Spice Up Your Marketing Action Plan
With Some Key Hot Ingredients!

By Cyndy Bolton

Some of us love to cook. Some of us don't. Those of you who don't would rather leave it up to someone else to do the work. For those of you who like cooking, rolling up your sleeves and getting all five knuckles into it is a very enjoyable and rewarding task.

This situation relates to your marketing plan too. Take for instance your overall plan and compare it to making a loaf of bread. You have your main ingredients:

  • Ingredient 1: Flour (Clients Needs)
  • Ingredient 2: Water (Your Goods/Services)
  • Ingredient 3: Yeast (Marketing Vehicles)
  • Ingredient 4: Butter (Budget)
  • Ingredient 5: Salt (Action Plan)

Of course, client needs (1) drive your sales and have bearing on the quality of services(2) and what you have to offer to them. That's why you are in business, you have a good or service that fulfills a client need. As the flour and water stick together, you too, have to figure out how to make your client stick, or stay loyal.

That's where the yeast (3), or the marketing vehicles comes in. These tools help send your message to existing clients and potential ones alike, building on established relationships and reaching out to new ones. Yeast is an active ingredient, and that's why I equate it to the action of delivering your message via media choices like newspaper, social media sites and your web presence.

Consider the butter (4), or budget to be the grease which help the media vehicles roll out your campaign. Budgeting the right amount of money for your marketing plan is very important. It's what makes your message delivery smooth and consistent, just like the buttery bread dough.

Salt (5), of course, dictates the bread's texture and shape, and makes the bread taste better. If you have addressed your client's needs in your marketing action plan, or had a professional help you, then you have incorporated this key ingredient into your recipe for success. Creating a scheduled and uniform action plan will leave you with the comfort of knowing you have a clear and concise message for your customers, shaping their concept of you.

Now comes the added bonus which helps with the loyalty issue. Anyone can make bread. You just have to properly follow the instructions. But not everyone makes custom types of bread. It's as easy as throwing in a few carefully selected and placed ingredients into the mix. Add some sun dried cayenne peppers and a bit of Demerara sugar and voila! a loaf of sweet and spicy chili style bread. What about executing it differently? Cut the bread in three pieces. Knead and roll it into bands and braid it with strips of 60% chocolate. Sprinkle it with paprika and sugar. Delicious spicy Spanish chocolate bread. Do you see the possibilities? Only you offer this!

Your added bonus ingredients will be the incentive you offer to both your loyal and new clients. This reinforces the loyalty of existing clients and increases the chance of making new customer relationships. Tweet about it, put it in your ads and send people to your web space for more details. This reinforces the fact that now more than ever, people are using web search engines as their first way to find out about YOU. You will see an increase to your web site, and heightened search positioning on the search engines as a result.

Whether or not you love to cook, you can set out a plan. Take a bit of time to think it over and address where you want to take your business over the next year. On your own, or with the help of a professional, you can set forth a plan.

All of the above ingredients are required to make a loaf of bread. If you miss one, success is limited. Putting it all together will give you a higher chance for success. Go ahead and find your key ingredients. Pinpoint what they are and bake YOUR perfect marketing loaf of bread.