A Marketing Plan For A Wedding Catering Business
There is one important truth about being in business and that is that it needs to be marketed. It needs to be marketed well and consistently. Without marketing a business’ reputation will soon be forgotten as competitors come into the action and be more aggressive than what you are being.
You can liken running a business, without a marketing plan, to jumping in a car and hoping you will get from A to B with no petrol in the car. A small business constantly needs the injection of interest in their business from marketing so that it is exposed to new clients and put in front of past clients.
What should be in a marketing plan?
Marketing covers a wide range of activities and some of them won’t cost you anything whilst others will need to be budgeted for.
When you have answered the questions below you will be able to work out marketing activities so that you can meet a marketing budget, whether it be big or small, by using some of the techniques listed here:
- email marketing – if you have the type of catering business where you get regular clients then building a data base and keeping in touch will be beneficial
- website marketing – for most small businesses it would be best to set up a Wordpress blog as they are quite simple to manage and keep in touch with customers
- business cards
- printed menus
- flyers
- thank you notes
- free wine and cheese evenings
- packaging which could include cello bags, boxes, ‘green’ bags but they must have your name on, either stamped or sticker
- stickers for packaging – you may have your own wine label for example
How to write a marketing plan
There is a process to this and if you work through these steps one by one you will find that it is not as difficult as you think to create a simple marketing plan for your wedding catering business. It really is just a matter of listing the questions and coming up with the answers. The answers will be the basis of your marketing plan and you can develop it from there.
1. What type of business are you going to run: wedding catering, lunch catering, dinners, etc.?
2. What finance have you got available for marketing? You may need to use start up cash for this initially but once the business is up and running, allocate a % of your costs to marketing and include this in the costing of your product.
3. Who is your target market? Age, sex, and other data to distinguish your ideal customer.
4. How far afield do you need to market your business to get the sales you require?
5. How can you reach your target market?
6. How does your competition reach your target market?
7. What type of marketing can you do cheaply and effectively?
8. Are you personally skilled enough do the marketing or do you need a professional?
9. If you cannot afford a professional, what marketing can you do that you can afford?
Keep it simple and just answer these questions in bullet form. Once you have answered these questions the next step is to work out a plan for the next year. Write down each month and start planning what you will do each month for the next year.
When planning ahead for 12 months remember to have a good hard look at how economic circumstances like Easter, Christmas, school holidays and such like will affect your product sales. It could have a good affect on sales or it could slow down sales at certain times of the year.
Allocating your funds
Take your marketing plan and allocate funds to the times of the year that you think it will beneficial to run a stronger campaign.
When to start marketing
Keep in mind that if for example, you have a boom sales time for during the summer period you will need to start your advertising in late winter to get the bookings. The idea of marketing is to plant the seed, get their attention, create an interest, reinforce the thought and then get the sale.
Detailing the marketing plan
Now that the plan is worked out for 12 months, detail how you will go about marketing the next 3 months and how you are going to spend your budget.
If you work in 3 month blocks it gives you a chance to evaluate if the marketing is working and if not, change it for the next three months.
You have now managed to put together your ‘marketing plan’. Always seek feedback so that you know you are reaching your market. If it is not working you simply change the plan. Keep it simple, don’t complicate it and I am sure you will be able to work your way through it.
