Your IT Consultant Company Needs a Strategic Marketing Plan

Your IT consultant company may be humming along at a great starting level, so the thought of a marketing plan may sound unnecessary for you. Think again. A strategic marketing plan is an essential part of a business plan. Even if you’re not planning on asking for financing, you should consider working through the steps anyway.

Writer Donna Marcella points out in Startup Nation that the exercise can help you understand your market and think hard about the tactics you’ll employ to target various pieces of that market.

Some of the key components can be reduced to:

1. Market research and competitive analysis – You need to have some awareness of the numbers and the trends in your market area. Be honest about your competitors and their market share. Then analyze how your IT consultant company will find its niche.

2. Marketing strategy – Remember the unmet need you saw when you founded your company? Use your knowledge to address how to reach those markets. Set some goals for numbers of businesses.

3. Tactics – Many companies keep this at a high level at first, but it’s worth starting to think about in detail. Identify marketing categories like advertising, trade shows, social media, and e-mail marketing. Think about beginning steps you can take.

Marcella suggests that you update your marketing strategy at least once a year. This is good advice—once you start up your IT consultant company, time will fly by. Be sure to calendar time annually to assess your marketing strategy and design ways to implement parts not yet enacted.

Share your ideas about strategic marketing in the Comments section below. 

And to follow-through on the tips introduced in this short article, be sure to download your free copy of the special report on the Top 10 IT Marketing Strategies For Consistently Attracting New Business Clients to Your Small IT Business. 

Wikimedia Commons Image Source: See-ming Lee 李思明 SML