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Growing your Business starts with a 
Solid Business Plan
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​CMA Services can help you build a SMART Business Plan and set Goals You Can Achiev
e

PictureBusiness development comprises a number of tasks and processes generally aiming at developing and implementing growth opportunities.

​Life experience as well as research studies have indicated that successful  business planners must set realistic goals and plan how they are going to reach them.

Planning helps you to work smarter rather than harder. It keeps your future oriented and motivates you to achieve the results you want. Perhaps most important, the process of completing a Business Plan enables you to determine what commitments are needed for a successful venture. 
 
Always make sure that your business goals are realistic. If those who read your business plan roll their eyes when they see your goals, it is best to re-evaluate the goals of your business.  For instance, a goal to be number one in your field sounds good on the surface, however, you must  decide if your goals are achievable then determine how you will accomplish them.
 
A more realistic and highly-attainable goal might be for you to become one of the best during your first year and make adjustments going forward. Devising a path or a way of reaching the goal makes it much more realistic. It is also important that the goal needs to be realistic for you and where the business is at the moment.

Often, one decides to do something because it ‘sounds’ or ‘feels’ right. You may do something because that is the way that you have always done it.

Developing and preparing a 
Business Plan forces you to prove the validity, or at least consider the reasoning of your plans.
 
To keep your goals and plan realistic we make sure your plan is:
  • Explicit: All steps completely spelled out.
  • Intelligible: Capable of being understood by those who will carry it out.
  • Flexible: Capable of accepting change.
  • Written: Committed to writing in a clear and concise manner. Planning significantly increases your chances of success.

We Reduce ‘firefighting’
Many small business owners spend so much time ‘putting out the fires’ that they never have a chance to do anything else. By preparing a Business Plan you can anticipate problems that are likely to occur and decide how they should be handled in advance. 

We help you make sure your plans are realistic
It is easy to be excessively optimistic about a new idea. Planning helps to prevent you from viewing the future in ways that the facts do not support.

Recognizing change
The nature of markets and consumer needs change rapidly. Planning cannot predict change but it helps you to recognize it and map your business strategy accordingly.

Result orientation
A detailed Business Plan enables you to monitor your results against a predetermined set of goals and performance standards.

Business Development
For most small businesses, highly effective marketing is a make-or-break necessity.

It's nearly impossible for you to be successful without a good business plan, good marketing and sales techniques that brings the dollars in the door. You've got to let people know about all the wonderful things your business can provide to them, which means that your business must first provide those wonderful things that people are willing to pay for. And that, in turn, means knowing who your customers are and getting so close to them that you can virtually anticipate their needs and desires.

CMA can help you implement and analyze the concepts and strategies that marketing experts use and help you adapt them to your small business.


  • Overview - the marketing challenges.
  • Analyze - the market environment, the competitive environment and cultural trends
  • Do Market research - which can be adapted to fit your needs and budget.
  • Develop and refine- your product emphasis
  • Find the best distribution method for getting your product or service to your customers.
  • Implement promotion, advertising and PR methods to communicate your message to your target audience.
  • Build a successful marketing plan which shows you how to put it all together into a cohesive planning document that will become your blueprint to marketing success.

Relationship Marketing

Defining the practice of relationship marketing

"Relationship marketing," according to Wikipedia, 
"emphasizes customer retention and continual satisfaction rather than individual transactions and per-case customer resolution." It is marketing that targets specific customer needs and interests with information about products, rather than marketing that primarily focuses on acquiring new customers based on broad demographics and prospects.

Leverage the customer relationship with affordable online tools

One-to-one attention to customers isn't easy. It requires considerable ongoing effort and resources that many small businesses find challenging. The pace of consumer demand keeps accelerating and you now need to move on fast-forward and speed-dial. If you cannot quickly respond, customers may balk or walk. You need to know which customers deserve your personal attention and which do not.

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Let CMA Services show you solutions to such challenges with affordable online marketing tools, such as E-Mail Marketing, SEO and the different Contact Relationship Management (CRM) Programs and features available to you. ​

If you're not incorporating email into your marketing plan, then you're missing out on a number of benefits that can improve your overall sales and user engagement for a very low overhead cost and, in many cases, a very limited amount of time and effort.

​Email Marketing

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Why does email marketing present such a benefit over other more traditional forms of marketing? Why would you invest the time and resources to develop an email marketing program at all?

 ​Email Marketing Benefits No.1: Reduced Time & Effort
Take a moment to think about the time and effort involved in structuring a direct-to-consumer or direct business-to-business campaign using one of the two most common offline direct marketing communications techniques:
  • Print Postal Mailings: You'll need to allow time for a designer to create the mailing, typically through several lengthy revisions. Then, you'll need to allow time for the print mailing to be printed, cut and, if necessary, stuffed into envelopes. There will be time while the marketing collateral is being transported via the postal system and then time while you wait for the consumer to retrieve it from the mail box.

  • Telesales Campaigns: In addition to having to construct a telesales script, you'll have to wait the time out while your sales agents dial through cycled call attempts to all of the sales leads or customers on your target list.
With email marketing, however, you can turn a marketing communications piece out in typically  in just a few hours. Using recurring email templates, all you'll need to do is to approve the copy for the email and any changes to graphics, use easy database list queries to decide whom to send to, and then just hit send. Weeks' of work can be accomplished in just a few hours and by a single employee.

