Marketing plan part three: Start slow and build on success

This is part three of Three important steps to creating your marketing plan.  In part one, I shared about various strategies for researching your business and the importance of following a plan. In part two, I covered strategies for developing your employees and expanded on the value of this important resource.  In this, the final part, we will focus on the importance of starting slow and building upon success.  That’s not something any business owner wants to hear, I know, because you want to be successful today. But there is great risk in using the spaghetti marketing strategy, which is trying anything to see what works.  The fast and furious spaghetti marketing strategy will leave you exhausted and frustrated.

So, take the information you gathered in part one of this exercise and develop your marketing plan.  Your plan will include an over-arching goal, objectives to help you meet those goals, strategies for accomplishing each objective, and finally, various tactics that fall within your strategies.  This level of organization is critical to help you build your marketing calendar, evaluate the various components of your marketing plan, and make adjustments to the plan.   In our Marketing Toolkit Section of the myMarketing Café resource center, we outlined this process for you.  We included real world examples so that you can see the components of a plan in action.  We share exactly how to write a goal, objective and strategy, so that they are measurable.   If you haven’t already reviewed this section, please take some time to do so.

When you begin building your plan, start with one goal, then two to three objectives to help you meet that goal, and two or three strategies to support your objectives. Keep it simple and as you succeed and make adjustments to the plan, then expand the plan.  Follow part two of this exercise and involve your team.  Assign team members to lead your various strategies.  Assign team members to manage the tactics you choose.  Meet weekly with your team, even daily if necessary, to discuss accomplishments and concerns and evaluate the progress of the plan.  This important ongoing evaluation helps to keep everyone on the same page and provides the opportunity to collaborate as a team and ultimately strengthen your marketing plan.

A marketing plan doesn’t have to begin as a comprehensive, robust, complex plan.  By beginning with a simple, small plan, one that is supported by your team, you will improve your marketing proficiency.  Today’s marketing tactics, like social media, are highly relational.  They are used to build relationships with the audience and that takes time.  By limiting the social media channels used to ones that will best fulfill your plan goal, you can build stronger relationships with your audience because you are not spread so thin. Social media is all about content.  By starting small, your content will also be much more valuable and engaging to your audience. You won’t simply be using the social media channel just for the sake of using the social media channel.  What good does that do you?  You want results, right?

Let me know how the process is going for you.  I’m happy to help, and if you wish, post your questions here so that others can learn as well.