Get Schooled on Marketing Strategy: 9 Simple Steps to Building Your Best Marketing Plan
23 January 2017
A marketing plan is your ultimate business guide
I love working with companies to build their strategic marketing plans. It’s one of my favourite jobs, and could be one of yours too! Planning lets you explore all facets of the business starting from the big picture all the way down to fine details. You might find the most rewarding part is seeing it all come together to deliver results based on your business objectives.
“If I had 9 hours to chop down a tree, I would spend the first 6 sharpening my axe.”
– Abraham Lincoln
Why plan – why not “Just Do It” like Nike says?
You don’t leave home without a destination in mind, Google Maps, and a mode of transportation. Essentially, you need to know where you’re going and how to get there when you begin a journey. The same is true of marketing: before you start a campaign, you need to know what you want to accomplish and how to get it done.
Major pitfalls when you don’t bother with planning
Imagine trying to generate sales with a single email blast, paying for a one-time print ad, or timidly dipping your toe into the social media pool. Feels like throwing spaghetti on the wall and seeing what sticks, right? Piecemeal approaches are neither effective nor efficient.
Another detriment of moving forward without a plan is that you may not move at all! Not having clear priorities generates analysis paralysis and you’ll feel you’re lacking strong guidance every time you need to make a decision, however great or small.
The true value of having a marketing plan
If you do have a marketing plan, it lets you weed out what is not important, discover opportunities you didn’t know existed, and prioritize projects. If you do the work, you’ll end up with a comprehensive strategic marketing plan that delineates your business, target markets, competitive advantages, marketing goals, and more. Imagine, how good will it feel to have direction to help plan your budget, resources, and timelines for a smooth execution?
9 elements of a great marketing plan
Since there’s a lot to cover in marketing planning, we’re going to give you the Coles Notes of marketing planning in part one of this series:
- Brand Summary: A comprehensive statement about your brand and business objectives.
- External Analysis: How do you stack up against your peers, competitors and market in general? What is your USP (unique selling proposition)?
- Internal Analysis / SWOT: What are you awesome at? What do you stink at? Explore all sane and crazy opportunities to come up with some winners.
- Target Markets & Messages: Segment and profile each customer group. This will inform your communications and targeted messages for each group.
- Marketing Goals: Determine what you need to accomplish (New markets? More leads?)
- Marketing Strategies: How will you reach each goal? This is the overall approach.
- Marketing Tactics: Detail out your strategy with a step-by-step action plan.
- Content, IT Platforms, and Communications Channels: Consider all communication channels and the IT platforms and content required to support them.
- Key Performance Indicators & Metrics: Simply put, “What gets measured gets managed.”
Challenge: Get Started NOW!
Creating a marketing plan can certainly be overwhelming when you sit down to a blank sheet of paper. Don’t get writers block: I want to challenge you to just get started! Write down the nine elements on paper (three headings per page) then jot down what you already know as fact. Pro tip: bullet points are fine.
If you’ve gotten that far, set up meetings, talk to internal stakeholders, customers and anyone else who can help you fill in the blanks. Give yourself time to do a good job and get it right.
Was all this overwhelming? If it was, that’s because there’s a lot to unpack here. Keep your eyes out for the next few posts. I’ll dive deep into the details of each marketing planning element.
