How to create a marketing plan
Planning is always a tedious process, but putting a marketing plan in place for your business has so many direct and peripheral benefits that you will be glad you created one. The most direct benefit is that it will save you time in the long-run. We’ve all been there, trying to come up with a social media post at the last minute and being completely blocked on what to say. A marketing plan allows you to focus on the strategy behind your marketing, instead of being reactionary on a day-to-day basis. This results in better conversion and a more effective ROI. So, where do you start?
Start with Your Goals
Begin by mapping out what your goals for your business are for the year. What do you want to accomplish? Try focusing on these four areas:
Sales--What are your sales goals for the year? Quarter? Month? What has the highest margin?
High season--What is the high season for your industry? What products do well during certain times of the year? What trends are happening right now/this coming year?
Product launches--Are you coming out with new products/services this year? When are they reasonably coming out?
Client appreciation--Do you need to focus on client appreciation this year? When was the last time you evaluated who your highest-dollar clients are? When did you last show them some love?
Write out your goals around all of these topics, including the month in which each of them is to occur. Be as specific as possible. Include lead-up time for each of them (ex a product/service launch is going to need to be promoted x amount of weeks before launch to gain momentum and ensure sales, depending on the type of product/service).
Come Up with Creative Ways to Accomplish Your Goals
You want to be creative and out-of-the-box, while still making it easy for people to understand what you’re trying to accomplish. Examples of ways to execute this are: events, campaigns, influencers, partnerships, and sales/promotions.
Keep your budget in mind while coming up with these ideas. Pay close attention to ROI for each marketing idea. You don’t want to spend a ton of money on something that will yield smaller sales revenue when a product or service launch could yield a lot more.
Map Out Your Support Methods
Your digital marketing should come into play here. Map out how you can use your digital channels to support your campaigns, events, etc. Once you do this, you will have your content loosely mapped out for the year.
Imagine you are having an event to showcase your new product. Not only will you have content on social media and in your newsletters leading up to the event, social media posts on the day of/during the event, but you’ll also have photos and details from the event you can post about afterward as well as a follow-up email campaign. The more content you plan out this way, the less on-the-fly content you will need to come up with.
Fine-tune and Work Out the Details
Make sure the details of your marketing campaigns are in-line with your brand guidelines. This will ensure consistency across all channels. It is important to also make sure everyone on the team is aware of what the plan is and what their role is in making it happen.
Does this all sound intimidating? If so, consider hiring someone to do it for you. Hiring someone full-time might be too much to take on, so hiring a consultant like myself can save you money. Especially if you don’t need someone full-time yet. Another benefit of doing this is the ability to have them start with certain services and adding others on over time. Contact me with any questions or to book a consultation.