Creating a Marketing Plan
Written by Dalaine Wall | May 24, 2023
In this article, I will cover:
- Why putting effort into a marketing plan is worth it.
- How to develop a marketing plan: step-by-step.
- How to actually implement your new marketing plan.
Why Putting Effort Into a Marketing Plan is Worth It
A marketing plan defines your marketing goals for a specific amount of time, such as a quarter or a year, and outlines the tactics used to achieve those goals.
According to CoSchedule, marketers who actively plan their marketing are 331% more successful than their peers. Proof that: “A goal without a plan is just a wish” – Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
Having a marketing plan:
- Keeps you focused and organized – regardless of the size of your team (yes – even if you are a one-person show). Without clear marketing goals, you are simply taking a shot in the dark and your chances of success are much lower.
- Allows you to measure the progress of your tactics. So you can make educated decisions about where to invest your money for a better ROI (return on investment).
- Helps you stay consistent and on brand. This is important because consistency is key to building trust with customers and leads.
- Positions your business in the industry, this can lead to developing new products and services. As well as help you reach your intended target market which means you will have better quality leads and conversion rates.
Ultimately a marketing plan is a tool that helps you accomplish your business goals.
How to Develop a Marketing Plan: Step-by-step
Step One: Research
Identify your Ideal Customer
Knowing and understanding your ideal customer is essential for creating effective marketing. Without knowing who your ideal customer is you are left targeting a broad audience – this will end with you using up your resources and a low ROI (return on investment).
To identify your ideal customer you can use market segmentation:
- Demographics – age, income, marital status, education level, profession
- Geographic – neighbourhood, city, province, country
- Psychographic – values/beliefs, interests/hobbies, personality, life goals
- Behavioural – occasion for use, spending habits, browsing habits, pain points
It can even be helpful to create a persona to help understand your ideal client better. A buyer persona is a representation of your ideal customer, made up of factual data and fictional qualities. You can have more than one buyer persona and even an exclusionary persona (which represents a customer who you don’t want). Knowing this information will allow you to personalize your marketing messages so that they resonate with your audience.
A great tool to use to create buyer persona’s is SEMRUSH’s free buyer persona template.
Conduct a Competitor Analysis
Your ideal customer has options and they may choose to use a service or buy a product from a competitor. For this reason, understanding why your ideal customer might choose a competitor over you will aid you in offering better products and services.
Assess your competitors’ products, services, and marketing to evaluate their strengths and weaknesses. This puts you in a proactive position rather than a reactive one, waiting for your competitor to change the market. It also allows you to identify market gaps so that you can start offering products or services to fill them.
Perform a SWOT Analysis
Once you have an idea of your competitors’ strengths and weaknesses it’s time to determine your own business’s. A great way to do this is to conduct a SWOT analysis. SWOT stands for: strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats.
- Strengths – USP (unique selling propositions) and competitive advantages
- Weaknesses – gaps in resources or capabilities
- Opportunities – emerging trends, untapped markets
- Threats – competitors or changing consumer behaviours
For example:
- Strengths – Most clients are a result of referrals and reputaion
- Weaknesses – Raising awareness of your business through marketing and advertising
- Opportunities – Ideal customers are more likely to trust businesses with active blogs
- Threats – Competitors have a stronger digital presence than your business
Step Two: Marketing
Define Your Marketing Goals
Ask yourself – what do you want to achieve with your marketing efforts? Make sure to refer back to your business plan to ensure these goals align with your overall business goals. A good way to create clear marketing goals is to use the SMART goal method. SMART stands for: specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound.
For example, your SMART goal could be:
Increase web traffic by 10% within quarter one so that more people are viewing the website which generates leads and builds brand trust. This will be done by the web developer & designer, social media manager and content writer by optimizing SEO, using Instagram and TikTok, and creating valuable content. In order to see traffic increase within quarter one these changes will be implemented by Jan. 31 and can be measured by google analytics and social media analytics.
