It’s the time of the year when companies are in the budgeting process for the upcoming year. If you are in charge of marketing for your company, there is a temptation to just rubber stamp everything you have done in the past once again. However, the budgeting process is a good time to actually take a critical look at your marketing plan – not just the budget – and to get a sense for what is working, what is not, and to get a grasp on what needs to happen in order to gain more market share in the coming year.

Where to start

A marketing plan begins with two fundamental questions: what are you selling and who will purchase it? Just how well are you doing in communicating the uniqueness of your products and services and do your customers bite on your message? In order to effectively market, you have to define your products or services and understand the features, attributes and benefits of each of them. This is key to marketing. From this information, you need to define what is unique about those products and services. In other words, what would make them desirable to a customer? Are they advanced beyond other models so that they perform better than the competition? Are they priced below the competition? Do they have more functions than other models before them? Whatever is exceptional about the product or service should become your unique selling proposition.

Likewise, you have to understand the customer. What do they value? What are their attitudes towards your products and services? What choices do they have in the marketplace? After you have defined your unique selling proposition, gear it towards the wants and desires of your customer. This becomes your marketing positioning statement. It is how you want the customer to remember your products and services. In evaluating how you are doing, you have to measure how well your target market is taking to your products through your positioning statement. Does it make them want to find out more information about your products and lead them closer to a sale? A lot of marketing dollars are spent trying to get a brand connection with the customer. How well is that happening in your situation? If it is not, it is time to re-examine your positioning statement and how much money you are spending to promote a phrase to which your target market doesn’t adhere.

What about the competition?

Another good reason to examine your marketing plan now is that your competition will change tactics and you have to react to them. This calls for a close eye on what they are doing and what your target market thinks about what they are doing. What is their unique selling proposition? What is their positioning statement? Is it sticking with your customers? If so, you have to change your marketing plans to neutralize their efforts. A common tactic is to undercut your prices. If the competition markets a comparable product at a lower price, you are in trouble. You have to counter that with either a better product with advanced features or lower prices in order to maintain your market share and to gain more business. Take a look at your competition and then look at your marketing plan. Make the adjustments you need to now in order to stay relevant this next year.

What has changed in the marketplace?

The key indicator of how your marketing plans are doing is sales. So how have you done over the past year? What are your projections for next year? All marketing eventually leads to sales. You need to be able to trace your sales from your plan to the cash register. But we are in a tumultuous economic environment right now. The winds of change keep shifting and most businesses are unsure what their future sales will really look like. The best thing a revised marketing plan can do for you is to zig and zag with the economic times. If something happens that tightens up your marketplace, you need to know what to do to beat your competition to your customer because you know they will be trying to pick off any existing customer of yours. If the economy starts to get better, what do you need to do to expand your customer base? All of these are addressed in your marketing plan.

So as you are in the budgeting process, take a look at your marketing plans and make the necessary adjustments. You should go through this process at least once a year. It will help you know where you have been effective. It will help you stay connected with your target market. It will help you stay on top of your competition.