The Secret 5th Ingredient For Marketing With Results

It is a well known fact that the most successful companies are those who:

1. Have a marketing plan with a dedicated budget,
2. Strictly adhere to their marketing plan,
3. Track the results of their marketing plan, and
4. Make adjustments to their marketing plan on a regular and ongoing basis.

But do you know where most companies fall down? On the 5th ingredient: Implementation.

The best marketing plan will come off only half baked without doing whatever is necessary to insure that every detail of the plan is executed in a timely and consistent fashion.

Perhaps your company has a great marketing mastermind at your disposal. You have paid the price for genius and now possess a perfectly printed and bound step-by-step marketing plan including pricing to support your budget and contacts for each of the multiple vendors needed to provide the various products and services necessary to take your company to the top. Who gets the job of putting the plan into action?

Hiring a full time marketing manager is often a moot issue for the very small business, since the going rate of pay for such a professional is likely to be more than 100% of the average annual marketing budget for small companies.

A part time marketing assistant may be within the budget, but who will give this person the direction they need to get the job done?

Delegating to an existing employee who has little or no marketing expertise may be disastrous to the success of the plan while adversely affecting other business operations.

And the reason you hired the big guns to create a marketing plan for you in the first place was because you already have too many hats to wear and not enough time or experience to commit to marketing. So you are not the best person for the job, either.

The secret 5th Ingredient for successful small business marketing is OUTSOURCED marketing implementation through the efforts of a professional marketing advisor who is willing to roll up their sleeves and get into the nitty-gritty details of your marketing plan. How will you know if you have found the right person for the job?

1. Fees are proportionate to your annual budget
2. They have preferred vendors and are willing to work with yours
3. An itemized 12 month calendar is prepared and followed
4. The advisor is responsible for moving forward without prompting from you
5. Regularly scheduled progress reports are written into the plan

If you have any questions regarding the development or implementation of a marketing plan for your small business, feel free to post them here. If I don't know the answer, I will consult someone who does!