Crafting your own marketing plan strategy is not always easy. Many startup business owners struggle with creating and implementing their marketing plans. Some find the task daunting and don’t know where to start. However, you don’t need to worry!
By the end of this article, you’ll learn how to build an effective marketing plan strategy that you can implement easily in your business.
We’ll lay out the essential elements that you should include in your business strategy.
Essential Elements To Include In Your Marketing Plan Strategy
#1: Knowing Your Business
This first step in creating an effective marketing plan strategy should be simple. You, of all people, should know what your business is all about, right? However, this section is also tricky because you’ll need to go in-depth and build out the specifics of your ideal customers, goals, and tactics. Think of this step as the opportunity to create a general overview of your business through the SWOT (Strength, Weakness, Opportunity, Threat) analysis.
The SWOT Analysis will give you an in-depth overview of your business.
This strategy will help you identify the strengths and weaknesses of your business.
For example, let’s say you’re running a virtual coaching business. You can create a SWOT analysis marketing plan strategy out of the details of your brand.
Strength:
- You don’t need to rent a physical office space for your business.
- You can operate your business 24/7 or in a broader area/city/neighborhood.
- You can provide convenient and hassle-free services for your customers that work virtually.
Weakness:
- The value customers receive is something they can feel but not touch.
- Not having in-person communication might make it challenging to build rapport with some customers who need a little extra attention.
- You have more competitors in the online world.
Opportunities:
- Coaching is a growing market as more and more businesses are going online, and more people look for support to improve their lives.
- It’s easier to promote your services online thanks to the power of social media and connecting with influencers.
- You also have the opportunity to grow your business nationwide or worldwide due to it being entirely virtual.
Threats:
- You need to coordinate with your clients to ensure on-time scheduling as you’ve got less flexibility for late sessions in a virtual environment.
- Your business might be prone to fraud or canceled transactions from clients who are unhappy with a virtual service.
- Data privacy concerns might arise with customers interested in knowing how you’ll guard their data and sensitive information against hackers.
Drafting a SWOT analysis will help you know your business deeper. In turn, you’ll be able to identify what areas you need to improve in your marketing plan strategy.
Get your free SWOT Analysis Template here —-> DOWNLOAD NOW
#2: Identify Your Target Market
Now that you’ve done the SWOT analysis, it’s essential to identify your target audience. You can start listing your customer’s demographic information like gender and age. Not only that but make sure to include details like their purchasing decisions and behaviors.
Take note of what your bestselling products are. Why do people buy from you? What are the peak hours where you generate the most sales? Do customers spend their free time browsing your products, or do they know exactly what they want? What challenges do they encounter while doing business with you? Dig into what information you can find and build customer avatars to represent your target marketing with great detail.
#3: Studying Your Competitors
The next step in building a great marketing plan strategy is to study your competitors. It is essential to identify how well your business will do in a tight, competitive industry. Are your competitors offering huge discounts and promos every month but slow to deliver service?
Knowing these pieces of information will help you differentiate the products and services you offer.
After studying your competitors, it’s essential to note the enormous differences between the competition and your business. You can use these differences to make your business stand out from the crowd. Strive to offer something new to your customers that is unique. For example, you can offer same-day or express shipping for free. Or perhaps you could provide workbooks or materials to support your coaching programs. Offer something new and enticing features that your customers can’t resist.
#4: Setting Goals
Now that you have the necessary information, you can now formulate goals to draft your marketing plan strategy. Set your business goals to boost your company’s strengths and opportunities.
You can also build goals to address your business’ weaknesses and threats. Write specific objectives to keep track of your progress and milestones as you implement your marketing plan.
#5: Outlining Your Marketing Plan Strategy
After defining your goals, you can now start outlining your marketing plan strategy. Make sure to record your starting point, action plan, timeframe, and results. Doing this will help you determine whether or not you’re successful in your marketing strategy.
Here’s an example below:
Goal: Increase social followers on Twitter to 2000 by next month
Starting Number: 1000
Action Plan:
- Be active on Twitter by publishing posts and sharing content at least once a day.
- Interact with your followers by responding to at least 20 comments a day and grow their curiosity by asking questions.
- Host a weekly contest giving away a free product to encourage participation from the audience.
Conclusion
Creating an effective marketing plan strategy might be daunting, but it’ll serve as the blueprint and blood of your business. Having a detailed marketing plan will help you achieve crucial goals and milestones, like increasing your business leads and sales.
