What components are needed for an effective marketing plan?

Whether you’re a relatively new business or you’ve been going for years, there’s no denying that marketing is crucial to your growth.

It could be that your existing strategy isn’t quite working, or you’re looking for a new direction for your business. Nonetheless, it’s time to set aside some time to nail your marketing plan.

So, let’s take a look at how we become your Second Mind and help you reach those goals.

Discovering your business’ purpose

Every organization — for-profit or non-profit, large or small — has goals. Whether you’re looking to take the world over or not, you need to know the direction of your business. 

These goals can come in many forms, for example:

• increases in sales revenue

• increases in average order value

• increases in customer lifetime value

• increases in applications and enrollments (colleges and universities)

• increases in fundraising revenue (non-profits)

• increases in the total number of people helped or served (non-profits)

And the list could go on, and on.

So, more importantly, what should your marketing goals be to support those business goals? You know the destination, now it’s creating the roadmap to get there.

Marketing goals

Where many marketing strategies flop is a lack of planning and understanding of the end goal. Strong marketing goals must consist of five key attributes, often referred to as SMART goals.

• Specific

• Measurable

• Assignable

• Realistic

• Time-related

With these in mind, when we form a marketing plan to support your business goals, we know what we are going to do, how we’re going to measure it and the realistic expectations (aka, results).

For example, a SMART goal may be to increase consumer phone calls (leads) by 10% year over year between now and X date.

In order to achieve that goal, we’d need a plan to get there and the capability to handle the workload, too.

Creating a marketing funnel

Next, we fuse our SMART marketing goals with business goals through a marketing funnel. This, in turn, allows us to uncover and analyse data such as website visitors > qualified leads > sales. A working marketing funnel provides crystal clear understanding of which metrics need to be tracked and reported as a campaign progresses.

Understanding your target audience

For this blog article, I’ll assume you know the basics of your target audience. This is usually demographic information, such as:

• Age range

• Male/female (or skew toward one of them)

• Countries, regions, and cities and towns in which they live and work

• Annual household income

• Race or ethnicity

• Etc.

This is a great place to start, and crucial for an effective marketing plan. However, there is more to be discovered, including:

• “Mindset” – How do they think about your product or service?

• “Threats” – What would keep them from coming to you? 

  • Economic factors such as a recession that would decrease household spending

  • Competitors (with better price points, benefits etc)

  • Consumer trends

• “Habits” –  What do they do at each stage of the consumer decision-making process, and what can we do to get in front of them?

It’s okay to not know the answers to these questions right away. Some may involve both qualitative (focus groups, interviews, etc.) and quantitative (polls/surveys) research, while some insights could be gained from secondary research.

Nailing your messaging 

If you’re not sure who your target audience is, or how to speak to them, your marketing efforts may be totally lost. 

Knowing exactly how to reach and speak to your ideal customers will stand you in great stead for seeing a return on your marketing. Here are some key considerations:

• Establishing a brand position

• Developing key messaging (tagline, elevator pitch, support points etc)

• Understanding how that messaging translates across multiple formats

Budget

It is incredibly important to have a firm and realistic marketing budget. There is always potential to start off a little smaller and extend your budget.

However, it is important to be realistic with your budget in order to achieve your goals.

Timing

Timing can be crucial for some industries. If you’re selling gift boxes, of course you’re going to want to hit Mother’s Day, Valentine’s Day, etc etc. 

Whereas if you’re an accountant helping small businesses with their taxes, you’ll be well aware when the financial year is up! 

The timing of your marketing plan can depend on several factors, including your goals, your audience (for example, we’re all pretty skint in January!), and knowing which platforms to use and when.

Platforms

Ah, platforms! Social media is an excellent tool for any business, no matter what services or products you’re offering. The difference is, and it goes back to your target audience - knowing where they are.

If you’re targeting 70+ year olds, the chances are they’re not on Instagram. Knowing your audience is key to utilising your budget appropriately and speaking to your audience in the right way. Spreading your budget too thinly won’t produce results.

People think they need a lot of money, fancy products, huge promotions, and ads - but that’s not the case.

What you actually need is to deeply understand your audience, niche down as much as possible, and understand what your audience needs from you.

At the end of the day, marketing is about serving others with your knowledge.

How can your product or service benefit them? What does it add to their lives? How much time does it save them?

Once you’ve ticked these boxes, the budget, messaging and everything in between just falls into place.

Need a hand with an effective marketing plan?

Get in touch and let’s get going!