Creating A Marketing Plan Is Important

 By Diane M. Calabrese | Published January 2025

Belief in a product or service is the starting point for a manufacturer, distributor, or contractor. But confidence is only step one in making the sale.

This is 2025, and as much as one satisfied customer talking to people leads to more buyers, word-of-mouth advertising alone cannot sustain any except the most unique businesses.

A business must have a marketing plan. Successful veteran members of our industry confirm the need and scope.

“Every business has to have a website,” says Mike Hilborn, president of RTD Services in Saint Paul, MN. “And it must be kept up to date and re-created regularly, too.”

There’s a difference between being up to date and re-creation. The former demands near daily attention. The latter involves attention to platform, basic design, and ancillary maintenance.

“Everything is changing so quickly, and to be competitive, your customers need to interact with you in the easiest possible way,” explains Hilborn. But there’s more to be done.

“A second ‘must have’ is good Google reviews,” says Hilborn. “And you may have to have a service help with this.”

Hilborn explains that taking the route of hiring a consultant has been helpful at times  and not at other times. He gives us an account of his experience.

“I have not had a lot of luck with consultants in this area,” says Hilborn. “I have had some success with consultants when it comes to how to run my company well and how to be a great sales organization. However, with advertising it has been a disappointment.”

Hilborn recommends doing what works. That demands that an owner take the initiative to find out which approaches bring results.

“The biggest thing with advertising and marketing is to know what is actually working,” says Hilborn. “Ask every caller seeking a bid or quote, how did they find you? At the end of the year, analyze the data to see what is actually working. Few things in business are more important.”

Know what works. Don’t guess. Above all, be ready to change methods.

Many books have been written about public speaking. They advise would-be speakers how to connect with their audience. Usually, one of the first recommendations centers on finding a way to assess the audience.

In other words, if the delivery isn’t eliciting a response, or people are fidgeting and yawning—or worse, someone is sleeping in the second row—be prepared to change the delivery. The message is clear that the audience has been lost.

Keeping the audience after finding the audience is what it takes to keep selling. Yes, to keep selling even superior products and services.

“The one ‘must-have’ in any marketing plan is a deep understanding of the target audience,” says Missy Ordiway, business development manager at Deco Products Inc. in Denver, CO. “Knowing who they are, what they need, and how they think shapes every marketing decision, ensuring strategies are relevant, resonant, and ultimately effective.”

The “resonant” recommendation deserves a closer look. A loud and clear message to the target group is made so because there’s no ambiguity. The product or service being advertised is tied to the company doing the advertising.

It is not enough for a prospective buyer to conclude a hot-water machine is what he or she needs. The potential buyer must also decide he requires a specific brand and model.

What makes the seller of a product or service the best choice? If being the best choice is not being conveyed by outreach to customers, the seller could be losing opportunities for sales while generously advertising on behalf of competitors.

To develop a successful marketing plan, a business owner must have clarity about what’s being sold (purpose) and to whom. Again, consultants may or may not be helpful.

What’s Ordiway’s perspective on consultants? “It depends on the product, service, and resources available,” she explains. “In-house teams offer brand familiarity and control, while consultants bring specialized expertise and fresh perspectives.”

It’s a matter of matching the strategy to the goal. “For complex or niche markets, a consultant’s insights can be invaluable,” says Ordiway. “For well-understood markets, in-house may be more efficient. Often, a mix of both yields the best results.”

Product, Product, Product

Never forget what it’s about. The product and service is a form of product.

“First and foremost, you have to have a product to market,” says Doug Rucker, owner of DougRuckerStore.com in Porter, TX. “The product can be a physical one like a pressure washer. It could be a service, like pressure washing, or it could be yourself.”

In the early part of this century, the characterization of an economy that’s “knowledge based” took hold. The descriptor has fallen from use. But knowledge, as Rucker explains, is still a product that can be sold.

Consultants sell knowledge. Members of our industry can do the same in person, through structured seminars or events, and through fee-based give-and-take in the digital world.

Most important is that there is a product, always. “If you don’t have something for the buyer to see, touch, and or feel, then you don’t have anything to market or sell,” says Rucker.

Unless encounters—in person or via a digital carrier—result in sales, the number of encounters is nothing more than a tally signifying nothing. For instance, a website can be made so spellbinding—via graphics, color schemes, three-D simulation, and so on—that it can attract many visitors. Just be sure the visitors are coming to find and buy products and not merely have a look around.

