Creating a Marketing Budget for Your Business
Your marketing budget is where you will decide how much money and time you can allot to marketing over a set period. Putting this budget together will help you assess…
How to Conduct a Marketing Asset Assessment
How to Write a Marketing Plan, Part 5 Once you've defined your business' goals, your target audience, and analyzed your competition, it's time to get to work on evaluating your assets. An asset…
How to Analyze Your Competitors and Their Marketing Plans
How to Write a Marketing Plan, Part 4 Assessing your competitors early and frequently is part of being a healthy, growing business. This type of analysis will direct the rest…
How to Define Your Target Audience
How to Write a Marketing Plan, Part 3 Have you ever been invited to an event and wondered what to wear? You don't want to be overdressed or underdressed. Are…
How to Define Your Marketing Goals
How to Write a Marketing Plan, Part 2 Yes. You can run each day independently from the previous one or from tomorrow, responding to the latest idea or the current…
How to Write a Marketing Plan
How to Write a Marketing Plan, Part 1 Finding people to buy your product or service means marketing your business. Deciding who you will target, how you are going to…
Helping Others Survive Covid-19
As we publish this piece, more US states are directing their people to stay isolated at home to help slow the spread of Covid-19. Schools are closed, workers have been…
Staying Sane in the Age of Covid-19
In a few short weeks, our lives went from relatively normal to mostly upside down, and I’d like to extend my deepest sympathy to those personally affected in any way.…
The Four Cornerstones of Every Business Plan
The thought of preparing a business plan for the first time can be very intimidating. There are many "moving parts," and it’s easy to get lost in the details. The task becomes much easier if you think of your plan in terms of four essential cornerstones that serve as the foundation of all business plans: Opportunity, Solution, Execution, and Outcomes.
How to Create a Business Plan Cover Page
We’ve all heard the adage that you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover. However, the truth is that people DO judge books by their covers – especially busy investors…