A lot of small businesses realize that marketing is essential to their business, but many often don’t have the time and experience to put together a formal marketing plan.
Here’s a template for a 2-page marketing plan that provides a clear framework to help focus your marketing efforts.
Download 2-Page Marketing Plan
Marketing Objectives:
Define clear objectives that marketing efforts should directly achieve that include:
Metric
Deadlines
Any context (geography, audience, etc.)
Examples:
Increase awareness (weak, difficult to track)
Generate leads
Increase new customers
Increase number of repeat customers
Increase sales for specific product
Increase email subscribers
Increase store visits
Increase social media followers / comments / shares
Increase sales from existing customers
Increase market share
Increase sessions / unique visitors / page views / duration on site
Decrease bounce rate
Ideal Customer:
First, you need to define the kinds of customers you want to attract.
Demographics
How would you describe them in terms of: Age, Gender, Family, Income, Occupation, Race
Geographic
Where do you live / work? Do you buy the product near/at work or home?
Interests
What do they like to watch/read/listen?
Where do they watch/read/listen to it?
What other interests do they have?
What are their thoughts on this product category?
Competition:
Answer these key questions on how you stack up against your competitors.
Who are your key competitors and what are their strengths and weaknesses?
How do you provide a better product/service compared to them?
Value Proposition:
The following is a simple framework for
Problem: What is the problem your customer is trying to solve?
Solution: How can your product solve that problem?
Benefit: What will happen as a result of using your product?
All you marketing efforts should seek to communicate that this value proposition in some way.
Tactics:
Following are the most common types of marketing vehicles. Brainstorm what tactics make the most sense for your situation and on the first page.
Website
Purpose: Increase knowledge of products
Traditional Advertising (TV, Radio, Newspaper, Magazine, Out-of-Home)
Purpose: Increase awareness to a broader audience
Online Advertising (SEM, Social Media Advertising)
Purpose: Drive traffic to website
Email Marketing
Purpose: Develop an ongoing relationship
Social Media
Purpose: Develop an ongoing relationship
Collateral
Increase knowledge of products
Events
Purpose: Engage with customers; Positioning
Sponsorships
Purpose: Positioning
Roadmap:
Finally, use the chart on the 2nd page to outline all your tactics over the year.
Budget: How much can you allocate for each tactic / month?
Timing: When are you going to run each tactic?
Metrics: What are you going to track to see if your marketing is working?