How To Create The Marketing Plan Your Business Needs
Your business marketing plan is like a script for a group of actors or a score for an orchestra. It helps everyone know what’s coming next, what needs to be prepared and how things might work with another element added.
It’s a pretty vital document for raising brand awareness, connecting with your audience, generating leads and creating sales.
Don’t have a marketing plan?
Then I’m guessing you probably find your marketing a bit confusing and often feel on the back foot when it comes to the crucial times of the year that you should really be promoting your business.
So, let’s take a look at how an official marketing plan can help your business and how you can create one that produces great results.
How To Create The Marketing Plan Your Business Needs
What Does A Marketing Plan Do?
A marketing plan helps you to:
- Create marketing that aligns with your overall business goals
- Ensure you don’t miss critical opportunities for your business, such as important sale times or when potential customers will be searching for similar services
- Plan your advertising strategically throughout the year to maximise your return on investment
- Plan your budget, so you don’t run out of advertising dollars before a key time of year like Black Friday or Christmas
- Be consistent across all your advertising, including social media, your website and print advertising for a cohesive message.
- Reduce the stress of advertising and marketing because you already know roughly what you will be promoting
How To Build Your Marketing Plan
So, how do you create the kind of marketing plan that achieves all the things I just mentioned? Well, you follow these five steps…
1. Start with the big blocks
The best place to start is to put in the big blocks where you are guaranteed to market your products or services. This includes times of the year like Christmas, New Year, Easter, Matariki, Black Friday or other public holidays that are relevant to everyone.
They are times when you are likely to want to jump on sales opportunities. Even if your business doesn’t necessarily have a direct link to these holidays, you can still tie in your marketing with a simple message like Happy Holidays and information about your opening hours over the period.
2. Put in things relevant to your industry
The next thing to schedule is the specific times of the year that are relevant to your business. Here are some ideas for different industries:
- Accountants and bookkeepers – the end of the financial year and any times when regular returns like GST are due
- Landscapers and gardeners – seasonal changes that when you should do certain garden tasks like tree pruning or planting
- Maintenance companies – seasonal times when it’s best to do household tasks like window washing or gutter cleaning
- Mechanics – the lead-up to winter is a good time to highlight the importance of getting cars checked over before winter or a service before your summer road trip
- Hairdressers and beauticians – apart from party season, you might also target school ball times and or even seasons when people might be looking for a change of look
- Life coaches and fitness/nutrition coaches – around the New Year, people are often looking to make a change. A few months into the year might also be a good target as new habits and resolutions tend to waver. Plus, getting ready for summer is always a good one.
Remember that you want to start your marketing for these times a little ahead of the actual period. That way you can get ideas and information into people’s minds in time for them to act or purchase.
3. Add anything relevant to your specific business
Now it’s time to add in the things that are specific to your own business that fall outside of standard holiday periods – such as an anniversary of your founding. Depending on how big your business is and how you approach your marketing, you might also want to include personal milestones for your team, like celebrating each team member’s birthday or joining date.
4. Look for gaps to fill
Once you have all these building blocks in your calendar, you’ll be able to see where you have gaps. These can be filled with what we in the marketing business call evergreen content. That’s content that can be used at any time of year and is always relevant.
For example, a painter might share some tips for choosing paint colours or a dentist could share tips for correct teeth cleaning at home. You can also consider whether a promotion or competition would be a good way to fill a gap and boost sales. But remember, only do that if your business can afford it and you think you will get a decent return on your investment.
5. Consider your business goals
Once you have all the key dates in your marketing plan, you then want to align all of that with your focus for the year. Is it a year when you will build brand awareness, promote a certain product or service, release new items, consolidate what you have, or build stronger relationships with your audience and followers?
Each of these goals will require a different kind of content, so keep that in mind when creating the posts and advertising for your marketing plan.
One thing that’s important to remember…
Remember that your marketing plan is not set in stone. It’s a good guide, but if something crops up, you can always change things around. You don’t want to miss out on something topical because you already had another post scheduled.
Be flexible and capitalise on opportunities as they arise. You can always save some of the evergreen content for later in the year!
Social Media Ads + Marketing Plan = Success!
Social media ads are a key part of your marketing plan because they can help you achieve results that you may not get otherwise. In order to make them a success, you want to ensure the content of your ads and the target audience fit with the time of year and what you are promoting.
But, it can be hard to strategise for a whole year if you are pressed for time or you’re feeling overwhelmed. So, if you are struggling to figure out your marketing plan or how to set up your ads correctly, then it’s time to book a strategy session with me.
Together we can discuss your marketing and look at how your ads can fit into the plan throughout the year. I can also help you audit your current social media channels to ensure you are using the best channels for your audience and have everything set up correctly.
Book a free 30-minute call now to see if we are a good fit to work together 👉 click here to book a complimentary discovery call
