February 15, 2021

Author: Amber Anderson

A marketing plan defines what your business offers, your target audience and how you’ll attract and retain your customers. Here’s how to make sure yours shines.

Marketing opportunities are limitless, but unfortunately, marketing budgets are not. Should you go all in on social media or invest in billboards? Do you develop a new branding strategy or focus on building partnerships? These decisions are never easy. But they become easier when you have a compelling marketing plan in place.

Developing your plan requires answering big questions and being honest about your business and what you can reasonably accomplish. Taking the following steps will help you determine what makes sense for your marketing efforts.

1. Define your business objectives.What does success look like for you?

The answer is different for everyone. Once you understand how you’ll define success, you can begin to detail how you’ll achieve it, breaking it down step by step.

If you want to make a certain amount of revenue, you’ll need to sell a certain number of products or services. To do that, you need to bring on a particular number of new customers and retain a certain percentage to keep your profit margins where you want them.

For example, if you run an online store and you want to bring in $100,000 in revenue, you'd need to determine how many units you'd need to sell to hit your goal. Once you know the number of units you need to sell, then you can determine how many customers you have to reach to hit that target. Creating a marketing plan helps you find and connect with the people who will buy your products.

2. Determine your target audience—and learn about them.

Now that you know your objectives, it’s time to identify your target audience. Your marketing efforts can be effective only if you’re targeting the right people. Who needs your product/service? Look for insights into your customers’ pain points. Now think about how you can position your product/service to solve them?

To get good insight into your target audience, you’ll need to do some research. There’s a lot of great, free data you can pull from public policy organizations, business groups and foundations. The demographic and other data provide you with info on who your audience is, what their lives are like and what they need. Your target audience determines which marketing channels and tactics you'll use first. Understand your audience so you can invest in the platforms they use.

3. Outline your value proposition.

Once you define your target market, find out what they need. What are their pain points? What keeps them up at night? How will you alleviate these problems? Then create messaging that shows how your company, product or service has the answer.

For each segment of your target audience, craft a message that speaks directly to them. You can do this in a number of ways. For example, you can:

• Inform them of an issue. Lead with stats or data to grab their attention, and illuminate a reality they may be unaware of.
• Confirm what they already know. Engage them with a story or description of an issue that shows you understand them and their lives. Then, lead them to your product/service as the solution.
• Show them a new reality. Show the end result of using your product/service: It’s a new way of living, working, thinking, and your brand makes it possible.

4. Make a budget.

Now you know how you’re going to alleviate your customers’ problems and your key messages. But before you invest in any marketing activity, you need to know how much you can feasibly spend. And that means creating a marketing budget - generally 2-10 percent of your projected income. 

It’s helpful to determine some return on investment (ROI) criteria up front so you can see if your marketing efforts are providing the value you expect. You want to make sure it’s working and be able to use the data you gather to change course if needed.

For example, imagine you run a bakery that specializes in wedding cakes and you want to get more clients. You write four blog posts about different types of wedding cake and tie each post to a landing page where prospective brides and grooms can request a free tasting and consultation.

You spend $1,000 paying a freelancer to draft four blog posts and $150 to promote it. The posts result in 10 leads, and four of the leads become clients. You made an average of $1,500 per client.The ROI is $4,950. If you view this return as positive, then the campaign would be viewed as a success.

5. Pick your channels.

At this point, you can focus on how to reach your target audience. What are the creative ways you’re going to capture their attention?

One tactic you can use is a strategic partnership. Find a company or organization that services your target audience and partner with them. Look into tactics like influencer marketing—who does your target audience follow on social media? You can even look for micro influencers with smaller followings like mom bloggers instead of celebrities. These partnerships are the most cost effective.

Referrals are another great channel for reaching your audience, particularly for small businesses. Launch a referral program and ask your existing customers to refer their friends.In marketing, it’s better to do one thing really well instead of several things poorly. Based on your budget and goals, you may not be able to invest in every channel. And that’s OK. Start with one or two, and master them before moving on to others.

6. Develop a timeline.

Timelines are a vital part of marketing plans. Everyone on your team needs to understand the big deadlines as well as the smaller milestone dates to stay organized and on the same path.Begin by revisiting your business goals. When do you need to see results? To accomplish those, what marketing strategies do you need to implement first, second and third? Then, working backward from your goal date, create your milestone targets and tactical deadlines.

7. Execute.

You’ve done the prep work; now go make it happen! As you execute your plan, track your progress. And don’t be afraid to pivot. Markets change and customer behaviors change, so it’s important to create a plan that can change as you need it to.Now, you’re ready. Create the marketing plan your company needs and get to work!

Photo: Getty Images