How to Write a Marketing Plan in 9 Steps

Step 1: Find and analyze your target audience

The key to the success of most business often lies in what it knows about its potential customers. A business needs to know their ideal clients are and what makes them tick, including: demographics, location, psychology (how they think and what they’re looking for), and spending habits in order to offer them a product or service completely suited to their needs.

Essentially, your ideal client has a problem that your business exists to solve or fulfill. Knowing what their problem is, and marketing your business as the best solution to that problem is at the core of your marketing plan.

Today, mass marketing is no longer meaningful and directing your products or services to everyone for fear of losing potential customers is the main pitfall of many small businesses. It is impossible to offer something that suits everybody's needs or fixes everyone’s problem and, at the end of the day, you'll have a better chance of getting noticed when addressing a smaller, but more suited, audience than you would trying to capture the attention of a large pool of customers.

You may be thinking that limiting your audience will limit the growth of your business, but this isn’t the case. You can always create new products or services aimed at new “small pools” that together can exceed the size of the large pool you initially wanted to target.

Therefore, the best strategy for most is to find and target a market niche and dominate it by creating a product or service along with a well-written campaign that responds to the needs of this segmented group, that solves its problem.

Mastering a niche allows you to set a higher price since those who need your product or service know that you are offering exactly what they are looking for and trust that the quality will be better due to the fact that you are a specialist in your field.

Analyzing your potential customers (either through a survey or defining of your ideal client avatar), you will be able to figure out how to achieve your business goals by optimizing your resources and determining what trends to look for. And In the era of personalised communication, you need to personalise your communications and your actions based on what you know about your potential customers.

Step 2: Building your marketing message

Once you determine your target audience and create client profiles based on that audience, it's time to create a message to get their attention. This has to be done properly since it can be the difference between reaching your audience and talking to a wall.

A message with a purpose

Every marketing message you add to your plan needs to exist to achieve a single goal. This can be anything from your potential customers contacting you, visiting your website or store, filling out a form, remembering your brand or buying a specific product or service from you.

In the same way that you have selected a specific target audience to be the focus of all your efforts, you must also select a specific goal for your message and focus on that.

Base your message on a unique sales proposition

A Unique Sales Proposition (USP), is a concept that is used to refer to the factor that differentiates your product from that of your competition when it comes to selling it. To define your unique sales proposition, you must be clear about why your business exists (your mission) and why people should buy from you and not from your competition. For example, the mission of Microsoft, as the company itself explains on its website, is “to empower every person and organization on the planet to achieve more."

As you can see, its purpose is not only to sell operating systems, programs or devices like  any other software company. Microsoft sells “productivity” just as Coca-Cola sells  “happiness.” What abstract benefit are you selling? 

Keep in mind that selling “quality” or a “good service” will not allow you to stand out, since  it is something that your audience already expects from you, as it does any other company. 

Create your unique sales proposition based on the outcome your potential customers want  to achieve. People don't want your product or service, they want what your product or service will solve their problem and how it will makes their lives better. Think about that.  

Keep the medium in mind when creating the message.

In his book Kotler on Marketing, Philip Kotler, the world guru on marketing, states: “The decision on the design of the message interacts with the decision of the medium [through which it will be transmitted].” 

Your message and its purpose must be defined with the characteristics of the medium you  choose to transmit it in order for the message to be effective. 

For example, imagine that you own a steak restaurant and your goal is to get your potential  customers to make a reservation through your ad. You are considering creating ads on  Instagram and taking an ad in a local magazine. The nature of these two platforms is very  different so your message should be presented in different ways suited to that media. 

The magazine's ad format is more limited consisting of text and an image. The most  effective option will probably be to focus your message on getting the potential customer to  call your business. Therefore, highlighting, above all, your phone number is one of the most important factors. On Instagram, you can use photos or videos, add emojis in the text to get 

attention and direct your potential customers directly to your website to make an online reservation. 

Don't talk only about your company and your product

Obviously, you have to present your product or service to the public to sell it, but don't fall  into the mistake of talking only about its products and how good it is. Focus more on the  benefits it provides and the solution it will deliver. This is what we call “features versus benefits.” Features alone are most often not the reason why the customer will buy your 

product. Its the value they get that makes their lives better, easier, more comfortable and helps elevate their status. 

For example, Our luminescent branded pens help you find it quicker on your desk, saving  you time. Parker - the executives choice of pen. It is important to find something different and remarkable that makes you stand out from your competition. 

Step 3: Select the media or channels you will use to reach your potential customers

Based on the objectives you have defined above and the information you have gathered  about your customers, including their location and behavior, choose the marketing channels that you think will best allow you to reach them. Take into account your resources and then define the strategies and actions that you will use in each channel. 

