Are You a Spaghetti Marketer?

Every day the world is introduced to new technologies, products and services; gadgets, websites and apps all designed to improve our lives and increase the efficiency of the small business owner. We are told by the 'latest marketing gurus' that we must do this and we must have that.

As business owners our eyes are always open to the newest 'it thing' that will increase our number of leads and ultimately the increase our bottom line. You end up doing a bit of this and a bit of that, in hopes that your business will improve. If you conduct your business in this manner, you have entered the world of spaghetti marketing.

In spaghetti marketing, you spend your time trying a bit of everything and throwing it out there to see what sticks. Unfortunately when you operate in this fashion, you have no real way of knowing what is working and what is not. There may be some marketing tactics that are working, but you don't know which one it is that sticks, so to speak.

The answer is to drop the spaghetti marketing. You don't need to do everything. Honestly, where is it written that as small business owners we must try everything new that is happening in the market? The good news is that we don't have to do each and everything that we read or hear about. The key is to create a simple plan of action.

1. Clearly identify your ideal target market. Create an avatar of who your ideal client. What are his or her pains, wants and needs? What are the demographics and psychographics of this individual? The more you know about them, the easier it will be to develop your marketing message.

2. Determine your objectives. I'm amazed at how many individuals set out to do their marketing with no clear objective. Without an objective, how do you what tactics to use or how to measure the success of your campaign?

3. Decide on a project budget and duration of your marketing campaign. With the objective in hand, decide the budget to be allocated to your campaign and how many weeks or months that the budget must cover. This will also dictate what tactics to utilize for the campaign.

4. Select the marketing tactics to use. Sit down and look at what marketing activities you feel are important to have as part of your marketing strategy. Now choose three to five things from that list that you can do effectively and consistently. You can easily outsource any of the time consuming functions given the many virtual assistances available at our fingertips. Ensure that each tactic you choose has a way for you measure the results.

Marketing need not be difficult when you have a plan of action and then work the plan. Now grab a pen and paper and start writing. Leave the spaghetti for the kitchen.