Do you get stressed with the idea of creating a marketing plan? If so, you’re not alone. Creating a marketing plan can be overwhelming. How do you know where to start? What’s the best way to create a marketing plan?
Should you create it from scratch or use a template? Speaking of templates, where can you find a good one? If you’re interested in creating a plan for your business, you’re in the right place. This guide will walk you through the process of creating an effective marketing plan for your business.
First, Set Your Mission And Your Goals
This is the first, and perhaps the most important thing you need to do. It’s natural to want to kick-start the process immediately, but you need to have a clear idea of what you want to accomplish.
First, establish your goals and objectives.
What do you want your marketing to accomplish? How many email subscribers do you want? How many blog subscribers? How much revenue do you think you can generate with your online activity?
Most importantly, how do you measure success? Do you want to sell more products? Do you want to generate more leads? Do you want to increase your ranking on Google?
Do you want to build a list of raving fans and brand evangelists that will help you spread the word about your business?
Begin thinking big and then set small, measurable, and realistic goals to get you there.
After you’ve carefully outlined these set goals, they’ll help steer you in the direction of these next steps.
Step 1: Know Your Audience
Who is your ideal customer? And no… the answer shouldn’t be everyone! Why? You may need to appeal to everyone, yes, but the person you want to focus on first is the person who is most likely to make a purchase from you.
This person can be identified by age, gender, income, location, profession, hobbies, interests, etc. The more you know about what makes your perfect prospect tick, the more effective you’ll be at appealing to them.
Focus on one group of people at a time. Learn what your audience wants and loves, then figure out how you can deliver it to them at a premium price.
The more you find out about your target audience, the more likely you’ll be able to come up with a killer offer that will compel them to buy from you.
Step 2: Choose The Best Content Channels
After you’ve identified your ideal customer, the next step is to find out what platform they hang out on the most. There are a ton of online marketing options available (aside from Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and the like).
You can make your own list, but the point is to know what platforms make up your channel mix (this is very important). Once you’ve made your list, figure out how the channels fit into your online marketing strategy.
Step 3: Decide On The Type Of Content For Each Chosen Channel
After deciding the best channel(s) to reach out to, or engage with, your prospective customers, the next step is to determine what type of content you’re going to use on the channel.
Will you use a short 15-second video ad? Will you create a podcast? Will you create a blog post? Or a testimonial video? How about an image or a gif?
The answer to these questions will depend on your business. Test out different types of content and see what works best for your audience.
The type of content you share will also depend on the channel you choose. For example, Twitter is predominantly a text-based platform, so your content should be mostly text-based, too.
Step 4: Create A Content Marketing Calendar
Like an editorial calendar, your content calendar will help keep you organized. It will also help you prioritize your content, and will allow you to plan ahead of time what sort of content works best for both you and your audience.
But how do you come up with a content marketing calendar?
Here are a few important things to note when creating your content calendar:
A) Decide on the content you’re going to share on a channel-by-channel basis.
This includes topics, themes, and types of content (videos, images, GIFs, text, etc.). You can also use this as an opportunity to experiment and adapt to your audience.
B) Decide how often you’ll post the content you’re going to share on a channel-by-channel basis.
Will you share a piece of content every day? Or every other day? Or once a week? Or twice a week? The answer will depend on your audience and the type of content you’re sharing, but you need a specific schedule for each channel.
C) Schedule each post on your calendar.
Follow the best times to post content that are generally outlined & updated by several sites. If you work ahead and schedule the content ahead of time, you’ll relieve a lot of last-minute stress. You can use a calendar, a spreadsheet, or even a specialized content-planning app.
You know you’re creating killer content when everyone’s talking about it. Think of content as having a life of its own. And while the content is in the public eye, you should be doing everything you can to keep it alive.
The more attention you can generate for your content and your business, the more opportunities you’ll get to connect with your audience.
Step 5: Allocate Resources
To optimize your content marketing efforts, you must be able to allocate the right resources to each task at hand. So the first step is to know your budget and how much you can allocate. After that, you need to decide on the right people who can help you create, distribute, and promote your content.
If you’re going to use a team to help you out, you’ll have to decide who you’re going to rely on for your content creation and who will be in charge of distributing it.
In summary, content marketing is a massive opportunity for small businesses and startups to get the word out about their products and services and drive sales. Now is the time to create your content plan for next year. While you’re at it, plan ahead and schedule posts so you can enjoy your Thanksgiving and Christmas break.
About Christy Kiltz
Christy Kiltz is the owner of Design! by Kiltz Internet Solutions and has been taking care of business owners online since 2001. Her digital agency is located in Southern Oregon and provides comprehensive online marketing services and technology solutions that free up business owners to focus on what they love to do instead.
According to Christy, “Service-based business clients come to us spinning their wheels trying to make money online. We form a partnership to turn their websites into lead-generating machines. Our White Glove Growth program is designed to help you get more leads and grow your business.”
In addition to building websites and offering technical support, Christy’s primary focus is education and empowerment. By toning down the “geek” and offering practical tools easily understood by non-technical folks, Christy opens the black box of technology with classes, webinars, and web tips developed to demystify digital marketing. With ease and a bit of humor, she reminds us that while technology continues to move forward at warp speed, many foundational marketing principles remain.
Christy Kiltz joins us as a regular contributor to share her digital marketing expertise with our business community. Enjoy her articles and commentaries!
Find out more about how Christy can help your business improve your online world.
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