Every business has one ultimate goal: to gain more customers and close more sales. You need marketing to do that consistently.
And though there are millions of strategies and tactics you can use, the starting point remains the same: have a well-crafted marketing plan.
After all, marketing is what drives your target audience to buy your product or service, bringing in the cash. But without a marketing strategy, it's like going to war without your weapons.
Just tell us where to send yours below.
We respect your email inbox and will never spam.
A marketing plan is basically a blueprint that outlines the methods you're going to implement to make your customers buy your products and services. It acts as a roadmap that walks through your marketing strategies, tactics, marketing activities, costs, and expected results.
It has to be detailed enough to contain the actions that small businesses need to do to accomplish their goals.
A marketing plan ensures you don't get sidetracked and start chasing shiny objects (ooh, look, TikTok!)
You can create a marketing strategy good for a month, quarter, or the whole year.
Want to know what are the best marketing strategies for 2022? Click the link.
Take our QUIZ and we'll send you a report detailing exactly what you need to improve in order to start winning the game of marketing.
Get Started
Marketing strategy is the overall big-picture. It answers what you hope to achieve with your marketing and why. Knowing this makes getting buy-in from stakeholders and business owners much easier.
The marketing plan lays out exactly how you'll achieve those strategic goals. It maps out the tactics you'll implement (inbound and outbound marketing), the assets you need, and the processes and systems you'll develop to help you level up your marketing game.
Every business needs a marketing plan because:
It doesn't matter whether you're running a small business or scaling a huge one — you still need to create a marketing plan.
After all, it comes with a whole bevy of benefits like the following:
Clarity is super important when setting your business goals. It shouldn't be as simple as 'not going broke' or 'meeting annual sales KPIs.' Otherwise, you're just setting yourself up for marketing failure.
If you don't have a clear target, you can't implement marketing activities to help you reach what you want to achieve.
With a marketing plan, you can focus on tangible targets, improving your sales and business performance throughout the year.
Whether you have a small team or a big one, a marketing plan makes sure you're all on the same page. Everyone is given the exact instructions on what to do to meet the company's business goals.
Without a marketing strategy, your plan will end up fractured and ineffective.
For example, some of your employees might work on social media, online content, or email marketing, while the other half uses print and radio ads.
Even a big business has to work on a set budget.
With a marketing plan, you can place importance on activities that yield the best results. It can save you from the headache of creating strategies that are not worth pursuing.
The importance of a marketing plan goes beyond the process. You can also use it as a guide in dealing with your clients.
When you understand what you need to do, you can address your audience better.
Businesses often have multiple objectives, and it can get confusing real fast if you don't have a marketing plan to guide you.
It serves as a benchmark that reminds you if you're hitting your marketing targets. You can make sure that your strategies are aligned and aren't veering away from the business goals you had from the start.
Say you want to start your business by marketing ten items per day.
When your employees know the exact marketing strategies to employ to achieve that goal, they waste less time in brainstorming sessions and follow-up meetings. All they need to do is follow your marketing plan, and everything will fall into place.
Let's face it: Building and running a business involves a sizable investment. If you want yours to grow in people, products, and income, you need to invest more capital.
One way to do so is to get different entities to invest in the product you're marketing. But you won't get the funding you need if you can't present a marketing strategy that outlines your business direction. It's massively important if you want to level up your company.
Planning lets you understand not just your target market and products but also the process of how you can bridge these two to achieve your business needs.
Teams with marketing plans are also more proactive. So you think about things in advance rather than just dealing with them when they occur. You're able to pre-empt and solve issues immediately.
Then you need to market it. But not just any marketing will do. In my new 1-Page Marketing Plan Course I show you the exact techniques I've used to start, grow, and exit several multi-million dollar businesses, so you can too.
Tell Me More
You've probably heard of the saying, "If you fail to plan, you plan to fail." The same goes for creating a good marketing plan — you can't come up with many promising marketing ideas without much preparation.
For a seamless planning process, make sure to have the following marketing documents at hand:
When you create your marketing plan, it's absolutely essential to consider the current trends in the marketplace, like your market's dollar size, selling and distribution setup, target audience, and even how much you've sold throughout the years.
Remember, you'll also need to take note of the threats and opportunities your business faces. These include the customers' demographics and the new trends that might be against you. And don't forget to focus on exploiting the ones that work in your favor.
The focus here should be the business goal you wish to achieve in a specific time frame.
Each objective needs to be clear. It must describe what you want to accomplish in, say, a week or a month, even six months. So be sure to jot down the numbers you want to get.
If you have a hard time creating different objectives for your marketing plan, you can always refer to your old records.
If your business has managed to keep an 80% in gross revenues from customers this year, gunning for a simple 20% to 25% increase in activity is a pretty achievable target, in my opinion.
Again, your marketing plan must also include the tactics and activities you're planning to do to achieve your targets.
For example:
Goal: Introduce the new X item to Roseville and sell 10,000 units for total revenue of $50,000.
Objectives:
Tactics:
Now that you have your marketing strategy in place, it's time to talk numbers. I like to tell my clients that as long as you're making a return on investment, why wouldn't you keep plugging dollars back into your marketing activities?
But initially, you want to assign a specific budget so your team knows how much they can allocate for every promotion. The golden rule here is to add 25% more to your current estimate.
When establishing a budget, be sure to plan with the people who will be executing these activities. Their input will help you get a ballpark figure of the amount you want for each strategy. It also allows you to determine a point person who will keep a close eye on the budget and ensure it's put to good use.
Although this should be placed at the top of your marketing plan, the executive summary should be the last thing you do in your marketing plan. It serves as an overview of the content you have inside.
For easier reading, make sure your plan is written in simple sentences. Bold the most critical points, and list them down in bullets as needed.
Just tell us where to send yours below.
We respect your email inbox and will never spam.
Successful marketing comes down to knowing your numbers.
Marketing isn't just about putting a piece of content out there and hoping it sticks. You need to gather as much data and information as you can and analyze it to be sure you're getting results and not wasting your money.
So add KPIs to each and every marketing activity.
A clear marketing strategy identifies which tactics your company will use to get your customers to know, like, trust, and buy from you.
If you've built an in-house marketing team, they may wish to create separate plans for each tactic, for example:
A lot of big companies have annual marketing plans. That's why I wrote the 1-Page Marketing Plan. It's something you can review every six months and only update when necessary.
As mentioned, there are many good reasons why your business must have a marketing plan. As the business owner, you need to own your marketing strategy. So it's vital that you're involved in the writing of your marketing plan. Although it can be challenging to build out, it's essential to your business's success. So, make it a priority.
Do you have the goal of building a six figure coaching business? Click the link.
You'll get new articles delivered straight to your inbox, plus special subscriber-only content such as podcasts, videos and live training events.
Get free weekly emails that make you smarter at marketing and help you grow your business