How do you know where you're going without a plan?  Is your operation running without direction?  How much better would your organization perform with an active promotional marketing plan?

"Fire, Ready, Aim!" is no way to run a business

Most businesses today fail to plan or even really know how they're doing in comparison to their competitors or relative to their industry as a whole.  They're essentially wandering around in a deep forest without a compass.  For established businesses this generally means that they've survived in spite of their planning rather than because of it.

The many benefits of planning

An active marketing plan allows the organization to focus on the things that are important...your target market and the activities around serving them.  It also provides an ongoing benchmark to measure how you're progressing.  You can highlight those things that are working and discard those that are not or adjust the overall strategy.

Business valuation experts will also tell you that effective marketing and business plans are also valuable assets when determining the value of a business.  This is essential for acquiring business loans or when considering selling the business.

Changing competitive landscape

Due to increasing competitive pressures it's imperative that you invest back into the business with a renewed vision and set of goals.  As Peter Drucker recently said, companies that fail to plan will eventually become history's counter-examples. 

In response to this need, Impact Marketing presents two programs designed to rescue your business from the "process rut" it may have fallen into and back into a purposeful, powerful vehicle.

1) Impact Marketing Audit

Need an objective evaluation of your business?  We offer the marketing audit program.  Oftentimes business owners get "stuck" in their own internal processes that they don't know how they're perceived out in the marketplace.

Our marketing audit offers you an objective glimpse of how your marketing processes are performing along with suggestions for improvement. The audit is a great way to identify the most critical marketing tactics for your business (bang with the most buck) along with a practical, objective opinion to get you back on track.

Without an objective perspective, it's difficult to know how you're really doing.  The marketing audit includes the company's-

                  - Positioning
                  - Image / Identity
                  - Sales activity tools
                  - Lead generation effectiveness
                  - Customer service
                  - Distribution
                  - Management tools
 

2) Impact Marketing Plan

Impact Marketing has partnered with the industry-leading marketing planning organizations today-

 

  - Marketing Plan Pro, and

  - First Research (a D&B company), the Industry
         Intelligence Experts

to bring you a comprehensive action marketing plan that will serve as the compass for your business for years!

We use the Marketing Plan Pro™ online platform tool as the plan outline and guide.  Marketing Plan Pro™ covers all areas of market planning including-

                   - Company goals and objectives
                   - Situational analysis
                   - SWOT analysis -
                         strengths/weaknesses/opportunities/threats
                   - Competitive Analysis
                   - Strategic pyramids
                   - Marketing mixes (5 "P"s of product, price, promotion,
                         place, people)
                   - Marketing tactical recommendations
                   - Financial and expense analysis
                   - Sales forecasting
                   - Marketing ROI
                   - plus many other features!

We add the detailed Industry Profile™ by First Research Corporation that provides another layer of valuable industry information including-

                  - Industry overview
                  - Quarterly industry update
                  - Trends and opportunities
                  - Industry forecast
                  - Business Challenges
                  - Financial benchmark information

We then fill in the blanks using our years of experience in helping businesses grow.  The result?  A tool you can use year after year.

Benefits of Hiring Impact Marketing as a Planning Partner

Research/planning/strategy - The "eyes and ears" of your business

Impact Marketing brings you practical research and planning experience.  We help position companies so that they can "get out of their own way" to succeed.  Often this positioning has to do with providing them with a richer perspective of the marketplace they operate in. 

Like any effective aspect of your business, market planning is an ongoing process. That's how we approach every client engagement. When you're armed with a sound action plan, you are free to innovate and create the messages and process that make you successful.

© 2012 Impact Marketing & Consulting Services, Inc. - All rights reserved