Launch Catalyst

The ideal way to set a marketing budget

marketing budgetSetting or negotiating a marketing budget can be a rather odd experience.

For some reason, the good sense that most of us apply to budgeting and setting goals in our own personal lives is often overshadowed by corporate mandates, historical practices, time constraints, or just plain laziness. If you’re an entrepreneur, you may not have a frame of reference to use in either the establishment of budgets or selection of tactics.

A basic undergraduate course in marketing strategy will discuss the most common ways to budget: percentage of sales, competitive parity, affordable method, and objective/task, among others. The reality is that most companies use a mixture of these techniques to arrive at a budget or several mini-budgets. [Read more…]

Seven ways your own product can shatter your marketing plan

No amount of good marketing will make up for a bad product

In this presentation, I’ll walk you through seven common product issues you can check before you develop or mobilize your marketing plan so you don’t waste time and money on promotions that are destined not to work.

 

For a deep dive on the seven issues you just read about plus a detailed framework for developing your marketing plan and mobilizing your sales team, get The Product Launch Primer on Amazon now!

How to select social media platforms for your marketing program

social media marketingSocial media may represent the largest opportunity for marketing misalignment.

The proliferation of channels and the speed at which they change is somewhat overwhelming. Unlike more mature marketing tactics that are well understood, social media presents a range of new challenges for marketers and business owners to manage.

When selecting social media channels to participate in, you should:

1. Ensure that your audience actually uses a given platform.

2. Consider if the platform is a good fit for your brand.

3. Set realistic expectations for your level of participation on a platform and specific goals for what you want to achieve there. [Read more…]

Don’t write a promotional plan until you have a marketing plan

promotional planDuring my final marketing class in college, the professor said something that stuck with me:

If someone asks you to write a marketing plan, find out if what they want is really a promotional plan. If it is, tell them they need a marketing plan first. They are not the same thing.

Since then, there have been many occasions when I heard someone say that their company needs more “marketing”. To non-practitioners, marketing is often synonymous with promotion. And while promotion is indeed necessary, it’s entirely likely that a promotional campaign will fail if it’s not rooted in a solid, well considered marketing strategy.

What’s the difference between a marketing plan and a promotional plan? [Read more…]