Firms that are successful in marketing invariably start with a marketing plan. Large companies have plans with hundreds of pages; small companies can get by with a half-dozen sheets. Put your marketing plan in a three-ring binder. Refer to it at least quarterly, but better yet monthly. Leave a tab for putting in monthly reports on sales/manufacturing; this will allow you to track performance as you follow the plan.

The plan should cover one year. For small companies, this is often the best way to think about marketing. Things change, people leave, markets evolve, customers come and go. Later on we suggest creating a section of your plan that addresses the medium-term future–two to four years down the road. But the bulk of your plan should focus on the coming year.

You should allow yourself a couple of months to write the plan, even if it’s only a few pages long. Developing the plan is the “heavy lifting” of marketing. While executing the plan has its challenges, deciding what to do and how to do it is marketing’s greatest challenge. Most marketing plans kick off with the first of the year or with the opening of your fiscal year if it’s different.

Who should see your plan? All the players in the company. Firms typically keep their marketing plans very, very private for one of two very different reasons: Either they’re too skimpy and management would be embarrassed to have them see the light of day, or they’re solid and packed with information . . . which would make them extremely valuable to the competition.

You can’t do a marketing plan without getting many people involved. No matter what your size, get feedback from all parts of your company: finance, manufacturing, personnel, supply and so on–in addition to marketing itself. This is especially important because it will take all aspects of your company to make your marketing plan work.

Your key people can provide realistic input on what’s achievable and how your goals can be reached, and they can share any insights they have on any potential, as-yet-unrealized marketing opportunities, adding another dimension to your plan. If you’re essentially a one-person management operation, you’ll have to wear all your hats at one time–but at least the meetings will be short!

What’s the relationship between your marketing plan and your business plan or vision statement? Your business plan spells out what your business is about–what you do and don’t do, and what your ultimate goals are. It encompasses more than marketing; it can include discussions of locations, staffing, financing, strategic alliances and so on. It includes “the vision thing,” the resounding words that spell out the glorious purpose of your company in stirring language.

Your business plan is the U.S. Constitution of your business: If you want to do something that’s outside the business plan, you need to either change your mind or change the plan. Your company’s business plan provides the environment in which your marketing plan must flourish. The two documents must be consistent.

A marketing plan, on the other hand, is plump with meaning. It provides you with several major benefits. Let’s review them.

• Rallying point: Your marketing plan gives your troops something to rally behind. You want them to feel confident that the captain of the vessel has the charts in order, knows how to run the ship, and has a port of destination in mind. Companies often undervalue the impact of a “marketing plan” on their own people, who want to feel part of a team engaged in an exciting and complicated joint endeavor. If you want your employees to feel committed to your company, it’s important to share with them your vision of where the company is headed in the years to come.
• Chart to success: We all know that plans are imperfect things. How can you possibly know what’s going to happen 12 months or five years from now? Isn’t putting together a marketing plan an exercise in futility . . . a waste of time better spent meeting with customers or fine-tuning production? Yes, possibly but only in the narrowest sense. If you don’t plan, you’re doomed, and an inaccurate plan is far better than no plan at all.
• Company operational instructions: Your child’s first bike and your new VCR came with a set of instructions, and your company is far more complicated to put together and run than either of them. Your marketing plan is a step-by-step guide for your company’s success. It’s more important than a vision statement.
• Captured thinking: You don’t allow your financial people to keep their numbers in their heads. Financial reports are the lifeblood of the numbers side of any business, no matter what size. It should be no different with marketing. Your written document lays out your game plan.
• Top-level reflection: In the daily hurly-burly of competitive business, it’s hard to turn your attention to the big picture, especially those parts that aren’t directly related to the daily operations. You need to take time periodically to really think about your business–whether it’s providing you and your employees with what you want, whether there aren’t some innovative wrinkles you can add, whether you’re getting all you can out of your products, your sales staff and your markets.

Ideally, after writing marketing plans for a few years, you can sit back and review a series of them, year after year, and check the progress of your company.

