Recently, I saw an online post where a small but growing A/E firm explained their lack of a marketing plan by citing their size. They felt they were still too small to spend the time and money to develop a marketing plan.
Given this attitude, my first thought was that this firm would always be too small to believe they needed a marketing plan. Because without a plan, you either don't grow or you grow in ways you can't control—and firms that don't manage/control their growth invariably wind up faltering and closing or being acquired by another firm.
So I put that response aside to focus on why a small firm needs a marketing plan. In random order, here are my thoughts.
A marketing plan defines where you are now and how you got there. It can help you define what activities were or were not successful, as well as the degree of success to which those activities led. Those are good clues as to what your future activities should—or should not—include.
A marketing plan forces you to define where you want to be in the future—the near, mid-term and far futures. It helps you figure out where you need to be in a year to achieve the three-year goal and be positioned for the five-year goal.
A marketing plan forces you to define what makes a good client, and helps you identify your good clients. Some clients are "strategic"— some are not. Some firms define these as "A," "B" or "C" clients, with the "C" clients being those you won't pursue in the future, and whose projects you might even turn down.
Some firms define a strategic client as one of the 20% that give you 80% of your work. I like to further refine this Pareto Principle to mean the 20% of your clients who give you 80% of your profits.
A good marketing plan makes you take a hard look at your firm's recent financial performance and use the numbers to identify the market sectors, client types and project types that are most—and least—profitable. Those market sectors, client and project types where you consistently lose money or barely break even might be automatic "No Go" decisions for the coming year.
"No Go" decisions allow you to spend your pursuit budget—whether visiting clients to position your firm or developing proposals for projects you can't win—more wisely. They prevent you from taking resources away from potential wins and giving them to guaranteed losses.
How much detail should a marketing plan have? That is the ultimate question. And the answer is that it should have enough detail to help you achieve what you want to achieve in the coming year.
It may be sufficient to define your market sectors, set goals by identifying two or three prospective clients, assign staff to pursue specific prospects, and outline the steps needed to develop the new relationships, and secure opportunities to propose.
At the other end of the spectrum, it may be necessary to do market research on a new market sector, identify all the firms and agencies procuring services and pursuing contracts in that sector, determine if there is a need for additional firms like yours, identify the new prospects in that sector, research the specific projects they have coming up for the next year, assess your chances of success in pursuing those projects, assign staff to initiate and build the new relationships, secure opportunities to propose, and start winning work.
The degree of detail—and the amount of time and money required to develop a plan—will depend on your goals. But to try to acieve your goals with no plan is like trying to get to a place you've never been without a road map.