NP Business™ Tip: Developing a Marketing Plan

Marketing is essential so that people can find and utilize your services. Without clients or patients, you have no cash flow, and thus no business. The amount of marketing that is needed will vary from business to business, but trust me, everyone needs to do some marketing. For marketing to be most effective, you need a marketing plan.

A marketing plan should be an achievable plan of action. It will guide your activities for marketing throughout the year. In order to develop your marketing plan, there are some things that you need to determine first.

1. Determine your specific goals for marketing. In other words what do you want to accomplish from your marketing. Is it to build your practice? Perhaps you are hosting a special event like a health fair and just want to get the word out. Those goals will require two different approaches.
2. Determine the time lines for those goals. This will help you determine when you need to complete various tasks in order to meet your goals.
3. It is essential that you select the proper vehicle for your message and for your market. In order to get this correct, you need to know who your ideal client/patient is. For example, if you are marketing your pediatric practice with the goal of bringing in more patients, you are likely going to target areas where parents and their children frequent. So you might want to create a campaign that targets the children's section of the newspaper or magazine, while avoiding the senior section.
4. Develop your marketing budget. Your budget will take into account the financial cost as well as labor cost. Only you can determine what you are willing to spend. This figure is required so you know what vehicles you can utilize. In addition, you need this number to calculate your return on investment (ROI).
5. Track marketing campaigns and results. What is working and what isn't. With this information, and your marketing cost, you will be able to determine your ROI.
6. Adjust and fine tune the plan as necessary. All plans will require fine-tuning and adjusting as you are moving forward. Just like the airplane taking off from San Francisco and flying to New York, its' course is constantly corrected and adjusted. Your marketing plan will be no different.

Too much work? You can absolutely market without a marketing plan, however, you will most likely get the most out of marketing with a plan that offers you guidance, benchmarks and helps keep your on track.

NPBO™ Action Step:

• Write down...who is your ideal client/patient?
• What do you wish to achieve with your marketing? (You can have several desired outcomes).
• Identify where you ideal client/patient hangs out? How will you catch their attention.
• What marketing vehicles will you utilize?
• Pull out a 2010 calendar and begin to fill in the blanks including what you will do and when.