How to Make a Marketing Plan for Your Small Business.
New Post has been published on https://webcranks.com/blog/?p=63
How to Make a Marketing Plan for Your Small Business.
Unless your target audience consists of baseball-playing ghosts, your potential customers arenât going to come to you â youâll need to spread the word about your business and what it has to offer. In other words, you need a marketing plan.
Weâve already covered how to conduct market research to understand your key audiences, how to build a brand around your businessâs unique value proposition, and how to create a website that conveys your value and resonates with your key audiences. If youâve tackled those things, youâve laid the foundation for a strong marketing plan.
Before you dive in, itâs helpful to understand the typical path a person takes on the way toward becoming your customer. This path is illustrated by the marketing funnel.
The most well-known version of the funnel is the AIDA model, attributed to turn-of-the-century advertiser Elias St. Elmo Lewis. The steps in this funnel are:
Awareness of the existence of a product
Interest in evaluating the productâs benefits
Action by trying or purchasing the product
The funnel has many variations and modifications, such as the sales funnel, purchase funnel, and conversion funnel, but any funnel-inspired model depicts two primary ideas:
The sequence of steps a person takes to change (or âconvert,â in marketing speak) from a non-customer to a customer, or from inaction to action (an action could mean making a purchase, but it could also mean a smaller step like subscribing to a newsletter)
The process of sifting that happens to your audience, as your pool of potential customers narrows down to your pool of actual customers.
The purpose for understanding this sequence is to ensure that the transition between each step is as smooth as possible. Itâs natural to expect that there will be some drop-off â you canât please everyone, so not all of your potential customers will become your actual customers. But keeping an eye on how people move through this process, and where people tend to drop off, gives you an idea of how to improve.
For example, did you create an effective online ad that got peopleâs attention, but when people visited the product page on your website, they quickly clicked away? That means youâre doing well with awareness, but need to improve on interest by making the product page more clear or engaging.
The good news is there are numerous potential approaches for moving potential customers toward becoming actual customers. Hereâs an overview of potential approaches and handy guides to getting started with each one. Keep in mind that there isnât a discrete line between these approaches; they can and should overlap and be used in combination with each other.
What it is: As defined by Content Marketing Institute, content marketing is âthe strategic marketing approach of creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content,â and that in exchange for that valuable information, customers will âultimately reward us with their business and loyalty.â
What it is: Social media marketing uses social networking sites, such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn, to reach customers both widely and deeply â widely, because posts can be shared quickly and broadly, and deeply, because people can interact directly with the brand and engage with other people around that brand.
What it is: Email marketing is the practice of using emails and email newsletters to communicate with potential and current customers, with an average ROI of $38 for every $1 spent.
What it is: As described by The Work Crowd, âPR is about building and maintaining a good reputation for your business by developing your story and a dialogue with key journalists, influencers, and competition.â
What it is: As defined by Moz, SEO is a âa marketing discipline focused on growing visibility in organic (non-paid) search engine results. SEO encompasses both the technical and creative elements required to improve rankings, drive traffic, and increase awareness in search engines.â
What it is: Advertising is paid promotion, and although itâs technically its own separate discipline, it does support your marketing efforts. These days, running ads on Facebook and Google is just as common as print ads.
Whatever combination of approaches you choose, thereâs one approach that will always apply: integrity. The truth is, a great marketing strategy canât compensate for a not-so-great product.
If youâve created a robust, thoughtful business plan, youâre already on the right track. But even then, it can be tempting to get caught up in trying to reel in customers by any means necessary. Umair Haque, writing for the Harvard Business Review, offers this guidance:
âThe real question â the one that counts for leaders and institutions today â isnât âHow loyal can we compel, seduce, or trick our customers into being?â Itâs: âHow loyal are we to our customers? Do we truly care about them?â Not just as targets consumers, or fans. But as people. Human beings. ⊠If you want to matter to people, you must do more than merely win their fickle, fleeting, frenzied attention. You must help them develop into the people they were meant to be. When you do, maybe, just maybe, theyâll reward you. With something greater than their grudging, wearied attention. Their lasting respect, enduring trust, and undying gratitude.â
Schedule some time to sketch out a marketing funnel for your business. Then pick several marketing approaches you can take to start spreading the word about your small business. And continue to check out the Server9host blog for handy tips to help your small business thrive.
origamiaround
kianamaiart
izzy806
discoholicmusic
2087
theartofmadeline