A good marketing plan is essential for any business, no matter what industry it’s in. It helps you define your marketing goals, budget, and strategies clearly and realistically. However, many make the mistake of trying too many marketing tactics at once and spending more than they can afford. And that’s why they don’t succeed! So how can you prevent that? Simple: Creating a powerful marketing plan! What Is a Digital Marketing Plan? A digital marketing plan outlines your online marketing efforts’ goals, strategies, and tactics. It helps you align your advertising efforts with business objectives, measure performance, and optimize results. It can cover various channels, such as website, social media, email, SEO, PPC, content, video, and more. If you’re a business seeking to grow its online presence, reach more customers, and increase revenue, then it should be on your to-do list. How to Build Your Digital Marketing Plan How to Build Your Digital Marketing Plan
1. Marketing Plan Summary Here is where you want to delineate your vision and marketing strategy. Try including: Main marketing goals you want to achieve How your company has grown Next steps you plan to take as a business How your brand stands out from the competition, USP This summary should be brief and engaging to get a clear overview of your marketing plan without getting getting too caught up in details. 2. Action Plan In your action plan you’ll want to match each goal with a purpose and how you will measure each ones performance. Write a brief description of the initiative and its goal. Show how it aligns with your marketing objectives. Identify the target audience or market segment. Define KPIs to measure the performance. Estimate ROAS and prioritize initiatives. This will help you plan your growth initiatives effectively and efficiently. 3. Target Audiences To achieve your marketing goals, you need to customize targeting strategies for online traffic. This way, you can address specific needs and expectations. Next, define buyers personas and how you can stand out from your competitors. This helps you know what your customers want and how to reach them. Who are your customers? As a fictional profile of your ideal customer, you’ll want to create more than one buyer persona for different market segments. This supports personalizing your marketing campaigns and content audience needs and preferences. Here’s how to create buyer personas: Create market research using surveys, questionnaires, or interviews. Ask relevant questions to collect useful information. Understand how your product/service solves your audience’s pain points. Analyze and summarize your findings. Add the buyer personas to your marketing plan, describing their background, demographics, goals, pain points, desired features, and preferred content. Why is your product or service unique? To make a great marketing plan, you’ll need to know your competitors well. Learn from their market situation, team, marketing strategy, content, growth, customers, and market share. Thai gives you ground finding the best opportunities to help grow your business the right way and see where you can offer something they aren’t. Pro-tip: Write down what you found out about your competitors, especially products/services strengths and weaknesses. 4. Your Go-To Marketing Strategy You may think you have it all in mid, but here are questions to help you go over everything to ensure you’re not missing anything and can build a very clear picture. Set your goals and perform a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) Know your target market and choose the best channels to reach them Competitor analysis Create your unique value proposition (UVP) to show why your product or service is awesome Drill it down further to go into these details: How much is your product/service is worth? How does your product or service cater to customer pain points? What makes it special? What value does it bring the consumer? How do you charge for your product or service? How does your price compare to others? How does your price reflect the value you offer? Marketing your product or service: How will influence your product/service and who will make it happen? Where online will you find your ideal customers? What kind of content do you need to engage? What else can you add to your current marketing efforts to elevate brand awareness? 5. Advertising Spend Your digital marketing plan needs a budget section that reflects your budget and can keep tabs on allocated budget versus spend. You don’t want to overspend or underspend so keeping this balanced out makes a world of difference for your advertising success. 6. Marketing Platforms To choose the best marketing channels for your business, you need to know your ideal customers, your budget, and your products or services. You also need to research different channels and see how they fit your goals and audience. Some common channels are email, SEO, social media, content, and ads. Don’t waste your money and time on the wrong channels. Do your homework before you start marketing next year! 7. Automation, AI & Technology Choosing the right marketing tools and software that fit your business and team needs is crucial, be careful with opting for ones that “look good”. Consider this: How well do the tools integrate with what you have? How scalable are they with your business growth? How easy are they to use and learn? How much training and onboarding do they require? How secure are the tools/software for your data? Once you find the right tools, include them in your marketing plan and explain how they will help you achieve your goals. Take Your Marketing Plan Further Take Your Marketing Plan Further
If you want to take your digital marketing plan up a notch. Here are a few things to keep in mind before you make your plan. Define Mission & Values Your marketing plan should start with your mission and values. This shows your reader why you do what you do and how it aligns with your brand. Be specific and clear, but don’t exaggerate. This helps your reader understand your business objective, goals and plans better. Set KPIs To track your marketing goals, you need to set clear and measurable KPIs. These are the numbers and timelines that show how well your campaigns are working and if they meet your expectations. Some examples of KPIs are: X% ROAS X new leads/purchases X% increase of revenue increase X% lower bounce rate X more articles per week/month X new users through organic marketing 100 new followers each month on social media Setting your KPIs before you make your plan will help you communicate better and achieve more. State Your Marketing Strategy and Initiatives Your marketing plan should summarize your marketing strategy in key sections. Each section should show how to use a specific element to reach your goals and be engaging enough to make prospects curious and eager to learn more. For example, for content marketing, you should include: The content type: blogs, webinars, videos, infographics, ebooks, etc. The content volume: how often you’ll create and publish content The distribution channels: which social media platforms you’ll use The paid ads: how much you’ll spend and where you’ll place them The KPIs: how you’ll measure your success, such as traffic, conversions, leads, etc. Creating a Digital Marketing Plan for 2024 Creating a Digital Marketing Plan for 2024
A marketing plan is vital for your business’s success online (sorry but we have to be repetitive about it to help make it stick). It helps you align your goals with your business vision. It also supports you to test, measure, and optimize your marketing strategies to deliver on what your audience needs to engage them in the right way. Take advantage of this opportunity to grow your business. Download our free marketing plan template and follow this easy guide. Overwhelming much? It’s ok, we can help get you started!
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