Of course, sometimes this is hard to make time for (there is that annoying real world to deal with), but it can provide an unparalleled objective view of what you’ve been doing with your business life over a number of years.

Chances are, you’ve heard the phrase “location, location, location” more than a few times. But if you’re in the throes of creating a spectacular menu for your new restaurant or finding wholesalers for your first retail store, it might not be the first thing on your mind.

It’s time to put location at the top of your to-do list. If you’re preparing to open a food or retail business with a storefront, putting your business in the proper location might be the single most important thing you do at startup. Of course you need a winning product, too, but how will anyone know about that product unless you get them through the door?

“In the brick-and-mortar retail world, it’s said that the three most important decisions [you'll make] are location, location and location,” affirms Irene Dickey, a lecturer in management and marketing at the University of Dayton’s School of Business in Dayton, Ohio. “Careful determination of new sites is critical for most retail and consumer service businesses.”
Check Your Demographics

Making these determinations can be as simple or as complex as you make it. There are, for instance, sophisticated location analysis tools available that include traffic pattern information, demographic and lifestyle data, and competitive analyses. Adds Dickey: “For a price, a retailer can ask such questions as, ‘If I’m looking to add a store to a particular market, what’s the optimum level of traffic as it relates to the specific targeted trade area? What is the overall type of traffic? Once consumers are in the store, is there any way to measure the traffic patterns in the store?’”

“Do your due diligence,” advises Michael Rodelle, director of real estate for the Papa Gino’s Inc./D’Angelo Sandwich Shops franchise, based in Dedham, Massachusetts. “Get a demographic overview of the area you’re looking at-age, income, households, etc.”

In addition, you should look at neighborhood traffic generators, such as other retailers that draw people to the area, industrial or office parks, schools, colleges and hospital complexes. You’ll also want to look at both highway and foot traffic. Carlos Silva, co-founder of Memphis Championship Barbecue in Las Vegas, learned all about finding a good location when he and his three co-founders (Dick Hart, Mike Mills and Dan Volland) opened their first restaurant in 1994. “We opened our first business in the middle of nowhere, and we had to work to get people to go to it,” says Silva.

That’s not to say it was a bad location-Silva says it fit in terms of the restaurant’s theme. But it did require more of an effort to establish a presence. With three other locations now up and running, one of them inside a casino, the founders seem to have found their groove. “What we’ve done in Vegas is gone to each corner of the city,” says Silva, who says the restaurants’ sales have grown 25 percent over last year’s, with 60 percent growth projected for 2004. “You’re able to get to a Memphis restaurant within 10 minutes.”
Look Your Competitors in the Eye

Many experts agree, though, that the answer to where you should locate is more straightforward than many entrepreneurs make it. “Quite simply, the best place to be is as close to your biggest competitor as you can be,” says Greg Kahn, founder and CEO of Kahn Research Group in Huntersville, North Carolina, and a behavioral research veteran who’s done location research for Arby’s, Buffets Inc., Home Depot, Subway and other major and minor players. “Foot traffic is obviously important, but landing the ‘perfect’ customer is far more crucial. By being in close proximity to your competitors, you can benefit from their marketing efforts.”

In other words, your competitors chose their locations based on the ideal demographics of a particular area, says Kahn. In many cases, they’ve also devoted large portions of their advertising budget toward driving traffic to their locations. “Why spend the money when they’ve already [spent it] for you?” asks Kahn. “It’s that easy.”

What’s more, being located near your competition can be a boon to business, provided you’re confident enough in your product to outsell your competitors. “Competition is good,” concurs Blake Tartt III, president and CEO of commercial real estate firm New Regional Planning in Houston, known for his work on major malls and other commercial developments. “It makes the retailer or the restaurant better-competition breeds more business, more traffic, and that’s a positive. If my clients are good, I tell them to go right up against the competition.”

Of course, it’s still a good idea to make your own evaluations of a particular property, even if your competitors seem to be thriving in the area. Staying ahead of the game in this regard will help your business grow should you decide, for instance, that you later want to open another location.

Do You Need Professional Help?

