Ever wondered why your business’s success isn’t as optimal as it could be, or why your business doesn’t grow? You have your workspace and materials, educated staff, and the most amazing products. Then why are your sales numbers not higher?
The answer may be simpler than you think. An important part of a business model that is easily overlooked is the marketing plan. Your product could be as amazing as you are, but if you have no way of communicating this to your target audience, how will they ever know?
Why your Marketing Plan is important
Marketing is a way for you to help promote your product or service and can be as simple or detailed as you want it to be. In this blog, we will discuss the various parts of a marketing plan that will help your business grow, but first: what is a marketing plan?
Simply put, a marketing plan is a document that focuses on a specific strategy that an organization will implement to achieve a certain goal. For instance: to obtain more website visitors, get more Instagram followers, or sell more products. Developing a marketing plan can be overwhelming, so we have set it out for you in a clearer format.
How to Make a Marketing Plan
Internal analysis
In the first section of the marketing plan, it is vital to get a clear understanding of who you are as a business. It is important to set out the mission and vision of the company; to make sure the strategy you are developing is in line with your organization’s view. Once this is clear, it is time to turn to the most important people in your business: your target group.
External analysis
ALINE starts any lead-generation strategy with an analysis of your target customers. This customer analysis includes:
- Who they are
- Where they are
- What their interests are
- How we can best reach them
To find the answers to these questions, it is necessary to research your target audience extensively. An example of how to do this is by turning to the audience reports in Google Analytics. This tool can tell you exactly at what days your website gets the most visits, who it’s being visited by, and what they are looking at on your website. This will help you understand what journey they follow before reaching the goal (purchasing an item, signing up for your newsletter, becoming a volunteer, etc).
But don’t worry if you don’t have a website, or don’t have these tools available. You can still find a lot of information about your target group by searching online or observing in the field.
Once you know clearly who your target group is and what their pain points are (that your product or service is going to solve), it is time to start researching content that these people are interested in and which platforms they are using. It needs to be clear how to catch (and keep) their interest before starting to create content because no one wants to spend hours creating something that no one is interested in.
Additionally, it may be wise to conduct a competitor analysis to make sure you are aware of your competition and to create value for your business. It is important to stand out, so think of the question “What is my unique selling point?”
Marketing Strategy
After extensive research, it is time to start creating your marketing strategy. Think of what your goals and objectives are. What is it you want to achieve with this marketing plan? It can be as broad or narrow as you like, but make sure your goals are SMART: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Timebound. This will help you to set clear goals and have a clear vision of how to achieve them.
The next question is how can you reach these goals? This is where you start brainstorming marketing activities. This may be difficult if you have never done it before, so here is an example of what you can do regarding social media marketing.
Goal: To reach 1.000 followers on Facebook by the end of 2021.
- Create a (monthly) content calendar
- Choose visual content for the dates you chose
- Write a text to post with the photo/video
- Schedule your post (you can do this via Facebook Business Manager)
- Perform a monthly audit to find out which posts did and did not do well
- Create a new content calendar keeping in mind your findings
- Include UTM codes in your posts to track your visitors
- Look into options for Facebook Ads and boosting your posts
Planning
Creating a marketing strategy is one thing, but implementing is another. Include clear planning in your strategy, to make sure your goals are realistic and to have a timeline of when to perform which duties.
In some cases, it may be necessary to train your staff when implementing a marketing strategy. An example of this is to make sure the person in charge of your Facebook page knows best practices for posting to your organization’s page.
Finances are also important here. Although implementing a marketing strategy does not need to cost money, it is important to make your budget clear to everyone involved.
Need help?
As a successful marketing company, we at ALINE know how difficult developing a marketing plan can be. A lot of businesses don’t have the manpower, knowledge, or time to dedicate to a marketing strategy. At ALINE, we are invested in your success and in helping your business grow. Our team can create an in-depth marketing plan for your business to help you get the most out of your potential.
Reach out now!
