Customers are defined – now set some goals !
So in step 1 we focused on drilling down to find out who exactly are your target customers. Hopefully the probe was nothing new to you, but now with the commitment to build a plan and get it in writing, this process will allow for success. Now that you have defined your target, it is time to step back and set some goals, Planning Step 2 These can be customer specific or overall goals. A goal needs to be measurable and definable.
Define your goals, some examples include:
- Increased sales
- Increased profit margin
- Increase your company visibility
- Repeat business
- Referral business
- Number of hits on your web page
- Cross selling your existing customers
- New customer acquisition
- New product line
- Sales to a new niche, new product line
- Do a newsletter to customers and prospects
- Email marketing campaign
- Re-design your web page
- Start a blog
Once you set your goals, then you need to define your success with each goal so that you have a benchmark to evaluate the plan. Here are some examples using those goals above:
- Increase sales by 20%
- Profit margin increase of 3%
- Get 1000 new subscribers on web page
- Obtain a 15% increase in repeat business
- Blog at least 1 time per week
You can see that you need to take each goal and put parameters around the goal. Think through these goals, make them realistic and obtainable. If they are so far out there and not obtainable, it will be less likely to hit and then your plan could fall apart.
Once you have thought out your goals and targets, the best thing to do for each goal is to brainstorm each topic with some ideas on how you may reach the goal. I like the idea of brainstorming because everyone has the ability to bring fresh ideas to the table. So, lets take the first goal – Increase sales by 20%. Brainstorming this will allow you to create a list of things that you can do to implement that would help you to increase your sales. Now the point of this part of the plan is not to have all the answers in the first step, but by starting to put things in writing, as we move to other parts of the plan and get into social media, there will be other things that will generate new ideas and ways to freshen your old ideas and focus on different marketing tactics. I think that after you get your plan developed, it is a great idea to continue to have brainstorming sessions to help keep ideas fresh. I think you will be surprised at the creative side to most people!
So define your customer and start to set some goals, tomorrow we will continue on to the next step. Thanks for visiting The Sales Plan and make sure you subscribe to get regular updates. Remember if you fail to plan, you plan to fail !
