Since marketing sets the stage for every aspect of a company’s operations, a marketing plan should be one of the first steps for new businesses and nonprofit groups and for existing ones that are experiencing problems in reaching their goals.

In reality, many companies complete their marketing plans unconsciously, piece by piece, through their experiences of trial and error.  This can take years to arrive at the best marketing practices, and the process can negatively impact the success of your business.

Pagosa Graphics Design, Inc. can work with you to develop a marketing plan that will provide a solid foundation to successfully "grow" your business.

Or, we can update any of the individual components of your existing plan:

From research . . . to planning and writing.

From design and production . . . to advertising and publicity.

From website optimization . . . to online promotions.

Today's basic marketing activities — the 4 P's — were organized into the following categories by E. Jerome McCarthy, an international marketing professor, consultant and author. These are the starting points.

Product:  Tangible goods and intangible services desired by consumers and everything else that goes along with their purchase — customer service, support, guarantees and warranties.

Price:  The pricing structure, including retail, wholesale, volume discounts, payment credits, and special sale rates.

Place:  Place is the point from which the product is distributed. In yesteryears, place was a store location like the old general store above. It had a physical location and a physical inventory sitting on shelves to sell. With the internet, place can also be an online store that utilizes drop shipments directly from the wholesaler to the consumer, without any physical storefront or on-hand inventory.

Promotion:  Promotion is the communication concept and related goals, the strategy to arrive at the goals, and the budget to perform the strategy steps. It involves brand, company image, logos, advertising, press releases, public relations, publicity, selling, and special sales.

Good marketing begins with the consumer, and looking at things through their eyes. Pagosa Graphics Design, Inc. utilizes all marketing styles below or a combination thereof. We'll give you our best recommendations depending upon your individual needs.

  Strategic Marketing focuses on meeting customer demand through research and innovation.

In the 21st Century, the marketplace is the world, full of new customers, products and competitors. This has increased the need for Strategic Marketing which includes research to define competitors, customers, cutting edge products, pricing, geographic locations, customer demographics and more.

  Operational Marketing strives for happy, satisfied customers who return to do business with you again.

If customers like your product and your service, they'll return over and over, thereby eliminating the constant need to find "new" ones. Likewise, this means that you'll want to thoroughly train employees and retain them with good wages and fair treatment, so they’ll provide excellent customer service and maintain the highest product quality.

  Word of Mouth Marketing relies upon customers telling their friends and family about your business without any payment or financial incentive to do so.

This marketing style is based on the customers' perceptions of the value of your product and business. It can be either beneficial or detrimental.

When customers like your business, Word of Mouth referrals are one of the best and most effective means of directly communicating with new customers.

  Internet Marketing offers customer benefits that cannot be matched by traditional marketing approaches.

Busy shoppers in today's world like the ease and convenience of shopping online without leaving home. eStores are open all hours of the day, every day of the week, and every holiday. With the world at their fingers, customers "comparison shop" from store-to-store for specific products, prices and other business qualities.

Internet marketing has some unique characteristics and offers a different set of challenges to business owners. Just building a website isn't enough to bring all of the world's customers to your doors.

Websites should be built with "search engine optimization" in mind. Website optimization is the use of "search query keywords" that your customers might input to find your business in "search engines" like Google, Yahoo and MSN.

The next step is to increase your rankings in the world's 800,000+ search engines with "search engine submittals". Your ranking relates to your placement on the search results pages. The higher the ranking, the nearer you are to the top of the search lists, and the quicker you'll be found by customers.

Through our research, we'll secure the best online advertising and best postings of external links (links on other websites that point to your site) for your particular industry and target market. Online ads and exterior links serve multiple purposes — to increase traffic to your website and to further raise your search engine rankings.