Are You Following Your Plan?

Happy April 1st!

I can’t believe it’s already the first of April and I’m sitting here wondering where the first three months of the year have gone. It’s amazing how quickly time flies and as I’ve thought about where it’s all gone it got me thinking about the importance of having a plan in place.

You see, marketing should be a year round exercise but it’s easy to neglect it because you’re caught up in the day to day operations of running your business. You should be doing something every month of the year to get referrrals from your customers, develop referral relationships with complimentary businesses, and attracting new customers through the normal marketing activities.

That’s a lot to keep track of.

That’s why it’s vitally important to put together a marketing plan ahead of time that you can refer to throughout the month and year. For example, just last night I took out my marketing plan I’d made at the beginning of the year and reviewed the previous three months and then looked ahead to the next three months.

I looked at all the upcoming holidays, mainstream (Memorial Day - May 29th) and non-mainstream (Administrative Assistants Day - April 26th), and then worked backwards to figure out when I need to start my various marketing campaigns.

I did the same thing with my email messages and blog posts. One of the things I’d decided in reviewing the previous three months was that I hadn’t done enough to build a relationship with you and gain your trust. As a result, I’ve decided that over the next few months I’ll be communicating with you more, giving you more marketing, business, and personal insight that I hope you’ll find helpful.

You should do the same with your lawn care business.

Take some time in the next day or so to pull out a calendar of the next three months. Look at all the upcoming holidays and decide to start several weeks in advance of these holidays to begin marketing campaigns that will crescendo and peak at the holiday.

Or make up your own special events. It doesn’t have to be something that’s already on a calendar for you to use it as a reason to create a special offer. Use your imagination and be creative.

Again, marketing should be a year round activity but it’s easy to overlook it because you’re too busy running your business. Don’t let this happen to you. Take the time to plan out your marketing activities and then set to work making them happen.

In a few short months your accountant will be wondering why you’re keeping him so busy!

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