Having a great marketing plan is the first step to doing good marketing. As obvious as it may seem, not too many people bother to plan, although most agree that having a good plan is the foundation for meeting your marketing goals.
There are many interesting sayings in this regard: “bad planning on your part does not constitute an emergency for me” or, “who fails to plan, plans to fail…” or perhaps even more explicit: “nobody plans to fail, but fails because they don’t.” to plan”.
If you haven’t yet started that big exercise of writing your marketing plan, now is your chance.
Here I propose:
5 Keys To Your Marketing Plan
1. Identify Your Business Goals
Before defining what to do you have to define your objectives, that is, where you want to go. Once that point is defined, it is much easier and more effective to draw a “map” of the necessary route to get there. After all, a marketing plan is a road map that shows us the way.
Use this stage to assess your goals against the latest market realities. Are you trying to stay on the same wavelength as the market or are you trying to produce real innovations? There is nothing wrong with one position or the other, but choosing one clearly propels you in another direction.
Also do not forget that beyond establishing purely business objectives (sales, referrals, conversion rate, etc.), it is necessary to take into account the people who work with you, for example: what skills does the market require today and how can I help my people to acquire them quickly?
2. Evaluate, Without Anesthesia, What Worked For You And What Didn’t
If you made a marketing plan last year, now is the time to identify which points were successful and which were not. It is also convenient to analyze what conjectures you worked on at that time. Have those assumptions changed this year? Up the ante on the tactics that worked and drop the tactics, methods and processes that turned out to be losers. And it redirects people to the areas where they are most needed.
One of the most common marketing mistakes is forgetting to determine what you have to stop doing since we tend to focus on what we have to do.
3. Develop The Appropriate Marketing Mix For Your Business
To achieve a higher return on marketing investment (money, work hours, effort) you have to take the objectives that you defined in the first step, the tactics or procedures that worked and those that did not work in the second step and, based on that analysis, propose your marketing mix to achieve the objectives of the following year.
Many people are afraid to get into that topic, considering that they do not adequately reflect the reality of future market reaction. However, they are a great starting point for trying to define, with some scientific basis, the following question: How much should you invest in each marketing tactic? Then you can make adjustments based on the results and on your observations of some data that you had not taken into account.
Remember that the objective of a marketing plan is to have a map that guides us along the best path to achieve the proposed results. When we stray from the path, the map can lead us back on the right path.
4. Define Your Content Strategy
.Define a content strategy based on the needs of your customers at each stage of the purchase cycle. (Check the frequently asked questions, observations or comments left on other sites or blogs, forums, etc. on the subject.)
.Distribute that content on the channels your customers frequently visit. From your own blog, third-party blogs interested in publishing your content, Facebook pages, Twitter, etc.
Once you have identified the needs of your customers, you will find that trying to sell in the traditional way consumes more time and money than trying to engage your target through stories about your brand, the people who make it, tips for use, news from interest and everything that can make life easier for your customers.
It’s not about being altruistic , it’s about building trust and providing value, which will ultimately turn in your favor and grow your business. You must structure your articles to gain visibility and traffic to your website. In other words, you must learn to write for the Web .
5. Define A Marketing Approach That Consistently Works
People’s needs never stop or take vacations. If you don’t continuously produce content that helps your customers, someone else will… The benefits of this strategy is being able to reach customers at all times without necessarily being available at all times. Another benefit is a continuous source of qualified referrals at a very low acquisition cost.
Conclusion
In summary you have to:
.Produce a continuous flow of new clients
.Focus your efforts on helping your clients from the first moment and you will earn their trust
.Personalize your marketing and produce higher conversion rates
.Get more referrals, at a lower acquisition cost, throughout the year.
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