Easily Build Next Year’s Marketing Plan in 3 Steps

Whether you’re planning your company’s annual marketing plan for the first time or the 30th time, it can be a big undertaking. How do you know what will fly at you in mid-June of next year while you’re planning this Fall? You don’t necessarily know what surprises will arrive to you, but you’ll be a hell of a lot better prepared to tackle whatever comes your way by having a framework in place.

This is my 8th “season” of creating an organization’s marketing plan, and it has evolved from focusing mainly on tactics (the most common mistake in creating a marketing plan), to now focusing intently on our goals and establishing strategy to meet them. If you’re planning for next year and you haven’t started yet, get on it ASAP; I typically begin with preliminary plans in mid-September.

Here’s a quick rundown on how I’ve created an organization’s annual marketing plan.

Preliminary Marketing Planning Components:

Determining your brand is paramount in creating a successful marketing plan. Already there? Move on to the next portion. If not, read this!

• Your Brand. Who are you? What are your Brand Tenets (Target Market, Vision, Mission, Positioning Statement)?
  • This is a tremendously important component of every organization’s marketing strategy, because it determines the guiding principles that drive strategy, including where you are, where you want to go, and what you can offer. Hopefully your organization already has this established. If not – there’s more to come regarding this in a future post.
    • Taking it a step further: I highly recommend documenting situational logo usage, color palette, fonts, and more.
  • Target Market: An immensely important component of your Brand strategy: this is the group that you’re promoting your products or services to.
    • Example: Automotive Manufacturers that do $750m+ in annual revenue. It can a lot more detailed than this.
  • Personas:
    • A representation of the people within your target markets. Always remember that people are the ones actually making decisions to buy from you.
      • Example: Facility Manager Molly
        • Age: Mid-Forties
        • Gender: Female
        • Possible Spend: $500,000/year facility budget
        • Attitudes: Quick solutions
        • Behaviors: Searches for quick-fixes for her facility via her smartphone.
  • Vision: What your organization strives to be.
  • Mission: The goal and purpose of an organization.
  • Positioning Statement: Used internally as a guide, the positioning statement documents your target, their need, your offering, your point of differentiation, and reasons to believe you can deliver upon your promise.

3 Main Components of a Marketing Plan:

1. 1. Organizational Goals/Objectives:

      • Rank your goals/objectives in terms of importance to the organization. I suggest 3-5 goals/objectives. Some goals/objectives are financial, market-share related, or growth-centric.

        • Example: $5.5m annual eCommerce revenue.

 

1. 1. Marketing Strategy:

      • Your marketing plan of action to reach an overall goal/objective. Strategy doesn’t equal tactics. You can buy or do a tactic. You cannot buy or do a strategy.

        • Example: Drive prospects to website to make purchase(s)

 

1. Marketing Budget /  Marketing Tactics:

I lumped these 2 planning components components together for a reason. Why? Because with both you have to consider what you/your marketing team is capable of.

• • Are you working with a $50,000 marketing budget, or a $50 million marketing budget?
    • Every organization has its own philosophy in setting its marketing budget – even in terms of allocation by quarter or year – but I think this article is a great starting point for those new to marketing budget determinations.
  • Marketing Tactics are specific marketing actions taken to support strategy.
    • Example: Writing blog content to drive SEO for website to be found by prospects.
    • Tactics should be scheduled throughout your planning period. For example, if blogging is one of your tactics, perhaps you’ll plan to publish a blog every 2 weeks to support your strategy of driving prospects to your website.
    • Tactics are done (emails sent) or bought (PPC ads).
    • Considerations should be made whether you have sufficient in-house talent and bandwidth, or whether you must work with a 3rd-party partner (like an agency) in order to enact tactics to support your marketing strategy.

In Summary, Easily Create a Marketing Plan by Determining:

1. The Organization’s Goals 
   • Financial/Market Share/Etc.
     • Example: Increasing sales X%
2. Marketing Strategy
   • Increase Awareness/Drive Leads/Thought Leadership/Etc.
   • Example: Increasing brand awareness X%.
3. *Marketing Tactics:
   • Trade Shows/SEO/PPC/Social Media/Etc.
     • Timing and Frequency of Tactics Matter!
   • Example: Launching a SnapChat account and engaging with followers daily.

Questions? Shoot me a comment.

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Tonight’s Box Score: 32 points, 5 boards, 6 dimes, 0 Blocks, 3 Steals, 1 Turnover.