How to Create a Marketing Plan to Meet Your Goals

As you think back over the last year of your business, are you pleased with your results? I hope so. I am proud of what you accomplished and you should be too! Are there some goals that you didn't quite reach? If so, you're not alone! Being goal oriented and stretching yourself is part of being an entrepreneur. But, for a variety of reasons, sometimes you miss the mark and don't get the exact results you were looking for.

Fortunately, achieving your goals and creating your version of success is yours for the taking with a little planning, organization and consistent effort. Whether you're looking for more clients, more visibility or more income in your business, you can reach all of these goals by creating and following through with a marketing plan.

If you've struggled with your marketing efforts in the past, you may be wondering, "Sydni, where do I start?" The answer is simple.

Based on what you've accomplished so far, what would you like to accomplish next? And what is the gap between where you're at now and where you want to be? Once you're clear on the gap, then you want to determine exactly what you need to do to bridge the gap. While it's nice to think "I want to increase my income by $1500 each month" or "I want to attract six new clients," you'll never see those goals accomplished unless you've got a marketing plan to back it up.

Keep these questions in mind when you are planning your marketing activities for the next year:

• What would you REALLY like to accomplish? Setting clear and SPECIFIC goals for the next year is the first step to filling the gaps in your business. You need to know exactly where you want to be in the next year in order to outline the steps you'll need to take to get there. If you didn't reach your goals from the previous year, that can be a good starting point for next year.

• What are you currently doing to market your solutions? Look back over the last year and analyze the steps that you've taken. Does your marketing plan support your goals? What kind of results did you get from your marketing activities in the past year? Using your current plan (or lack thereof!) is a good starting point for developing a new plan. You can see exactly what went well for you and what didn't based on your previous results.

• What will you do differently in the next year? Identify opportunities to make changes in the way that you do things so you can be more consistent and more effective with marketing. For example, you can use a tool like Postling.com to schedule your social media updates. You can create a content calendar so it's easy to put together blog posts each month. You can hire a Virtual Assistant to take care of some of your follow-up activities or handle admin tasks so you have more time for marketing.

Spending some time answering these questions and formulating a new pla
NOW will help you create more profits in 2012. What goals are brewing in your head for 2012?