Let’s break it down:
| S | Specific | What will be accomplished? Who is responsible for it? What steps need to be taken to achieve it? | Accomplishment: increase web traffic. Responsibility: web developer & designer, social media manager, content writer. Steps: optimize SEO, use Instagram and TikTok, and create valuable content. |
| M | Measurable | What data will measure the goal? (How much? How well?) | 10% increase can be measured by google analytics. |
| A | Achievable | Is the goal doable? Do you have the necessary skills and resources? | Reality check: can you achieve the above with your resources and time? |
| R | Relevant | How does the marketing goal align with broader business goals? Why is the result important? | People viewing the website generates leads and builds brand trust. |
| T | Time-bound | What is the time frame for accomplishing the goal? | Increasing traffic within Q1 means that we will implement the actionable tasks on Jan. 31. |
Decide what Marketing Channels to Use
Determine the specific tactics you will implement to execute your marketing goals. For example, if your goal is to increase web traffic some tactics could be to: write blog posts, improve SEO, and run paid ad campaigns on social media. Your channels/ tactics should be focused, realistic and directly related to achieving your marketing goal.
Here is a list of marketing channels to help you get started:
- Social media: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Snapchat, Reddit
- Online: website, blog, SEO, landing pages, app, Google ads
- Online marketplaces: Etsy, Amazon, Fiverr, Upwork, POD (print on demand)
- Email marketing
- Events: tradeshows, charity, parties, community gatherings, street markets
- Print: stationary, business cards, direct mail, print ads, billboards, publications
- Swag: t-shirts, hats, mugs, pens
- Radio, Podcast
- TV, YouTube
- Business Directories, Google business profile, Reviews
- Networking: Influencer collaboration and business partnerships
Brainstorm a Slogan
It’s a good idea to decide on a slogan to use in your upcoming marketing. A slogan is a short-term key message that represents a specific product or service that you are marketing. This helps to provide consistency across media channels for faster product/service recognition.
This should not be confused with a tagline, which summarizes your brand essence, personality and marketing position. It clearly distinguishes you from the competition.
For example, here is a slogan and tagline of Apple’s:
- Slogan – A thousand songs in your pocket (in regards to the first iPod).
- Tagline – Think different. (in regards to the entire brand)
Step Three: Budget
Now that you have your marketing goals and marketing channels it’s time to figure out the cost associated with them. This could mean outsourcing costs, marketing software, paid promotions, or events. Your marketing plan should have a quick summary of the costs. But you should keep a separate document with a detailed itemized list of expenses so that you can accurately track and measure your spending to ensure that you stay within budget and make adjustments as needed.
How to Actually Implement Your New Marketing Plan
At this point, you have put in a lot of hard work, so don’t stop short of the finish line!
Timeline and Responsibilities
To ensure your plan is implemented you need to include a timeline and assign responsibilities for each marketing tactic. Assign responsibilities to team members, outsource the work or use a combination method of internal and external resources. Once your team is established work with them to break each marketing tactic down into actionable tasks with deadlines. Remember to regularly review and update your implementation plan to ensure that you are on track and meeting your marketing goals! This could be checking in with your team (or yourself) in a consistent increment of time like once a week and using a project management tool.
KPIs (Key Performance Indicators)
It’s important to note that a marketing plan is not set in stone. Think of it as a living breathing document – it should be flexible and open to change as you receive feedback/ data. This brings us to the crux of a marketing plan – paying attention to and documenting the response received for each marketing channel. It’s vital that you track the effectiveness of your marketing tactics. This allows you to pinpoint what is working and what isn’t – so you save time and money in the long run. To do this use KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) that align with your marketing goals.
For some ideas and examples of KPI’s that might work for you check out these 15 marketing KPI’s that Hub Spot explains. Analyze the information from your chosen KPI’s to make data-driven decisions to optimize your marketing strategies moving forward.
Organization
Many marketing plans fall apart because of the amount of information that needs to stay organized – both outgoing to consumers and incoming data to the business. So it is important to choose a format that works for you and your business – which is not going to be a one size fits all. This is why I encourage you to try different ways to stay organized. If the initial organization method you chose doesn’t work, don’t give up! Everyone’s brains are wired differently so keep an open mind and try another organizational method!
A great place to start is to download my free marketing plan template and use it in conjunction with a project management tool and KPI dashboard. Some project management tools are: Microsoft Planner, Trello, Monday.com, CoSchedule, or ClickUp. To track your KPI use: Hubspot, Geckoboard, Klipfolio, Databox or Zoho. You can even use Google Sheets or Microsoft Excel as a tried and true option or reach out to me for help!
In Conclusion
One final bit of advice – marketing is an ever-evolving field and the industry your business is part of is also constantly growing and changing. This means adjustments to your business to stay relevant are natural. So it’s in good practice to redo ALL of these steps every time you create a new marketing plan to stay current on market trends.