Marketing programs end up like leaky boats very easily. Each activity seems worthy at the time, but too many of them fail to produce a positive return – ending up as holes in the bottom of your business’s boat. Get too many of those holes, and the water inside the boat starts rising. The next sections share some of the common ways marketers lose money (so you can try to avoid them), plus two effective strategies for using your cash wisely.
Don’t ignore the details.

If your business has been around the marketing block before and your plan builds on years of experience, you can more safely favor economies of scale over flexibility. (Economies of scale are the cost savings from doing things on a larger scale.) But always leave yourself at least a little wiggle room, because reality never reflects your plans and projections 100 percent of the time.

The more unfamiliar you are with writing a marketing plan, the more flexibility and caution your plan needs, so make flexibility your first objective if you’re creating a marketing plan for the first time. Consider crafting a gradual plan that includes a pilot phase with a time-line and alternatives or options in case of problems.

Before you can write a successful marketing plan for your business, you need to know the ins and outs of what a marketing plan includes.