find more opportunities for repeat business, negotiate and close more sales, and establish a follow-up process after the sale to ensure customer satisfaction.

A formal sales process also helps you understand each customer's business obstacles, match their needs to your products and services, and deliver proof that your products can meet those needs. With a strong sales process, you can more accurately assess the revenue potential for a given customer. For example, you can view consolidated information for all customers in your sales pipeline, consistently position the unique value that your company delivers versus the competition and create stronger relationships with customers and business partners.

Five steps define the sales process methodology: prospecting for customers, qualifying them, developing a proposal, facilitating a decision and assuring repeat business. Each step consists of several key activities with predictable, measurable outcomes.

The steps help sales professionals succeed by:

Step 1: Prospecting
At this first stage of the sales process, the salesperson is generating qualified leads, finding new opportunities among the existing customer base and differentiating his or her company from the competition. Depending on the type of business, prospecting can take many forms, including networking, attending seminars and trade shows, sending marketing materials and making cold calls.

The goal of this step is to identify a qualified decision-maker, or an ally in the organisation who can help you reach the decision-maker.

Step 2: Qualifying
At this stage of the process you and the customer are sizing each other up. You are assessing the revenue potential and costs associated with a customer opportunity to decide if it's worth pursuing, while the customer is assessing whether your company can meet his or her business needs. In this stage, your sales professionals must be adept at discovering the customer's true needs, in detail. Then they must clearly articulate how your company's products or services can uniquely meet their needs.

The goal of this step is to convince the decision-maker to move ahead with an in-depth evaluation of your solution.

Step 3: Proposal
At this stage of the process, the customer usually narrows the number of companies under consideration. Small businesses must be prepared to respond rapidly to potential leads.

When you reach this step, the promises end and you must demonstrate to the decision-maker that your company can deliver. You can create a mutually agreed upon product/service evaluation plan that emphasises key steps to prove your capabilities and ensure a win for both the customer and the salesperson.

The evaluation plan is an important tool that many salespeople overlook. After a customer agrees to the evaluation plan, the salesperson is in control of the sales process. This is because the customer can only afford to go through the steps of an evaluation plan with a single selling organisation because of the time, cost and resources necessary to perform each step.

The goal of this step is to demonstrate the value your business can provide the customer, through successful completion of the evaluation plan. The customer then requests a proposal from the salesperson.

Step 4: Decision
By now, you are so near to closing this deal that you're almost prepared to celebrate. Unfortunately, plans and details can change. For example, one of your salespeople may have conceded too much in the final negotiations, making the deal unprofitable. Or conversely, the salesperson may have walked away from a good sale when a low-cost giveaway might have closed it. Such is the delicate and unstable nature of this step in the sales process.

The goal of this step is to facilitate deals that are beneficial to both your company and the customer.

Step 5: Repeat business
This step is critical to a sales process. After a contract is signed or a sales commission is paid out, the product or service must be delivered and implemented as promised. A sales professional who is truly focused on building a long-term, profitable business relationship will take ownership and follow up with the customer to make sure that everything proceeds smoothly. Satisfied customers are more likely to place new orders, and might be willing to act as referrals for new clients.

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Implement your Sales Process

A well-defined, measurable sales process can make a big difference in your business. But change can sometimes be difficult for people. The following can help:

Demonstrate management support. The business owner needs to take ownership for implementing the sales process. As with any proposed change, sales professionals will watch closely to see if a new process will be enforced by the organisation. (Some businesses offer compensation to reward employees who adopt the new sales process and succeed with it.) Above all, business owners should ensure that everyone participates.

Make the sales process work for your customers. Your sales process should match your customer's buying process: small businesses selling to medium or large companies; small businesses selling to other small businesses; and small businesses selling to consumers. In general, more complex sales usually result in a sales cycle that has more steps. You need to adjust these models to meet the unique needs of your customers and your own sales organisation.

Adopt a clearly defined approach. Implementing your new sales process is not a one-step action; this integration should occur in stages.

To approach your implementation more easily, follow these steps: research, implement, evaluate, refine and provide ongoing management support.

Step 1: Research
Speak with customers and reflect on the process elements that have worked well for your top salespeople.

Step 2: Implement
Document your customised sales process, tailor any forms or templates that you want your salespeople to use, and offer compensation to encourage adoption of the new sales process.

Step 3: Evaluate
Quantify what is or is not working with your sales process by getting immediate feedback from your customers. For example, has customer satisfaction increased as a result of your new sales process? Are customers more willing to act as referrals? Are new leads being generated? Are you generating repeat business?

Step 4: Refine
Your sales process needs to be a dynamic tool that changes to reflect the customer buying process as well as the evolving personnel and culture of your organisation. Look for trends and clues in your sales process metrics and consider doing a periodic review of the process to improve it as needed.

Step 5: Provide ongoing support
Initially a sales process creates uncertainty and additional work, so employees might watch management closely for signs of a loss of commitment to the new process. The business owner and sales manager (often the same person) must support and reinforce the process at every opportunity.

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Take Advantage of Technology

Tracking customer communication as part of your sales and marketing can be a big challenge. However, familiar Microsoft tools can help you centralise customer information and sales opportunities, even on a limited budget. Here are just a few ways you can use technology to address sales and marketing needs.

Microsoft Office Small Business Edition 2003
With this edition of Office specifically designed for small business, you and your employees can:

Manage customer information from one place. Keeping track of your customer information and communications can be a big challenge. Microsoft Office Outlook 2003 with Business Contact Manager (BCM) can help you keep everything associated with a customer or sales lead ? e-mail messages, appointments, notes, documents ? in a single location. That way, you and each of your employees can have a comprehensive view of your customer information and communications. Easy-to-generate, customisable reports help you track sales from initial contact to close, so you can spend less time gathering information and more time focusing on your clients.

Create low-cost marketing materials. Marketing your business can be a strain on your budget. Microsoft Office Publisher 2003 can help you maximise your time and money by creating your own personalised marketing materials. Easy-to-use design tools, customisable templates and familiar Office features help ensure quick, impressive results for desktop printing, commercial printing, e-mail or the web.

Get organised. Who couldn't use some help getting more organised? Microsoft Office Small Business Edition 2003 includes tools to help you and your employees get the most out of every workday. Reclaim your e-mail inbox with powerful spam filters. Search folders and use message flags to get straight to the messages you want to see. And should something go awry while you're working, the software is designed to let you easily access recovered files or choose to automatically save what you're working on.

Microsoft CRM
If your customer information and tracking needs are more robust, you might consider what you can do with customer relationship management (CRM) software:

Integrate sales and customer service processes. Employees can easily share information across the organisation and your business can implement consistent and automated processes.

Track leads, sales prospects and customer data. CRM software enables you to better manage your information, and to follow qualified sales prospects through the sales cycle. This also enables faster customer service, allowing employees to spend less time searching for information and more time working with customers. Plus, you gain valuable customer insight with dozens of business reports, such as account history and sales pipeline, which are pre-formatted and ready to use.

Store customer data in one central location. When employees can't immediately deliver consistent customer service, the result is a tarnished company image or worse: lost sales and customers. With Microsoft CRM, your sales team can quickly access and securely share customer data, to ensure that all customers receive the same dependable service every time they contact your company.

With technology designed for businesses like yours, you can manage and access customer information from a single place, gain insight into customer behaviour, make better decisions and maximise your time and money by bringing marketing activities in-house.

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