Small Business Marketing Goals for 2013 ? Get Started Now ...

The end of a year is a good time for contemplation and review. It?s also a time to determine your businesses goals for the New Year.

Smart business owners are working on this task now. Where do you want your business to be one year from now? What do you want to achieve?

If you start your planning today instead of waiting until the new year is upon you, you?ll have much more time to consider, review, decide, prepare, organise, and communicate the important outcomes that your business wants to achieve to be successful during 2013.

With that in mind, here are some steps to build your 2013 marketing plan:

1. Talk to your customers: Successful businesses start planning for a new year by talking to their customers. They listen carefully to what they have to say and respond accordingly.
2. Establish very specific strategic and financial goals:? SMART goals lead to better outcomes.?You will have both strategic goals (markets, customers, competitors, products, services, distribution channels, staffing, resources and processes) and financial goals (revenue, margin, expense, and profits).? All should be highly defined and very specific.
3. Set long-term and short-term goals: Long-term goals (such as yearly revenue forecasts) provide sign posts to help you measure progress. Short-term monthly and quarterly objectives focus your business on the steps that accomplish the longer-term goals. Allow for variation in your planning. Have a set of alternative options that address unexpected challenges or opportunities outside of your control.
4. Measure, evaluate, and act: Review all your goals at the end of each month. You can evaluate and determine what needs to happen before the next months review to align current results with expected outcomes.

In a nut shell, to succeed in establishing and reaching your marketing goals, you should focus well in advance on what needs to happen and spend effort necessary to ensure success. ?While some goals may be harder to achieve than others, effort now will refine your focus and improve the time and energy you spend on reaching key objectives that bring your bigger goals within reach.

Get started now, and you?ll be much more likely to succeed in the new year.

About the author: Teresa Bassham is the principle of Zenworkz Authentic Marketing, and is passionate about educating small and medium business professionals to create their differential advantage, attract more ideal customers and create a marketing plan to achieve success.? She coaches customers online and by phone ? if you would like to request coaching ??please contact?me.

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Tags: Business Survival, Customer Knowledge, Finding Ideal Customers, Goals, Marketing Plans, Marketing Strategies, Outcomes

This entry was posted on Monday, December 17th, 2012 at 10:00 am and is filed under Attracting Customers, Customer Research, Marketing 101, Marketing Plans, Setting Marketing Objectives, Setting Marketing Strategies. You can follow any comments to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.

Source: http://www.zenworkz.com/blog/?p=1101&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=small-business-marketing-goals-for-2013-get-started-now

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