So You Have a Marketing Plan… Now What?

Congratulations!
You have officially done the impossible. 

You have created a marketing plan, and now you are ready to boldly go where your company hasn’t quite yet gone before, and make your marketing plan come to life!

Your Marketing Plan

So far, you have identified your target audience, and you have your organization’s strengths, weaknesses, and opportunities for growth. You have some objectives that you are going to aim for to reach your goals, and you understand the specific behaviors, actions, and the strategy that you’re going to take to take your organization from where you are, to where you want to be. 

But you’re going to have to prove that, to the bean counters and CFO’s and stakeholders, so how do you do that?

Customer Acquisition Cost (C.A.C.)

Customer Acquisition Cost, or CAC for short, is the cost associated with acquiring each new customer. This is one of those “the scoreboard doesn’t lie” kind of scenarios where your feelings don’t really matter because the calculator doesn’t care about your feelings. So how do we calculate this cost, so that we are prepared to give the calculator what it wants? 

The good news is, this is a pretty straight forward calculation to make! 

The CAC can be calculated by dividing all the costs spent on marketing expenses by the number of customers acquired in the period the money was spent. (Ex. If a company spent $500 on marketing in a year and acquired 500 customers in the same year, their CAC is $1.00). 

So in this manner, you see how you are going to be able to continually keep up with how your marketing efforts are paying off.

Customer Lifetime Value (C.L.V.)

The next thing we are going to look at is your Customer Lifetime Value or CLV. The CLV is a really powerful way to identify who your most valuable customers are, so that you can better understand how to attract more of them, and keep them! 

The best way to estimate the Lifetime Value is to plug the actual or estimated numbers into an equation: (Average Value of a Sale) x (Number of Repeat Transactions) x (Average Retention Time in Months or Years for the Typical Customer).

(Example.) The Lifetime Value of a gym member who spends $20 every month for 3 years. The value of what customer would be: ($20) x (12 months) x (3 years) = $720 in total revenue or $240 per year.

You might be surprised by what you find out by running this little calculation, so be prepared to adjust, shift, and pivot if needed to capture more of the good stuff!

Content Calendar

This is your map for getting the rubber to meet the road!

You have your strategy, you have your talent secured, so now it’s time to organize those behaviors and actions into a calendar that will keep you focused, moving forward, and on track! 

The key here isn’t to fill up your calendar with details a year in advance, but instead, the idea is to use the calendar as a prompt, and an accountability buddy to make sure you are reaching your objectives. What does this look like?

See, the idea is to document that you are going to engage in certain behaviors on a regular basis. No micromanagement, just inspiration, and a healthy dose of accountability. This gives you the discipline and the freedom that you and your team are going to need in order to learn from wins and losses, adjust to changing situations and scenarios!

Task Tools

If it feels like there is going to be a lot going on, and a lot of people doing a lot of different things in order to execute your marketing plan, you’re right! 

That’s why it would be a good idea to get familiar with one or more of all the brilliant task management software there is out there, including Asana, Slack, and more! 

It’s a great way to collaborate, say accountable, and stay in the know when you are having lots of different team members working on different portions of the same projects.

Resource Allocation

That’s just a fancy term for “how are we going to get this thing done?”

Rome was not built in a day, and there are only 24 hours in each one of those days, so you are going to have to allocate your resources appropriately. Understanding how long it takes each one of your team members to complete a task, knowing how much lead time they need, and in what order things need to occur is crucial to delivering on your objectives not only for your customers but for yourself! The more time you take at the beginning to understand this, the more time and frustration  (and tears in the break room) you will save in the long run.

Team Work

Marketing is part science, part art. And as with all artists, your team is going to need proper feeding and care to perform at their best (literally, studies suggest that having food available in the office boosts productivity and reduces turnover rates). 

How do you do this? 

Take time to take time out, and get your team together to get to know each other better! Make lunch dates for the team (here at Peppershock Media we call it FUNCH!), play games, get people up and moving, and get those creative juices flowing. The harmony and solidarity that comes out of these simple things will bear fruit for years to come, and keep your team intact, happy, and inspired for the long haul. 

So now that you know, “now what?” go forth and launch your marketing plan!

If you need help, want to learn more, or need to hire someone to create the things we have mentioned above, please don’t hesitate to reach out and schedule a 15-minute FREE consultation with Rhea Allen, CEO and co-founder of Peppershock Media!