Marketing is the planning and action of promotional activities that result in the selling of products or services.
Marketing includes elements of:
- Public relations.
- Advertising and market research.
- Understanding your competition.
- Strategically positioning yourself in your chosen market segment.
- Social and digital media engagements.
- Content creation.
- Marketing communication and more…
Your marketing strategy is the road map you will use on a day-to-day basis to let potential customers know that your business exists. Marketing messages should be tailored to your customers and highlight the problem that you solve for them in a concise and effective manner. Marketing efforts are normally campaign-driven and should take your potential customers on a journey with your business.
The first step to creating your marketing plan is gaining a clear understanding of what your business and marketing objectives are. Once you have defined what you want to achieve, it's much easier to implement an actionable plan to achieve those goals and objectives.
Before you can start to market effectively, you need to understand who you are selling to. Who is your ideal customer? Where are you likely to find them? What platform would you use to let them know your business exists? Understanding your customers’ perceived needs and wants will help you not to waste marketing spend and make sure that you make more sales.
Once you know who you want to sell to, it’s a good idea to do a competitor analysis. Who offers the same services as you? What are your differences and similarities? It is generally best practice to begin by comparing 5 local and 5 international companies. This allows you to have full oversight of what you can implement and improve on, and how you can position yourself more effectively in the marketplace. When you know what your competitors are doing and what they are not doing, it’s much easier to create a unique selling point (USP) for your customer base.
Once you know who your competitors are, you will be able to identify what your USP is. What makes your business better than the rest? Cheap pricing is never a USP. What is the secret sauce that makes your competitors' customers come to you?
Once you know who you are selling to, the next step is to choose the social and traditional platforms you will use and then plan your media in advance. Creating a monthly content calendar that you can use to schedule your marketing material is a cornerstone of successful marketing tactics.
To assist you in creating a marketing plan that works, I have created this step-by-step workbook to help you to create your marketing plan.
Download plan here:
