My name is Miloy Schwartz and I’m the Principal of Lemonade Marketing Firm here in downtown Albany. A lot of people ask the question, why should I worry with the time and energy that it would take to put into building a strategic marketing plan? And it’s a question that boggles my mind. You wouldn’t start off on a road trip without a map or, in this day and age, a GPS system of some sort. You have to know where you are and where you’re going, and if you don’t have that in place then who knows where you’re going to wind up. So by putting together a strategic marketing plan you start with goals and objectives, and then you get down into strategy and tactics.

And most people start with tactics. And let me explain what a tactic is—building a Facebook page, building a website, having ads placed in different publications. All of those are tactics, and when you don’t have them as a part of a plan, you’re just using them in the spray and pray kind of way, it’s so difficult to be able to capture your return on investment. And most importantly, you’re not sure where you’re going, so it keeps you from being able to target your audience the way that you should. And as tight as money is today, there’s no better way that a marketer could spend their money and time and energy than to put together a strategic marketing plan.

Again, my name is Miloy Schwartz with Lemonade Marketing Firm. You can find us online at www.lemonademarketingfirm.com.