Marketing Made Easier

Marketing can be a very complex thing especially for a small business owner such as myself really I just want to make jewelry but if I want my business to succeed I have to step out of my safe bead bin. Part of that is marketing and I love sharing what I learn!

So what is marketing anyway?

basically in a nutshell marketing is EVERYTHING you do to get your product or service in the in the hands of the people who want your products. Marketing is your branding, pricing, packaging, placement, advertisement and everything you do to get your product to your customer. Sounds complicated but can be broken down to make more sense of things A good way to do this is to have a marketing plan, you can get really in depth templates for marketing plans but because I like to keep things as simple as possible I am going to layout a simple plan for you so grab a pen and paper and start answering these easy questions:

1. What is your product/service? Pretty self explanatory write a description of what product/service you offer.

2. Pricing? What is your pricing on your product are you offering expensive luxury items or rock bottom bargains. Take a look at your highest priced items and your lowest to figure a rough price point.

3. Distribution? How will you get your products to your customers. Will you sell online in stores, through affiliate programs, through catalogs, home parties etc try to go into detail like what type of stores etc.

5. Target Market? Who is your target market try to be as specific as possible for example Male between the age of 18-40 athletic, middle class+ income

6. Competition? Be realistic here I am talking direct competition I wouldn't say I was in direct competition with a famous jewelry designer when I am not even in that league

9. Strengths and Weaknesses? List your strengths over your competition as well as your weaknesses.

10. Goals? One of my favorites goals are sooo important! What are your goals from your marketing strategies? Try to make these specific and something that you will be able to measure if you are reaching your goals.

11. Budget? What is your yearly budget for your marketing tactics?

12. Tactics? What are some of the marketing tactics you plan to implement ( I will be talking more about tactics in upcoming posts)

Remember as with any plan what you write is not set in stone and can be changed as you see fit. I recommend that you look back on your marketing plan at least every 6months but some people will every few months or every year. In upcoming post I will be talking more about marketing and different marketing tactics I am by no means an expert but hopefully this information will help some.