But your job isn’t done even when you think you’ve found a good spot for your business. Negotiating a lease that works for you and your business is just as important as the location itself. “It’s very important that you have a good lawyer who can negotiate your lease-that’s another cost,” says Tartt. Your attorney can help you look at things like the term of the lease, buildout allowance and the condition of the property.

He or she can also help you talk to the landlord so you ask the right questions. “Interview the landlord as hard as you look for the location,” cautions Tartt. “You’re marrying your landlord. There are a lot of unscrupulous [ones] out there-they tend to have a ‘me’ mentality.”

Making use of a local real estate professional who understands your customers as well as you do is also a great idea. Depending on whether you’re opening a food business or a retail store, you’ll want to discuss things like the type of merchandise your target customers buy or the sort of food they like to eat. “I believe that in every town, there is some real estate professional who knows his or her city backward and forward,” says Tartt. “The really with-it real estate person is studying all those trends, traffic patterns and demographics.”

Having someone help you with your business plan before you even begin the location search can be invaluable as well. Entrepreneur.com has a guide to writing a business planthat offers information and resources to help you in this process, so that’s a good place to start. A business coach or business plan consultant can also help you through this process; ask around in your network of colleagues for referrals, or check with your local Small Business Development Centerfor additional assistance.

“Know what your business plan [says] when you’re looking for a location,” says Tartt. “Know what your strategic objectives are.”

Being aware of all the location costs involved with starting your business will do wonders for your ability to weather any storms that might-and likely will-come your way. Underestimating the costs and the time involved with launching your business-especially when it comes to your location-is one of the most common startup mistakes, and one you can avoid if you plan properly. If you take into account everything from broker, attorney, engineering and architect fees to zoning and planning hearings, you can see that both the costs and the time to startup can vary widely.

The best advice? “Talk to other people in the business-learn from them what they’ve experienced, what the pitfalls are, what things to look out for,” says Rodelle. “You’ve gotta do your homework. You can protect yourself and come out ahead.”

Your logo is a visual representation of everything you stand for. Think of golden arches or the swoosh — these two impressive logos embody these companies well. Unfortunately, many companies skimp on developing this key identity piece and suffer the consequences.

Your company logo enhances first impressions of your business. A good logo builds loyalty with your customers, establish an identity, and provides the look of an established enterprise.

Consider the “good hands” logo. It immediately generates a warm feeling for the company, symbolizing care and trust. With a little thought and creativity, your logo can quickly and graphically express many positive attributes of your business, too.

Logo Types

There are basically three kinds of logos. Font-based logos consist primarily of a type treatment. The logos of IBM, Microsoft and Sony, for instance, use type treatments with a twist that makes them distinctive. Then there are logos that literally illustrate what a company does, such as when a house-painting company uses an illustration of a brush in its logo. And finally, there are abstract graphic symbols-such as Nike’s swoosh-that become linked to a company’s brand.

“Such a symbol is meaningless until your company can communicate to consumers what its underlying associations are,” says Americus Reed II, a marketing professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, who’s conducted research on the triggers that lead consumers to identify with and become loyal to a brand.

But building that mental bridge takes time and money. The Nike swoosh has no inherent meaning outside of what’s been created over the years through savvy marketing efforts that have transformed the logo into an “identity cue” for an athletic lifestyle.

Growing businesses can rarely afford the millions of dollars and years of effort required to create these associations, so a logo that clearly illustrates what your company stands for or does may be a better choice. Even a type treatment of your company’s name may be too generic, says Placitas, New Mexico, logo designer Gary Priester, principal of gwpriester.com, the Web arm of design firm The Black Point Group. Priester believes customers should be able to tell what you do just by looking at your logo.

Getting Started

Before you begin sketching, first articulate the message you want your logo to convey. Try writing a one-sentence image and mission statement to help focus your efforts. Stay true to this statement while creating your logo.

