Without a marketing plan you’re firing shotguns in the air in hopes of hitting something before you run out of ammunition. If you’re not spending as much as half of your time on marketing, you’ll never gain the full share of your target market.

The purpose of marketing is to turn products/services into cash—your marketing plan details how you’ll do this. The keys to a successful plan in plain English are:

1. Research. Who is your customer? What are their needs and wants? How big is your market? How will you reach them? Who is your competition?

2. Goals. What are you trying to accomplish over the next three to five years? Identify critical deadlines and anticipate possible roadblocks.

3. Strategies. Your strategy will be the basis upon which customers will choose to buy your products and services instead of the competitors. Is it a unique and compelling reason?

(Offering your products and services on barter is an example of a powerful strategy.)

Working with a good trade exchange will add to your marketing efforts because they will handle this effort to their membership for you…check with them to learn of the specific services they provide in this area. Deal with the exchanges who will actively be promoting you company to their members.

For a list of the barter companies across the U.S.A. see the BarterNews.com website:
EXCHANGES

Use barter to increase your wealth, Fast Start Barter Program provides you with the map:
FASTSTART

This entry was posted on Monday, March 31st, 2008 at 8:18 am and is filed under Entrepreneurs & Small Business. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.