Email Marketing Benefits No.2: Real-Time Messages
As we talked about above, with a print mailer or telesales campaign, you'll need to select marketing campaigns and specials that have a "long tail" because of the extended period of time between campaign development and implementation. Because a marketing email can be completed in just a few hours, you can literally send "day-of" messages to help reduce stock or promote a limited time special as needed. Creating separate personalized email is much less challenging than creating separate postal, direct mail or advertising campaigns. And, you can segment your customer list and customize your messages  to your targeted groups.

Email Marketing Benefits No.3: Personalize Messages
Because print mail campaigns, telesales campaigns and even print, television and radio advertising campaigns must be done in a mostly "one-size-fits-all" format, it's difficult for you to speak directly to your consumer in a personalized way. Not only can you send personalized email with your user's name or login name, but many email marketing solutions offer the ability to feed in personalized information. Also, because creating separate email sends is significantly less challenging than creating separate postal mail, print mail or advertising campaigns, you can segment your customer list into smaller lists and send very personalized messages. For example, you can select all of your users or customers who are from New York City and then write your email marketing copy to speak directly about New York City. With email marketing and communications, you can easily speak to your customers in a very personalized and intimate way that is not possible with other marketing channels and avenues.

Email Marketing Benefits No.4: Segment User and Customer Database Information
As noted above, because you can segment your database of customers or users with email, you can send extremely targeted marketing campaigns that will result in increased sales conversions simply because they are so specific. 

Create, Update, Target!
What if you could find an easy way to get the right message to the right customer, at exactly the right moment? With targeted emails you can expect to have better outcomes. 

Try these tips for targeted email
  • Create a customer database (CRM) and update it often. Good data = good results.
  • Generate lists with your customer’s important events and dates. Sending personal messages for important life events (i.e. birthday, new job, promotion) is a great way to engage & connect with your customers.
  • Categorize your list and  you don't have to send to your entire list every time you send an email. Target your list by location, recent purchases or other relevant information.

For example, if you sell flowers, you can find everybody in your database who ever bought daffodils and then send them an email in April when the first daffodil shipments come in. You're then using your customer database to put the most relevant message in front of the customers who are most likely to respond to it, and that's what good marketing is all about.

Email Marketing Benefits No.5: More Frequent Communications
Because email takes less time to create and send than other marketing and advertising channels do, you can communicate with your customers more frequently. Instead of only being able to send them a flyer or catalog once a month or once a quarter, you can easily send them offers once a week. You could, of course, send them email even more frequently than that if their email activity supports making that decision. 

You may want to note, however, that it's one of the typical email marketing best practices to not send customer emails more than once a week. However, gone are the days when you were lucky to get a message in front of your customers once a month. Via email marketing, you can communicate with customers weekly or even daily!

Email Marketing Benefits No.6: Test Marketing Messages
Good marketing always means being able to test things! With email marketing, it becomes incredibly easy to see what graphics, headlines, offers and even colors your users and customers will respond to. It's incredibly simple to simply send one version of an email to one part of your list and a second version of an email to a different part of your email list. Then, through the very precise tracking tools that email marketing offers, you can figure out which marketing message worked better to convert sales or user actions. 

Email Marketing Benefits No.7: Information Spreading
When was the last time that you saw a customer hand over a postal mailing that they'd received to a friend who might be interested? Or have you have seen somebody clip an ad from a magazine and send it to a family member who may want that product or service? However, forwarding an email with an enticing or useful offer or piece of information only takes seconds and many users will do it. That means that your marketing effort has not only a wider reach but also a networked reach with people who, by forwarding the email, are now acting as your brand advocates.

Email Marketing Benefits No.8: Reduce Overhead Costs
Email marketing can be done at a very low overhead cost! You don't need a ton of employees, designers, or marketing analysts. You don't need to pay for printing, postal mailing costs, phone lines, or advertising rates. In fact, there are services that allow you to host your email marketing using professionally-designed templates that you can alter to fit your own needs. An effective email marketing program only needs a great email marketing platform or service and a good marketer who knows how to add the right offers and the right copy and graphics. You'll spend less to get greater returns on your investment.

Email Marketing Benefits No.9: Exponentially Better Ability to Track Sales and User Engagement
There may be no better marketing channel from which to draw precise and usable tracking information to help you figure out what's successful and what's not than email marketing. Well-developed email marketing platforms can provide tracking information on how many people opened an email, how many people clicked a link in an email, which specific link within the email was clicked, how many people complained that an email was spam or unsubscribed and, of course, whether your email even made it into your recipient's inbox. Combine that with a business ability to track sales back to a source and you can identify customer engagement and response through an entire cycle with clear, easy-to-understand metrics.

Email Marketing Benefits No.10: Save the Planet with Email 
It may seem like a minor part of the big picture, but we're all trying to be more environmentally friendly these days! When you optimize email marketing as your primary customer communication and direct-to-consumer or direct business-to-business marketing method, you'll help save the planet by reducing the number of trees killed for print marketing pieces. We all want to help save the planet, and making a responsible decision about your marketing tools can help you to do just that while also improving your business's success.

If you're not incorporating email into your marketing plan, then you're missing out on a number of benefits that can improve your overall sales and user engagement for a very low overhead cost and, in many cases, a very limited amount of time and effort.

For help getting your Email campaign underway, contact us at carol.cmaservicesfl@gmail.com
Parts of this article are from
Email Marketing eBook
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CMA Services LLC. 
Phone: (561) 632-6773

Email Us 
carol.cmaservicesfl@gmal.com
seniorassist.cmaservicesfl@gmail.com
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