It won’t fail because you’re going to keep updating, tweaking, and making the improvements that are needed to reach your objectives, and continue to be successful in the future.

But why do you need to create a marketing plan, anyway?

So before you put your marketing plan together, you need to identify your target audience, and then identify with them. That means you need to understand who you are trying to attract and get them to go to the right door (or page), at the right time. How old are they? What’s their socioeconomic status? Where do they get their information? What platforms are they on, where do they go to solve their problems or get their needs met? Once you identify all of this, then you are ready to start showing your blueprints to your builder, and breaking ground!

Now that you have identified your target audience, what do you want them to do? What’s success look like? This will depend on your company, your ambitions, your capabilities, and your needs. Maybe you are looking for more brand awareness, or website clicks, or conversions, or referrals, or sales (the list can go on)? You need to uncover, and document what your goals are, or how will you know that you have reached them?

You’re probably familiar with KPI’s (Key Performance Indicators) and SMARTER (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, Time-Specific, Ethical, and Recorded)   goals. These are the gems you are going to be using to evaluate and enhance your marketing tactics as you go. Observe, report, track, and change (or don’t change if something is working. By tracking and assessing the performance of your strategy, you are empowering yourself to pivot, tweak, and make the moves that are going to make your company great!

But that doesn’t mean reaching them 11-13 ways at once, or in one way. Marketing is a long-term investment, not necessarily a pull handle that dispenses awards on demand.

Remember your target audience? You know now where they get their information, and where they are spending their time. So you know you need to create a rich, dynamic marketing campaign to reach them, which will include the right mix of the special ingredients that it will take to appeal to them.

It’s a mix of science and intuition that’s going to make your marketing plan a success, and because you understand your audience, you are going to understand what media, what platforms, and what outlets are going to give you the best opportunity to reach them (and with KPI’s and SMARTER goals, you’re going to keep tweaking it, until you get it perfect)!

There’s so many platforms, apps, outlets, mediums and ways to reach people, how do we know we are using them correctly when it comes to digital marketing?

But that doesn’t mean reaching them 11-13 ways at once, or in one way. Marketing is a long-term investment, not necessarily a pull handle that dispenses awards on demand.

Remember your target audience? You know now where they get their information, and where they are spending their time. So you know you need to create a rich, dynamic marketing campaign to reach them, which will include the right mix of the special ingredients that it will take to appeal to them.

It’s a mix of science and intuition that’s going to make your marketing plan a success, and because you understand your audience, you are going to understand what media, what platforms, and what outlets are going to give you the best opportunity to reach them (and with KPI’s and SMARTER goals, you’re going to keep tweaking it, until you get it perfect)!