For this, you must also take into account Philip Kotler’s 4Ps of the marketing mix – price,  product, place (distribution) and promotion - the theory which he defines as “the mix of controllable marketing variables that the company uses to achieve the desired level of sales in the target market.”

For example, suppose your company is dedicated to the sale of top-brand appliances  nationwide sold through an online store with a goal to increase the sales of high-end LG  smart TVs. Since you're selling an expensive product, you can invest more into promoting the devices with less risk of a negative return. 

In this same example, you know that your potential customers tend to search for your  products through Google, then select Google Ads or Google Network Display ads (GND) as one of your choice media channels that you’re going to create campaigns for.

Below are the online marketing channels and strategies that SME’s are using more and  more, and which you should consider incorporating in your marketing plan are: 

· Blog: Content marketing

· Search engines: SEO and search engine advertising

· Other websites and apps: Display marketing, affiliate marketing

· E-mail: E-mail marketing

· Social media: Content marketing and social media advertising

Offline marketing channels and strategies

A survey carried out by Outbound Engine reveals that for 11.67 percent of SMEs the most

successful marketing channel has been traditional advertising while 13.61 percent of SMEs

say their success came from events. Here are the main offline channels and strategies to

consider:

· Traditional media: Advertising or press, television and local radio appearances

· Stationery: Creation of flyers, brochures, guides and other publications

· Traditional advertising supports: Billboards, etc.

· Fairs and events: Participation in fairs, seminars and organization of events

Determining your marketing budget

Determining and setting your marketing budget is one of the most difficult decisions to  make, especially for SMEs. Among small businesses, there is a general tendency to see marketing as an expense instead of an investment and this is why, according to the  aforementioned OutboundEngine study, more than half of SMEs tend to spend less than 5% of their total budget on marketing, which usually gets them little ROI (Return On Investment) if any. 

Indeed, If you look at the data provided by the OutboundEngine study, there is no doubt  that investing more in marketing usually means gaining more. 81% of SMEs that invested between 5 percent and 10 percent of their annual budget on marketing actions during 2019, saw their sales increase. On the other hand, those that invested less than 5% of 

their budget, experienced a decrease in their sales.

One needs to investigate the advertising cost of each channel you want to use to advertise  your products or services and the cost of the staff you need to carry out the strategy. Then, distribute your budget based on the cost and your marketing objectives. This may prove to be very difficult and time consuming, in which case you’d be better off employing an 

agency or digital marketer to do a quote estimate for you.

Its best practice to start off on a lower ad spend when you launch your digital campaigns,  until you discover whether the return you get is positive, and if it would be profitable to invest more money into that media channel. You may see that you're spending more than the return you’re getting, which may then be an indicator to stop using that specific marketing channel. However, it could also be due to numerous other factors, such as low demand for your product, great competition, in which case your bids may be too low, or that  your offer and incentive to give your product preference isn't strong enough, or that your ads are not reaching the right target audience, or simply donot resonate with them due to poor messaging, copy or graphics. In this case, the services of a good digital marketer / agency should be employed, provided they have proved that they know what they’re doing. 

This may be somewhat more costly, but will ultimately make the difference between  succeeding greatly with your marketing objectives or not at all. 

Step 4: Choosing your lead capture system

A lead is a potential customer that shows interest in your product or service.  Getting a lead's contact details and storing them in a database is key to generating more sales. Kissmetrics demonstrates, 97% of visitors who come to your website are not ready to buy immediately. They may be ready in a month or a year, but if they never hear from you again, you will lose them. 

If you maintain a direct communication channel with them, and you continue sending them  messages cultivating a relationship it will hopefully end up in a sale and even better, a life time valued customer. For this reason, Allan Dib, a marketing guru, argues that you should not try to sell something immediately through your ads, unless it's a low value item or a promo. Instead, you should create a direct contact journey with your potential customer, 

your leads.

To do this, you have to get your leads' contact information legally. This is done through a  lead magnet (a hook to attract potential customers). 

Imagine that you are the owner of a real estate agency that sells residential houses. Your  target audience is young couples looking for their first home. Instead of creating an ad that says, “buy your first home,” you decide to offer an eBook on your website with useful information about everything you need to consider before buying your first home. Your potential clients can download it for free if, in exchange, they fill out a form with their name and email. 

This eBook acts as a hook and will allow you to continue communicating through email  with potential clients who you know are interested in buying their first home, and when they are ready to go ahead with their purchase, they will know, like and trust that youre the right realtor to help them with their purchase. 

There are many types of lead magnets that you can use to gather contact details from  potential customers. Other examples to choose from are: 

• Free trials for a limited time in the case of software or applications
• Free advice or a consultation for a service
• Participation in surveys to generate individual reports
• eBooks, guides, or video series
• Coupons and/or discounts
• Opportunities for social media contests

Be sure to pick the incentive that will work best for your type of business and resources.

