A New Year can sometimes mean new resolutions. So make one of your business resolutions to have a comprehensive marketing plan. Clearly outline your business objectives, marketing strategies and tactics. Not sure where to start? Here are a few simple simple steps to follow:
STEP 1: Review Past Performances
Start by reviewing the previous year’s marketing activities and results. Ask the question, “What’s different about last year’s performance compared to the previous 12 months?” For most people, the answer will be “nothing” or “not much difference” and if this is you, well, then it’s time to change tactics. You can’t afford to keep doing the same thing. The competitor landscape change every day, and your marketing strategies need to evolve with it.
STEP 2: List Out Your Marketing Components
Once you’ve figured out what worked and didn’t work, develop a marketing plan document. List out the sectors and components that are important for your business. This could include things such as advertising (both print and digital), branding materials, events, social media involvement, Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) and more. Maybe answer some of these questions:
- What would you like to do to market your business?
- What are the things you’d like to grow more this year? Is it brand recognition? Is it lead-generation? Is it to rank higher on Google?
STEP 3: Define Your Strategies, Tactics & Budgets
For each component listed, outline the strategy and tactics to carry out the marketing plan. For example, if your online advertising strategy is to drive more traffic to the website via paid advertising, your tactic may include Google Adwords as well as Facebook ads. Or maybe you’d like to have a stronger brand presence in which case your tactic may involve social media marketing and content marketing.
Here are some of the different online marketing tactics you could use:
- Paid Advertising – Google AdWords and Social Media Advertising such as on Facebook and Instagram can help assist in targeting relevant group of people. Think about which specific pages of your website you’d like to lead people to go and which medium best fits your target market.
- Social Media Marketing – assess which social media platform is best for your industry. Just because everyone has a Facebook account doesn’t necessarily mean that your business will appeal to Facebook users. Keep Facebook for interesting light reads and leave the corporate articles on LinkedIn. Don’t be afraid to pull the plug on the medium that hasn’t worked for you in the past. It’s always best to keep your Social channels fresh rather than having them there for the sake of having them there.
- Content Marketing – Quality content is crucial to keep the visitors of your website engaged. Ensure that services listed on your site are current and relevant to the readers. Clean up or archive any old articles and focus on keywords and content that will help push your marketing effort for the year. Use great visuals in photos and typography.
- Video Marketing – this one takes more resources than the others as you’d want to have a professional and well-made video to ensure that the ad will capture the audience’s attention. This tactic could be quite powerful as it could affect the audience’s emotion which will drive them to take action.
For each tactic listed allocate a minimum budget for each tactic and allow adjustments to be made throughout the year.
Now that you’ve got some pointers we hope you’ll start developing your online marketing plan. Of course, if you’re stuck or not sure where to begin you can contact us for a marketing audit.
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