After you have identified your goals for the year, you can create your strategic business marketing plan to define your daily habits and weekly tasks. Your marketing plan will allow you to reach the target clients who will help you achieve your goals. Once you have created your marketing plan, you can create and schedule your marketing daily habits and weekly tasks.
The first thing to consider in your marketing plan is your target market.
You need to define the characteristics of your ideal customer. Getting very specific on your ideal client will help you create the right messaging that attracts them. For example, what are their habits, goals, fears, buying decisions, values, etc.?
Examine your competition to see what they are doing.
Are their marketing tactics working? Do they convey a clear message? What are their marketing strengths and weaknesses? This research will help you decide what you want to do and what you want to avoid in your marketing.
You will need to determine a budget for your marketing efforts.
A percentage of revenue is usually used to determine the budget amount. However, the recommendations vary based on annual revenue total and industry. This article discusses the suggested percentages along with some alternative budgeting methods.
Having a budget for your strategic business marketing plan will allow you to determine where you will concentrate your marketing efforts. Notably, our clients have found social media, websites, blogs, newsletters, and email marketing effective.
Developing your marketing plan should determine where you want to concentrate your efforts now that you have established a budget.
Understanding your ideal client will help you determine what will be most effective. For example, where do they hang out on social media? A Gen Xer and a Millenial have different social platforms of choice.
Now you can set up your tasks to accomplish your marketing plan.
Breaking these tasks down to weekly actions with a deadline will make them easier to manage. Creating daily tasks from your weekly action will make it easier to accomplish. Then, add these tasks to your calendar. As you get started each morning, you can devote the necessary time for marketing to grow your business consistently.
Remember to track what is working and not working in your marketing plan.
Keep track of what marketing avenues are bringing in inquiries. It is good practice to ask new clients how they heard about you and should become a routine onboarding question.
Regularly review your strategic business marketing plan and make adjustments as needed.
Be sure to allow ample time to see if the tactic is working. Each marketing venue you choose will have an estimated length of time before you should see results. For example, email marketing to nurture your database is a long-term endeavor to keep you top of mind with your clients, but you may not see immediate results.
Examining what is working and making adjustments throughout the year will help you put your marketing dollars to good use. In addition, breaking down the large goals into monthly, weekly, and daily tasks now helps keep your tasks manageable. Placing these items on your calendar will help ensure you set aside the necessary time to execute your plan.
It is essential to keep your branding consistent throughout your marketing. You can review branding tips from this previous blog post.
Marketing is the key to your business growth. As Henry Ford said, “Stopping advertising to save money is like stopping your watch to save time.”