Step 5: Determining your lead nurturing system

Once you have built a considerable database from your leads, you now need to supply them  with valuable content in order to build a relationship with them that will lead to more sales. Lead nurturing is the process of ensuring that people who are vaguely interested in your product or service end up wanting it and will be willing to buy it, rather than being forced, 

as then your emails are going to be unsubscribed or trashed.

Endevour to send them relevant information about your industry, information on how to get the most out of what you offer, or a special offer periodically. Whatever you do, don't make the loathed sales pitch. 

To have greater control of your lead nurturing system and manage it easily, it's best to use a  program like ActiveCampaign, an email automation platform and sales funnel management system, which lets you know which leads have taken action after reading your messages and which have not, and will either take further action with them though automation, or 

alert you to do so.

I also sends its subscribers a newsletter or emails with links to blog posts with valuable  content related to their business. 

Though Active campaign is about the best of them, there are several other tools you can use to feed your leads from a blog, a newsletter, SMS and email auto responders, your social channels and sending free reports to podcasts, online videos, direct mail sequences or even handwritten notes. Each one has its advantages and disadvantages, so choose the ones you think best fit your customer profile. If you wish to subscribe to ActiveCampaign, click this link here. 

Step 6: Define your conversion strategy

Building and maintaining a good relationship with potential customers through valuable  content is important stage of your marketing, but the next stage involves turning your quality leads into actual buyers. You can do this by building trust and showing them that your company brings them enough value to be worth buying from you and not the competition. 

This is made easier by setting up a good lead nurturing system since that can help establish  trust and show your value as a company. Once they know, like and trust you, they’ll be more likely to part with their money. However, the perception of your online business plays an important role in their decision to buy from you or not; if this is not favorable, the 

conversions will not take place.

Here are some tips for you to build a credible image and an environment suitable for  conversion: 

Buy a domain for your website:

Do not use free domains for your website or for your email account, like gmail. Otherwise,  your company will not come across as professional, and you will lack credibility. Domain registration companies, like Godaddy and Namecheap are good ones to use, but its best to get the advice of a digital marketer on how to use them and what kinds of dot.companies to go for and what to pay for, depending on the nature of your business. 

Add your company's contact information on your website:

Your phone, email and the address of your office or store should be included on your  website in a very visible place, such as the top banner, even if you don't sell or offer services in a physical way. Otherwise, your potential customers will get frustrated trying to contact you, or they may think that your company is fictitious or does not offer customer support. 

Avoid showing too many options or pricing plans:

Two or three pricing plans (eg. standard, business and premium) are enough, as offering too  many options causes a mental block in the consumer, preventing them from making a purchase decision altogether. Case studies has shown this to be true.

Offer a specific guarantee to avoid uncertainty:

Do not offer weak or vague phrases like “guaranteed satisfaction” or “quality service” in your

messages. Explain what you mean precisely to give them the confidence they need to buy

from you by mitigating their risk. For example, “Our certified technicians, will fix any type of

breakdown in your appliance within 48 hours of submitting a claim. If we fail to live up to

our guarantee, we will refund you double your cost on the item.”

Offer your customers a free trial:

By doing this, you can melt away their resistance and show your lead that buying your  product or your service will help remove the cognitive dissonance they may feel (regret at having bought your product or service). Trial periods can dramatically increase your conversion rate. According to a study conducted by Zendesk, this can increase your conversion rate up to 30%.

Step 7: Specify how you'll offer a quality experience

Entering the third phase - “after the purchase” - having successfully converted potential  customers into actual buyers, you have to make sure that your customers become fans of your brand, so they become loyal customers, who will return to buy more products or use your service again and again. 

Let’s look at Apple, one of the benchmarks in this type of marketing. When they launch a  new product or a simple variation of a product, their tribe of fans flood the streets to line up in front of their nearest Apple Stores to get the latest product. 

So, what has Apple done and what can you do to make this phenomenon happen? The key  is in selling what your customers need and being innovative in offering them real value in the best way. 

Sell what your customers want but also what they need

You can offer the strongest anti-theft backpack in the world, but your clients also need it to  be beautiful and easy to open and close. Your clients may want the most complete online software to create web pages, but they need it to be easy to use, or come with an effective and accessible web support service. 

Create an innovative way to sell your product or service

Innovation does not always have to be in the product or service itself. You can sell an  ordinary product but come up with an innovative way to set its price, distribute it, package it or promote it. 

For example, Ikea launched their Catalog application in 2013. This not only allows its  customers to see the furniture catalog (ordinary product) but they can also see how each piece would fit in their domestic spaces thanks to augmented reality (innovation).

Step 8: Brainstorm how to increase the lifetime value of  your customers

Life Time Value is a prediction of the accumulative monetary value that a business will  obtain throughout a relationship with a client or consumer. 

