There are so many ways to market your business today-both online and offline-that it can make your head spin.  Closely followed by head spinning is the spinning of your wheels to someplace you had not intended to go…nowhere!

As a small business owner, it’s easy to get lost in the maze of options.  Although you may start with good intentions, you may end up in nowhere land. To keep you on track there’s nothing better than sitting down and creating your marketing plan.  This is often thought of as an annual event, but in this fast changing world of online marketing, your plan should be reviewed and updated every quarter.

4 Tips to Get Your Marketing Plan in Gear

Not sure where to start? Here are four quick tips to get your marketing plan in gear.

• Establish a goal. What do you want to achieve with your marketing efforts? Do you need to attract new clients or earn more revenue from existing ones?
• Determine a budget. With all of the talk about FREE marketing via the social web, it’s easy to think that you may not need to spend any money.  But the truth is there is a cost…either in time or money.  So determine how much time and money you can budget for your marketing campaigns.
• Decide what media you’ll use. This can be both fun and a little confusing.  There are so many options: direct mail, live networking, speaking, Twitter, Facebook, blogging, social networking, video, e-mail marketing etc.  Look at what your competitors are doing, consider your money and time budget, what you already have in place that is working and not working.
• Write it down. Decide what you’ll do by when and stick to it! Create a marketing calendar and hang it somewhere that you can see it every day.  And if you need a little motivation, make a deal to treat yourself to something special every time you accomplish a goal!