[Rob Shauger]

Well here we are at the beginning of another year. Will you sit down and write out a marketing plan for the year?

You should do this before creating your budget right??????

Start with a piece of paper and put 12 blocks on it or get yourself one of those nice big Dry Erase Calendars. Now on each block or month fill in what it is you will be doing for marketing or advertising.

Now get your costs together including labor (if needed) to ad this to your budget for the year.

Good Luck!

[concept]

This can get complicated to explain. But it helped me put together my marketing calender for 06.Lets say you want to grow 20% for coversation purposes 1,000,000.company needs to add 200k to reach that goal.You need afew figures from05( 1)avg sale of company all sales people (2)avg close rate entire company (3) avg sale per lead source. this figure helps with how many leads you might get and the cost for each one of those.Example if your avg sale is 2,000 then you need 100 sales but if your close rate is 25% then you need 400 leads at acost of? depends on the lead source. Referal being the least expensivewith the highest close rate.In the lawn care market the cheapest lead ive heard outside of referal was telemarketig at $175-$200per lead.Design build lead generation can get expensive quick of course the avg sale is higher but the close rtae is usually lower hence you have to add the cost of all lost sales into made sales being that it cost as much to us to lose a sale as it does to win one. man this took along time to type practice makes perfect

[rbriggs]

Rob is right. A marketing plan and budget are so very important to attain your goals.
We completed our marekting plan, hiring plan, and budget in November.