Kara Stanford
Strategic Marketing Consultant with over 25 years of experience.
CEO & Founder of The Marketing Spaces.
Kara Stanford
Strategic Marketing Consultant with over 25 years of experience.
CEO & Founder of The Marketing Spaces.
If you’re daunted by the thought of marketing planning, you aren’t alone. A shocking 67% of medium to small businesses* don’t have a marketing plan. Unfortunately, this is costing them because 72% feel that they don’t generate enough leads to achieve their business goals.
The secret to creating a successful marketing plan is to do it step by step. Once you have a basic ‘marketing pathway’ in place, you add to it and refine it.
Here are six key steps you can take to ensure your business has a solid marketing plan that consistently generates the leads it needs to achieve its goals.
Step 1. Be VERY clear about what you are selling
This sounds obvious, but so many businesses have Product/Services and Pricing Lists that are either non-existent or out of control. If you don’t know what you are selling and how much for, why should your potential customers?
Your Product/Service + Price list should be as clear as this:
Product/Service X sells for £100
Product/Service Y sells for £1,000
Product/Service Z sells for £2,000
When it is listed out like this, it also starts to tell you how to focus your marketing plan – on the Products/Services that are going to bring you the most money.
Step 2. Know WHO you are selling to
Have very clear groups of customers (segments) in mind. Your marketing has to be designed to appeal to them – if you are unclear about who they are, what they like, dislike, how to engage them, how to relate to them etc then your marketing will fail.
Your Segments need three levels of detail attached to them:
Level 1. A name that instantly allows you to start figuring out how to market to them
Level 2. A one page Persona that summarises who they are
Level 3. Research led, detailed info about them.
On our 5-week, Design a Successful Marketing Pipeline course, I always show course attendees how to do Level 3, providing them with a Workbook to work through to get that detail in place. It is crucial you really know your segments.
Step 3. Decide on your strategic marketing goals
Now, we can combine your Products/Services with your Segments to create strategic marketing goals.
These are the goals that state which products you want to sell to each group of customers (segments). The total amount you sell needs to add up to your business goal.
Here’s a simple example:
Goal: £100,000 turnover
£10,000 from selling 100 of Product/Service X to Segment One, “I need an instant solution”.
£50,000 from selling 50 of Product/Service Y to Segment Two, “I need some support”
£40,000 from selling 20 of Product/Service Z to Segment Three, “Take my problem away”.
Matching your Products/Services to your Segments allows you to create distinct Marketing Campaign Plans to reach each Segment in the way that gets the best result.
Step 4. Assess their alternatives
Your company doesn’t operate in a vacuum. Your prospective, and current, customers always have an alternative to what you offer them.
Now you know who your Segments are, assess what they might spend their money on to solve their problems. What are their alternatives to your Products / Services? Why are they better than you? Why are they worse? What can you learn from them?
Read this short article for more on how to figure out who your real competitors are – and what happens when you don’t.
Step 5. Be clear about why you are different to the competition
Let’s face it – your prospective customers are busy people. They’ll do some research (at the ‘Considering’ stage of the marketing pipeline) to figure out who to choose but, ultimately, it is YOUR responsibility to make sure they know WHY CHOOSE YOU.
This is called deciding on your Competitive Market Positioning. Why you are different, why they need to choose you, has to run throughout the whole of your marketing.
Your Segments are looking for the Services/Products you offer. It’s your job to show them why they should choose you.
Step 6. Have marketing communications at every stage
Now you know WHAT you are marketing, WHO to, and WHY they should choose you, plan out your Marketing Pipeline.
Start by making sure you have at least three pieces of marketing in place at EVERY stage.
Watch this short video for an overview of each stage of the Marketing Pipeline.
You need to take your Segments from being UNAWARE that your company exists to being LOYAL clients who rave about how amazing you are. That means offering them a constant flow of marketing communications that they like, value, and want to engage with.
But you have to do this in a way that takes them on that journey from Unaware to Loyal. Always make sure you have that next step in place – leading them to buy your Products/Services, and then giving them more once they have become a customer.
Final thoughts
Marketing Planning doesn’t need to be daunting or complicated – but it does require thought, research, and following these steps for it to be effective.
My free, ‘Guide to Pipeline Marketing’ shows you how to think about, plan, and then set up your marketing. It’s been transforming businesses. Grab yours now!
*Source: Marketing 360 Assessment, The Marketing Centre