The Pareto Principle, also known as the 80/20 rule, proposes that 80% of your income  comes from 20% of your customers. Although these percentages are not exact, it is about identifying those customers that bring more value to your business, because they are either willing to pay more, buy more frequently from you, recommend your services, contribute winning ideas, or consume less resources you have. Once you’ve identify them, you have to  figure out how to increase their value. 

There are several methods you can use to “filter” your customers and identify which ones  are the most valuable in order to increase their value. 

Increase your prices

How long has it been since you increased the prices of your products or services? As  previously stated, if you are able to offer a value to your customers that goes beyond the price, increasing price a bit shouldn't be a problem for many of your customers, provided you give them a valid reason for doing so. 

Explain to them the benefits they'll get with your products or services and how this price  increase will allow them to enjoy your future improvements or service value. Inevitably, some of your clients will leave, but those who remain will be the most valuable and you will have managed to increase their value even more by raising the prices. 

Use Upselling tactics

Upselling is a sales technique that involves inducing a consumer to buy a more expensive  item once he has already bought a less expensive one from you one time more. Many times it also involves promoting more advantageous products packs, services or offers, when buying complementary products. 

Surely you’ve been to a fast food restaurant and they have asked you if you wanted to add  fries or a larger drink to your meal for an additional charge. Better yet, if you use Spotify to listen to music, you have encountered this type of message when you signed up for the free plan: 

These are nothing more than upselling techniques. You can apply upselling to your  business to increase the lifetime value of your customers. A formula that usually works (and one that you have surely seen on Amazon) is to add a section to your website that says: “Users who bought (X) also bought (Y).”

Give your customers a reason to come back

Increasing how often your customers usually buy from you is also a solid marketing strategy  that you can apply to increase their value. Offering them a subscription option so that each month they can receive your products or services at a more advantageous price is a great way to do this. 

There are several types of business that, by nature, already lend themselves to a  subscription service. Utility contracts come to mind first but it is also possible to apply it to other types of business or products that involve a recurring purchase. 

Look at Harry's or The Dollar Shave Club, for example. These brands of razors have created  a subscription service for recurring products thus eliminating the need to make an individual purchase decision whenever a customer needs to purchase new blades, foam or shaving lotions.

Another way to get your customers back is through a reactivation campaign. Check your  database for past customers who have bought from you in a long time and then send them a message with a tempting offer like a coupon or a gratuity item to persuade them to make another purchase. 

Measure the performance of your strategies

A marketing plan is not a static document; you have to leave room for change and adapt it constantly. From all the strategies and channels you define, there will be some that will work better and others that will not work as well, so it's important to know how to measure the success of your actions to identify which ones you should improve and perpetuate, and which ones you should eliminate, in order to obtain more valuable customers. 

The key performance indicators that you should look at (and analyze periodically, either  monthly or weekly) are mainly the following: 

1. The number of leads

2. Your conversion rate

3. The average transaction value

4. Your break-even point

Step 9: Define your referral program

Do not offer weak or vague phrases like “guaranteed satisfaction” or “quality service” in  your messages. Explain what you mean precisely to give them the confidence they need to buy from you by mitigating their risk. For example, “Our certified technicians, will fix any type of breakdown in your appliance within 48 hours of submitting a claim. If we fail to live 

up to our guarantee, we will refund you double your cost on the item.”

Offer your customers a free trial:

By doing this, you can melt away their resistance and show your lead that buying your  product or your service is will mitigate their risk. Trial periods can dramatically increase your conversion rate. According to a study conducted by Zendesk, this can increase your conversion rate up to 30%. 

Word of mouth marketing is one of the most powerful strategies to improve the positioning  of a business and increase sales exponentially. According to a study by Nielsen, 92 percent of consumers believe more in the recommendations of friends and family than in advertising. 

However, many entrepreneurs are waiting for this phenomenon to happen naturally as a  result of the great quality of their product or service. The fact is that if you wait for positive reviews to come in on their own, it can take a long time to get results, so it's better to take action. 

Ask your customers to recommend your product or service in exchange for an incentive. For  example, an upgrade in their current service plan or a discount on future purchases.  

One of the most famous recommendation programs has undoubtedly been that of Dropbox, the popular cloud storage company. Dropbox offered more free space (500MB) for both the new customer and the referrer. This simple strategy allowed them to increase the number of registered users by 60%. 

Conclusion

Now you know how to make a strategic marketing plan for your company and how to  optimize the efforts and resources you allocate to marketing to grow your business. Remember that your marketing plan must continually adapt to the market and that your success can multiply if you optimize and renew your strategies based on the results of your key performance indicators. 

This Blog was based largely on an article by Kolau - https://www.kolau.ru