As for hiring a consultant to develop a marketing plan, there’s no fast rule. “It all depends on the in-house staff and if they have the knowledge and experience to create a marketing plan for the product or service they are selling,” says Rucker.

“Larger companies will be able to have in-house staff that does most of the creating and carrying out the marketing plan but will oftentimes still need consulting,” explains Rucker. “For smaller companies it could be more fiscally responsible to hire a consultant that can create and implement a marketing plan.”

Small companies need not go it alone in practice. An abundance of free information is available from the U.S. Small Business Administration. At SBA.gov businesses find structured plans and templates to follow.

Two particularly good resources are “Marketing and sales” (https://www.sba.gov/business-guide/manage-your-business/marketing-sales) and “Market research and competitive analysis” (https://www.sba.gov/business-guide/plan-your-business/market-research-competitive-analysis).

The marketing and sales primer includes many recommendations that will spur thinking. For example, there’s the recommendation to consider what the competitive advantage of a product is. What distinguishes it from the competition?

The distinguishing features go way beyond better or cost effective. They include attributes many customers may seek, such as environmentally friendly (green) and U.S. made.

And there’s the reminder in the marketing and sales primer to evaluate effectiveness of the marketing plan, not only on total sales but also on ROI [return on investment]. Keep an accurate accounting of the cost of the plan. That makes it possible to determine whether or not it was a good investment.

Finally, keep in mind the subtle dimensions of a marketing plan. Executed correctly, the plan pulls all the elements of selling together. For instance, when a customer calls or texts after viewing a product at a website, there is someone ready to respond with competence and courtesy.

The market research and competitive analysis primer includes the necessary reminders that there must be a demand for a product or service. The best marketing plan cannot overcome the constraints of a region in which there are too few buyers due to economic conditions or a mismatch between product and place.

Customer First

Verifying a region has prospective customers who can afford a product is still secondary to ensuring they want to buy the product. Know who the buyer is.

“The one element that transcends all marketing plans is an in-depth understanding of the customer,” says Carol Taylor, director of marketing at StoneAge Inc. in Durango, CO. “Regardless of the product, service, or industry, the cornerstone of any effective marketing strategy lies in truly knowing your audience—who they are, what they value, what their challenges are, and how they make decisions.”

Taylor cautions that to understand the customer, the effort must go deeper than the common ways of segmenting a population. “It’s not just about generalized demographics, but a deeper insight into prospective customers’ motivations, desires, and pain points,” she says.

The goal is to align the solution—product or service—being offered with the specific needs of customers. That alignment makes a “powerful connection” with potential buyers, explains Taylor.

“This customer-centric approach acts as the foundation for everything else in the marketing plan,” says Taylor. “Messaging becomes more relevant, the channels you choose to communicate through are more effective, and the content you create speaks directly to their needs.”

The result of a customer-centric approach is an understanding of customers that enables the creation of “personalized, resonant marketing,” says Taylor. Such marketing “not only grabs attention but fosters lasting relationships and drives meaningful engagement.”

It’s all about “putting the customer at the heart of a marketing strategy,” says Taylor. It’s a strategy that sets a company apart from the competition and sustains success.

The plan itself is not the movie (fictional) version of something that gets written on a paper napkin following a burst of inspiration. It is structured and more.

“For me, when creating a marketing plan, there are certain elements that are must-haves,” says Taylor. “Executive summary, target audience, customer personas, value propositions, goals and objectives, strategies, distribution plan [or plans], timelines, and KPIs [key performance indicators] must all be included.”

The elements Taylor lists overlap with key components of a business plan. Assuredly, the purpose of a business is to sell a product, service, or both and to make a profit.

The overlap reminds us that a business and a marketing plan are hand in glove to each other. Moreover, the fit between the two plans must be as precise as possible.

A new set of eyes teaches us a lot. We get a fresh look in many ways, such as when spending time with a small child who is seeing the world anew. Consultants can bring the same.

Besides fresh perspectives, consultants “often have broader industry experience, access to cutting-edge tools and trends, and the ability to analyze the market with an outsider’s objectivity,” says Taylor. Collaboration between in-house and outside experts may be just the right approach.

Each business owner ultimately decides how to create a marketing plan. What’s important is to create one.