It's up to you if you want to use a detailed marketing plan.  The basics mentioned here are, however, a necessity. 

"Know your markets" should be an obvious principle - yet many businesses have only a fuzzy idea about this.  Usually it's easy to draw a simple map with territories. (Territories can be geographic and/or defined by special interest).  On that map, you should mark clearly your primary market - the one that feeds your business right now, and where you probably need more penetration.  Then, choose 2-3 secondary markets - where you would like to expand later. 

For each market, you need to know two things.  First is the "target number". Knowing how many people are in that market, and considering your most serious competitors, try to make a realistic guess about the number of potential clients.  Second - find out which are the best marketing vehicles for that market.  Simply ask your current clients what TV channels they like to watch, what they read, etc.  If you are a "business to business" provider, ask if your clients if they usually open their own mail, or if/how long they use the Internet or other media.  To sum up - find out as much as possible about the numbers and about the patterns of communication in each market.  If you'd like, we can customize a brief questionnaire for your customers - at no charge. 

These facts should tell you what marketing channels make sense for the near future and for later on.  Maybe a friend told you about a hot DVD promo, and you'd like to create a catalog on a disc.  Then find out how many current clients use DVD on a regular basis.  When we meet, we can discuss ballpark prices for different alternatives - so you can decide which ones are indeed cost-effective for you. 

The final step is to orchestrate the use of different marketing channels, for maximum impact.  Here we'll mention here just an example - a "One-Two Punch" using two powerful gadgets: 

TELEVISION + the INTERNET 

If you double your current business radius, the number of people on your “turf” will increase four times.  Triple the radius - and the population grows nine times! The area of a circle is 3.14 multiplied by the SQUARE of the radius.  Bad news: most of your potential clients are OUTSIDE of your current business range.  

However, it is not easy to convince people to drive a few more miles.  This is why we suggest combining today’s best marketing weapons - Television and the Internet.  
  
Television will give you fast recognition.  However, a TV ad cannot communicate complex information.  To get out of their usual shopping routine, people need some compelling reasons.  Communicating those reasons in detail is the job of the Internet.  

A local Internet site is more powerful than a cold "e-commerce" warehouse from Nebraska.  On your website, people can discover what can be actually seen, touched, and bought immediately, in their own city! 

So why not promote your locally oriented website on LOCAL TV?  This way you can get the best of what both mediums have to offer.  It doesn't cost anything extra to write a website name in a TV commercial! 

Even better - we often create three commercials for the price of a single one (this is possible if they are produced at the same time).  Why not have one commercial dedicated only to your website - giving people a good reason to check it out? 

Let's suppose you owned a grocery store.  What if busy moms (and dads) could pre-order groceries from your site, and find them ready to pick up on the way home?  Many people would drive another mile or two for such a convenience - at least I would!  (Incidentally - store employees could take care of such orders during their "down time").  You can address different niche markets this way, and conquer them one by one.  Maybe your area has an important ethnic component - how about checklists for organizing parties with ethnic food?  More than 15% of the population is on some kind of diet at any given time - could you offer them some help through your website?  The list of examples could go on forever.  If you had a small grocery store, a website could offer many opportunities  to outsmart the big supermarket chains.  Remember: once it's set up, a website is virtually free! 

It doesn't matter, however, what business you are in.  Different marketing channels can always be combined to amplify each other's impact.