The persuasive power of a marketing plan

Wherever you want to go – whether you’re going on a journey or running a business – you need some sort of plan or roadmap for getting to your destination.

In business, that roadmap is your marketing plan. This should set out your destination clearly and define the steps you need to take to get you where you want to be.

But many business owners never create one because it seems so complicated.

The truth is a marketing plan has to be easy to develop and implement. Otherwise you will either never start on it or never do anything with it.

Here are some of the advantages of having a clear plan:

It becomes easy to make decisions as you focus your efforts exclusively on moving towards your vision.
You stand out from the competition because you have a distinctive message that is being put across to your target audience consistently.
You save time because your plan allows you to leverage all your activities for maximum benefit.

Here are 7 keys to developing a winning marketing plan:

Written: A plan that’s not written down is not real and won’t be used. But it should be limited to a few pages to keep it simple and easy-to-manage.
Targeted: Your plan has to make clear who each element is aimed at – such as prospects, existing customers or business partners.
Measurable: You need to know what techniques are working best and to keep track of important data like the cost of acquiring a customer.
Diverse: You can use more than 100 different marketing tactics and tools but a good plan concentrates on using a few effectively.
Timed: The regular actions needed must be set out in an actionable calendar so that it can be easily monitored and managed.
Resourced: Your plan needs the appropriate budget and resources – enough but not too much – making use of free resources and the power of imagination to get best value.
Leveraged: To get the best return on the time and money you invest in marketing, you need to leverage all your activities in as many ways as possible.

Of course, like anything worthwhile, creating your plan requires a little work up front. But, once you have done that, it is relatively easy to maintain your plan.

A good plan will be short and simple. If it’s too long, it wastes your time and money and you’ll never implement it.

For many people, the first step in creating a marketing plan is rushing out to choose which tools and media to use. To make your plan a winning one, this should be almost the last step if you want the best results possible.

Here are the key points you need to cover in your plan:

What exactly do you want to achieve?
Who are your ideal customers and what makes you right for them?
What do they want?
How do your products and services satisfy them?
Why should they buy from you?
Where will they see your message?
When will you communicate with them?

The best way to make sure you take action is to set out the steps needed in the form of a calendar.

A simple calendar is easily monitored and managed. It should set out the actions over a period of several months – normally a full year – with a lot more detail over the next 1 – 3 months.

For each promotional tool that you plan to use, you need to provide more details for each by asking questions such as:

When will I do this?
How often will I do this?
What do I need to make this happen?
What is the next step?

For example, say you’ve chosen networking as one of your tools. Your specific action steps could be something like:

List 20 organizations I could join in this area.
Visit 6 of them this month to check them out.
Meet at least 10 new people from all the meetings I attend this month.
Get at least 3 new clients.

You may then need to go into more detail on some of the actions you have listed. What exactly do you need to do to make them happen and when?

When you have worked out what you need to do and when, write out a simple calendar – you can use your wall calendar, desk diary or an online system such as Outlook. In this, list all the tools you will be using each month with specific dates for when you will use them.

Of course, once you have your plan in place the key to getting results is to take action.

Discover all 7 keys to the power of persuasive marketing