Our insider tips on a marketing plan that actually delivers results to your business
As a marketing professional, no doubt you are juggling a lot of demands which mean your marketing plan might be put on the backburner. If you’re a business owner, you might have been burnt before by a plan that didn’t seem to pan out or wasn’t the right fit for you.
Marketing strategy is a vital step in business success. You can do all the marketing you want – but if you aren’t doing it in a strategic way that aligns with your goals, budget, service/product offering or audience, you may as well give it all up. But don’t just take our word for it – look what the experts had to say.
According to the marketing trends report from the Content Marketing Institute, B2B marketers said their effectiveness increased significantly when they had a documented content marketing strategy and 40 per cent of marketers deemed least effective (according to how effective they rated their content marketing) had no written marketing strategy.
We’re sharing the three most common mistakes that businesses make so you can avoid the pitfalls altogether.
1. Marketing plan…what marketing plan?
Oh no, did we just catch you red-handed? Have you left the marketing plan document blank? Or maybe it doesn’t even exist?
Unfortunately, this is where many businesses make the biggest mistake when it comes to a marketing strategy – not having one in the first place!
This is like sailing without a compass! Without a well-crafted strategy to guide your marketing efforts, you’re just throwing spaghetti at the wall and hoping something sticks. A marketing plan is your secret weapon, your roadmap to success. This is also why, like a roadmap, you need to constantly be checking up on it to make sure your business is headed on the right track.
Remember those industry and market trends we talked about earlier? They are constantly in a state of flux, which means once you have developed your marketing plan, you need to keep a close eye on them too. This way you can tweak your plan where necessary. We recommend looking at your marketing strategy at least once a month – if not more. This is so you are constantly tweaking any changes that need to occur.
We get it – crafting a plan from scratch is a science in and of itself.
But this shouldn’t deter you from making one in the first place. Thankfully, crafting and implementing a marketing plan is at the core of what we do. So don’t beat about the bush, book a meeting with us to discuss your next big marketing strategy.
Need a marketing plan? Leave it to the marketing experts.
We provide businesses with a comprehensive marketing strategy and implementation services so your goals become realities.
2. Your goals aren’t achievable
Too often businesses make the mistake of setting goals that look great on paper, but aren’t reasonable in terms of the budget or resources available. For example, if you have just one marketing team member and a 30 page marketing plan with big outcomes required over a 12 month period, you are setting yourself up for failure.
Or if you have big plans to sell x amount of your products in 12 months but don’t have any budget for advertising, you’re probably setting yourself on a pretty difficult path as well.
We recommend following the SMART criteria when setting marketing objectives. A marketing plan should have objectives that are:
- Specific – don’t be generic, the key is in the detail!
- Measurable – what evidence do you have if this was achieved? If not, why couldn’t you achieve it?
- Achievable – is this realistic with your budget, resources and deadline?
- Relevant – is this goal in alignment with your overarching marketing strategy?
- Time-bound – do you have realistic deadlines for each goal?
So, how does the SMART criteria look like in practice? Well, it is usually a simple sentence that sums up your goal. An example could be:
“Our goal is to achieve an increase in purchases by 3 per cent in 12 months for our new product servicing 18-35 year-old females. Our means to reach this goal will be a dedicated budget for TikTok sponsorship and free PR opportunities.”
This goal is specific, has a reachable and specific timeline, but can also be easily measured to determine success.
Are you new to the SMART criteria? Let us help you create and reach your marketing goals – book a meeting with our Chief Marketer today!
3. You are marketing to anyone who will listen
Do you have a spray-and-pray approach? You aren’t doing your marketing justice if you are spreading a wide net hoping to catch a few fish. Targeting is everything when it comes to marketing, so it’s time to get cozy with your target audience.
We recommend getting into the granular detail of who your target audience is, what their pain points are and how you solve their problems. Ask yourself:
- Where does my target market live?
- What is their age and income bracket?
- What is their gender?
- What stage of the lifecycle are they in? Single, married etc?
- What are their values, beliefs and lifestyle?
- What platforms do they use already to consume information and media?
- Are these people the decision makers for the service or product we offer? Or do they influence the decision maker?
- How are we benefiting them? How are we solving their problems?
Creating personas for your target audience will help you to personalise and better target your content.
Here’s an example of how it could work. You run a legal business and one of your target industries is cafes. You might develop a persona for a café owner, who you’ve identified with the below traits:
- Lives in Newcastle or Lake Macquarie
- Aged 30-40 and female
- Married with kids
- Passionate about sourcing local food and coffee where possible, supporting local fundraisers such as for kids sport, strives to provide an aesthetic and welcoming environment, loves reading books.
- Regularly uses Pinterest for café décor ideas, spends a lot of time looking at Google reviews, uses Instagram and Facebook for the business and in her personal life.
- We help solve their issues around compliance and give them peace-of-mind they are ticking the boxes whilst running a successful business.
BONUS TIP: Don’t treat your marketing plan like an expense.
We had to throw this one for good measure!
It can be easy to think of your marketing plan as an expense, an expense in time and money. But a strong and strategic marketing plan is actually a gift that keeps on giving – if you do it right.
After all, an expense is something you buy and depreciate. An investment is something you purchase that will deliver value in the future.
One of the main purpose of marketing is to drive more leads into customers and keep them as raving fans. So if you run your small business looking at marketing as an expense-ready to cut marketing campaigns and programs when things get tight, you may want to reshape your perspective on small business marketing.
Often when turbulent times hit and sales fall in the tank the first inclination is to reduce your marketing spend. This is the absolute wrong decision. Marketing is the very catalyst you need to spur growth and drive new opportunities.