But that may not be enough to get you started. Here are some additional tactics and considerations that will help you create an appropriate company logo:

• Look at the logos of other businesses in your industry. Do your competitors use solid, conservative images, or flashy graphics and type? Think about how you want to differentiate your logo from those of your competition.
• Focus on your message. Decide what you want to communicate about your company. Does it have a distinct personality-serious or lighthearted? What makes it unique in relation to your competition? What’s the nature of your current target audience? These elements should play an important role in the overall design or redesign.
• Make it clean and functional. Your logo should work as well on a business card as on the side of a truck. A good logo should be scalable, easy to reproduce, memorable and distinctive. Icons are better than photographs, which may be indecipherable if enlarged or reduced significantly. And be sure to create a logo that can be reproduced in black and white so that it can be faxed, photocopied or used in a black-and-white ad as effectively as in color.
• Your business name will affect your logo design. If your business name is “D.C. Jewelers,” you may wish to use a classy, serif font to accent the letters (especially if your name features initials). For a company called “Lightning Bolt Printing,” the logo might feature some creative implementation of-you guessed it-a lightning bolt.
• Use your logo to illustrate your business’s key benefit. The best logos make an immediate statement with a picture or illustration, not words. The “Lightning Bolt Printing” logo, for example, may need to convey the business benefit of “ultra-fast, guaranteed printing services.” The lightning bolt image could be manipulated to suggest speed and assurance.
• Don’t use clip art. However tempting it may be, clip art can be copied too easily. Not only will original art make a more impressive statement about your company, but it’ll set your business apart from others.
• Avoid trendy looks. If you’re redesigning your old logo, you run the risk of confusing customers-or worse, alienating them. One option is to make gradual logo changes. According to Priester, Quaker Oats modified the Quaker man on its package over a 10-year period to avoid undermining customer confidence. But don’t plan to make multiple logo changes. Instead, choose a logo that will stay current for 10 to 20 years, perhaps longer. That’s the mark of a good design. In fact, when Priester designs a logo, he expects never to see that client again.

Watch Your Colors

One thing you need to be careful of as you explore color options is cost. Your five-color logo may be gorgeous, but once it comes time to produce it on stationery, the price won’t be so attractive. Nor will it work in mediums that only allow one or two colors. Try not to exceed three colors unless you decide it’s absolutely necessary.

Your logo can appear on a variety of media: signage, advertising, stationery, delivery vehicles and packaging, to name just a few. Remember that some of those applications have production limitations. Make sure you do a color study. Look at your logo in one-, two- and three-color versions.
Hire a Designer

While brainstorming logo ideas by yourself is a crucial step in creating your business image, trying to create a logo completely on your own is a mistake. It may seem like the best way to avoid the high costs of going to a professional design firm, which will charge anywhere from $4,000 to $15,000 for a logo design. Be aware, however, that there are thousands of independent designers around who charge much less. According to Stan Evenson, founder of Evenson Design Group, entrepreneurs on a tight budget should shop around for a designer. “There are a lot of [freelance] designers who charge rates ranging from $15 to $150 per hour, based on their experience,” he says.

But don’t hire someone just because of their bargain price. Find a designer who’s familiar with your field . . . and with your competition. If the cost still seems exorbitant, Evenson says, “remember that a good logo should last at least 10 years. If you look at the amortization of that cost over a 10-year period, it doesn’t seem so bad.”

Even if you have a good eye for color and a sense of what you want your logo to look like, you should still consult a professional designer. Why? They know whether or not a logo design will transfer easily into print or onto a sign, while you might come up with a beautiful design that can’t be transferred or would cost too much money to be printed. Your logo is the foundation of all your promotional materials, so this is one area where spending a little more now can really pay off later.
Using and Protecting Your Logo

Once you’ve produced a logo that embodies your company’s mission at a glance, make sure you trademark it to protect it from use by other companies. You can apply for a trademark at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office Web site.

Then, once it’s protected, use it everywhere you can-on business cards, stationery, letterhead, brochures, ads, your Web site and any other place where you mention your company name. This will help build your image, raise your company’s visibility and, ideally, lead to more business.

Creating a logo sounds easy, doesn’t it? It can be. Just remember to keep your customers and the nature of your business in mind when you put it all together. In time, you’ll have succeeded in building equity in your trademark, and it will become a positive and recognizable symbol of your product or service.