Okay, maybe not quite as exciting, but to experience a great holiday or to enjoy success with your business there are a number of similar actions you need to take.

When you plan your holiday or develop a marketing plan for your business you are more likely to enjoy a greater holiday experience or in the case of your business increased sales and profit.

So what are the similarities?

Research

For any major holiday you would research the countries you want to visit, find out what the weather will be, see which airlines to fly etc. It is doubtful that you would just go to an airport and hop on the next available plane.

For your business, the research would include:

• Understanding what trends are affecting or will affect your market over the next year such as economic conditions, changing customer needs, global factors etc
• Analysing your competitors so you can determine the best way to optimise your strengths and defend against your weaknesses
• Gaining a deep understanding of how your key customers think, feel and behave
• Reviewing your own business performance such as the marketing tactics that you have implemented over the last year and see what really resulted in extra sales and profit.

The Plan

You have done the research for your holiday and now the next exciting part is to actually plan the trip. As you determine what you want to achieve you will probably visualise the experience you are going to enjoy, such as lying on the beach in the Maldives for 2 weeks, skiing Whistler every day in Canada for a month or eating at the 10 best restaurants whilst visiting Italy.

For your business think in terms of what marketing objectives you want to achieve such as:

• 20 new customers by the end of the December 2009
• 15 referrals from loyal customers by December 2009
• 10% trial of your new product or service by December 2009

The next step is determining your strategy so you can achieve your objectives; for a great holiday you may decide to fly direct to your destination, stay in 4 star hotels with a reputation of friendly service etc.

For your business this means determining the marketing strategies such as:

• A retention strategy with a focus on personalised communication and customer service with your key customers
• An attraction strategy with the focus on the introduction of a new service or product

The final part of the plan is deciding on the details of your holiday to maximise the enjoyment, but not to blow the budget. You may select to fly airline A as it flies to your destination directly with only one refuelling stop and Hotel B as it has many extras including personalised sightseeing tours.

For your business this means deciding what marketing tactics you will implement to provide best return for the money and time you are investing. For example:

• If your marketing strategy is the retention of your key customers, focusing on communication you might choose to implement email campaigns and a special customer service program
• If you have chosen to focus on attracting new customers with the introduction of a new service, then you may decide to implement a PR campaign, social media program or offer a free sample of the service for a limited time

Finally before you start implementing the marketing tactics consider summarising the key actions including costs and timing into a one or two page summary to keep your business on track to achieve your objectives. Just use it as you would a holiday itinerary and enjoy your business journey.

Next Steps: Please share your thoughts and leave a comment below. You can easily get future posts delivered by email or via a reader and if you have any questions, please feel free to contact me