Know-How Exchange : Strategy

In truth, a lot depends on where your target audience is and how they shop for whatever you're selling. You probably need to hire a consultant with retail experience in your market if you want a plan that makes sense and has a chance of working.

If you're completely committed to creating the plan yourself, start by talking to a few dozen target-audience consumers and learn how they think, what's important to them, how they make purchase decisions, etc. Take great notes on what they say, then after you have 30-40 interviews completed, analyze your notes. The findings and conclusions from your research will lead you to the strategies in your plan.

Start with research. That means talking to customers, watching stores and sales people at work, competitor analysis, checking which of your outlets are having the most success and why, what repeat business and reputation do you have, what's been the effect of other marketing ideas - what worked, what failed and why (eg POS, window display, leafleting, events etc). You then need some goals - is footfall more important than conversion in store, or value of purchase for instance. Then with the data you can then run tests and experiments to create changes - testing all the time. Discard ideas that don't work, improve those that work moderately and invest in those that work well. If you only have a small internal team, bring in experts from outside to help