A marketing plan is your roadmap to success. It doesn’t have to be pages and pages long, although I do like detail. You can have a simple one that sets out your goals for the next 12 months. A good marketing plan needs to be clear about your objectives, how you will achieve them. It needs to be realistic, measurable and include deadlines.
I just wanted to outline 5 key areas you need to spend some time on.
1. Picture Your Ideal Customer
Creating an avatar of who your ideal client is makes it easier to market your product or service to them. Be as specific as possible. Are they female/male, age group, where do they hang out, what do they like doing on the weekends, do they shop online, are they married, have kids etc.
Knowing as much as possible about your ideal client makes getting the right message and using the right tactics easier to identify.
2. How will I reach them?
Now that you know exactly who you want to reach, you need to identify the best ways to reach them.
Consider if they are:
Active on social media, if so what platforms?
Do they subscribe to newsletters?
Where do they network?
What type of call to action are they likely to respond to?
And, this is the most important one – What’s in it for them?
3. What do you want to accomplish?
No point doing all this and not knowing what you actually want to achieve via your marketing efforts. Again, be specific. Saying you want to increase your business profile is not specific enough. How are you going to do that?
4. Have a budget
I must say I do love this one. So many people just don’t have a marketing budget. Set aside a figure you know you can afford or look at all the things you want to do, price them and prioritise them according the what you can afford.
5. Plan your Strategy
These are the actions you need to take so you can reach your target market and achieve your goals. Again, be specific, are you going to create an event, webinar, start blogging, create an email campaign etc.
Always integrate your marketing efforts, as one strategy alone is not going to help you achieve your goals.
Your marketing plan is not set in stone, so be flexible with it, review it regularly and leave room for experimentation, ability to change your tactics and budgets.
Good luck with it, don’t forget we are here to help if you need it.
Share the knowledge
