Strategic marketing plans are a must have for your fledgling computer business. With a strategic marketing plan you define a means to accomplish your overall marketing goal.

The most successful businesses have a strategic marketing plan in place and they refer to it often. They use it as a living document and not something that sits on the shelf collecting dust.

When developing your strategic marketing plan your first priority should be how you weight the different marketing activities available. Here is a suggested breakdown for you to consider when developing your strategic marketing plan:

Spend about 50% of your time and money on a combination of marketing through organizations and referral marketing.

Spend about 20% of your time and money on doing things related to speaking and teaching and seminar marketing. This part of your strategic marketing plan includes your solo seminars as well as those that you joint venture with accountants and other niche technology providers.

Third priority in your strategic marketing plan is direct mail. Plan to spend about 20% of your time and money on direct mail. Here, targeting is extremely important. In fact targeting is a factor for consideration with all of the elements in your strategic marketing plan.

The last and smallest facet of your strategic marketing plan should be the marketing activities that tend to work for some and not for others. These are all the other types of marketing activities available from door hangers and telemarketing to targeting specific industries. This part of your strategic marketing plan will include a lot of hit and miss items but you won't know what works until you actually test it.

Bottom Line on Strategic Marketing Plans

Start thinking about building your strategic marketing plan at the very beginning of your business planning exercises. Your strategic marketing plan will hold you on course as you wind your way through the many different marketing techniques available. If you follow the percentages above, your strategic marketing plan will force you to concentrate on proven marketing strategies and only pursue the most risky alternatives in small amounts.

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