10 Simple Steps to Build Your Marketing Plan: Step #1

In our previous posts, we discussed the importance of investing time in creating your marketing plan – this will serve as your roadmap to future success, and will chart the course for how to take your brand from where you are now to where you want to be.  It is the strategic foundation upon which you will build your entire business.

And the good news is that you can create your own marketing plan in 10 easy steps.

Let's start with Step #1: Create a Unique Selling Proposition

You want to be sure that your brand can truly carve out a niche in the marketplace and that there is a valid reason to bring your brand to market in the first place.

Is your brand: the First, the Most, the Biggest, the Least Expensive, the Only, the Best Value…?  Think about what is it that will make your brand proprietary and really set it apart.

I worked on a high-end beauty brand.  As you know, skin care brands are a dime a dozen and it is a very crowded playing field. So how did we set this one apart? Well, at the time, the real Unique Selling Proposition was that this brand was the most expensive skin crème available.  And that became what the brand was known for – first and foremost, people would remember how outrageous the price point was.  While this, of course, invited scrutiny of the benefits that the brand could deliver – the line clearly stood out and there was an expectation that the crème was superior due to the price tag.

Whether you are launching or rejuvenating your brand, look for the “white space” or opportunity.  This can be the space where there is no competition, and you can carve out a clear competitive advantage or it may be an entirely new market where nobody is playing.

In next week’s post, we will move onto Step #2.