How to write a Marketing Plan

A lot of businesses are wary of the “Marketing Plan.” Too often, they envision it as a big binder stuffed full of useless data collected to impress people. In this vision, there is a complicated chart filled with dates, names of responsible people, milestones and gibberish about CPM, gross ratings points and Nielsen ratings. They dismiss the need for a plan because they have a few sitting on the shelf collecting a thick cover of dust.

So I developed a more streamlined version - one that takes up just 2 or 3 pages and is made up of bullet points. No charts, no spreadsheets, no executive summary. For me, and for my clients, it is a far more useful and workable document that quickly outlines where we are going and what we are going to do to get there. 

Here is a brief rundown of what goes in to the average marketing plan:

Background summary - this is a one paragraph description of why we are doing this. It includes a brief history of the situation and why the plan is being created.

Goals - it is imperative to list out what you are hoping to achieve. Be specific, create those SMART goals that will keep you accountable.

Target Audiences - who is it that you are trying to get to take action? Are there internal audiences, too? Think about vendors and any stakeholder that should be considered.

Key Messages - what are the 2 or 3 things that you want your audiences to know and remember.

Strategies - in a broad way, how are you going to approach this and reach your goals. Are you going to create a series of events, or create a website or develop a multimedia campaign? Think 30,000 foot level here. Make sure your strategies link directly to your goals and that you have at least one strategy for each goal.

Tactics - what specific things are you going to do to achieve your goals. Here is where most people start, unfortunately - but this is where things like print ad campaigns, podcasts and brochures belong. Make sure you have developed at least one tactic for each strategy, although typically you will have several. This is the task list and it really isn’t possible to create it until you’ve done the other things first.

Budget - how much are you planning to spend? How do you want to apportion that among the strategies.

Measurement and Evaluation - how, specifically, will you track results? How will you keep you and your team accountable for results? Will you do a survey, count noses at a special event, track media coverage?

That’s it. It shouldn’t take more than a few hours to think through it if it is your own business. But if you need some help, just contact me and I would be happy to work with you to create your business marketing plan. E-mail me at Kim@DeppeCommunications.com.

Public relations is still a good marketing tool

I love marketing online for a lot of reasons, but especially because it is so cost effective for many of my clients. I like the immediate feedback you can see with analytics programs and the ability to make changes quickly if things are working. But good, old-fashioned PR is still a great tool for many companies and equally cost effective. Case in point: I recently helped a local company create an event to raise awareness of the new business. By holding a grand opening event and creating a compelling story, the press releases got immediate media attention and generated a wonderful Sunday story. The result was not only that the business got great coverage, but there were people waiting in line when she opened her doors that very day. Immediate feedback, immediate sales. The great part is the lingering effect that the event will have. People who were there will tell others. The newspaper story will be out on the internet for a long, long time. I have shared the coverage and the photos through my social media sites and people are talking about it days later. Public Relations is a powerful tool in your marketing tool belt, and it works.

If you would like to learn more about the Black Horse Winery in Orange Park, FL, visit my Facebook site: www.facebook.com/DeppeCommunications.