Marketing is the same as gas/fuel, it makes sure your business stays active and dynamic. The advent of the internet has given way to new promotional methods coupled with the latest technology. If you fail to stay updated, be prepared to lose miserably in this competitive market.
Many small and new businesses are performing way better than some of the old and well-established ones. Why do you think is that so? Because they spend a lot of time and energy in preparing their marketing plan, which works well for them and eventually helps them in building a brand image that in return makes a huge profit for them.
What is this marketing plan?
A marketing plan, a comprehensive document or blueprint, outlines the advertising and promotional strategy for the coming year to generate leads and reach its target market. It details the marketing activities that are involved in accomplishing specific business objectives within a set time frame. A description of the current marketing position of a business is also included in a marketing plan. It also has a description of the marketing mix that a business will follow to achieve its marketing goals.
It can be made by following the typical formal structure or can be informal or more flexible. It contains data related to past actions and results, future goals and predictions, and strategies to achieve the marketing objectives. You can start preparing your marketing plan by identifying the needs of the customers by doing market research and how the same can be satisfied while generating an acceptable return.
Your guide to building a marketing plan that works
Conduct a SWOT analysis and define your target audience: SWOT analysis, though cliched it may sound, yet this step works the best as the first step of making a marketing plan. First of all, you have to analyze the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats associated with your business. Along with this, doing an analysis of your competitors will not harm either, compare their products or services with yours, see if there is something that you lack in, try to keep note of those points. If your competitor is missing out on something, grab it as an opportunity and implement the same in your latest products.
To analyze all of these, some already have a separate team dedicated for this purpose, so make sure you too have one. If done seriously, everything will work well.
After knowing where your company stands, the next step is to define who your target audience is. Create a buyer persona if you do not have one and if you have it already, update it. It must include the demographic information like age, sex, income, etc. of your customers.
Social media and the latest digital marketing strategies with their lead generation technique will help you out in knowing a great deal about your target audience. You can also get direct feedback by reading the comments and reviews. As now you have information about your audience, let’s proceed to the next step.
Note: It is important to engage your visitors and make yourself more visible if you want to be seen online. Write blogs and publish them on your site which is informative and can draw your visitor’s attention. Create a subscription database so that each blog that you publish goes to these recipients, thus increasing your site traffic. Content optimization helped our clients increase their traffic by almost 300 percent. Check our healthcare digital marketing and legal digital marketing services for success.
Define your goals and analyze your tactics: The next step is to define your goals. The goals must be specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART). Do not press in goals that are euphoric rather keep them concrete. For example, set a goal of achieving the target of 500 users in two months.
After deciding on your goals, begin to analyze which tactic is going to help you in achieving that goal. The marketing plan must include describing the tactics that are going to be used, such as the most suitable social media platform, scheduling newsletters, calling every potential customer individually, hiring a digital marketing agency, offering discounts, etc.
Set your budget: One of the most important steps in the marketing plan is setting a budget for investing in advertising and the promotion of your brand. If you can spare a high budget then try advertising in both traditional and modern channels, however, if you cannot afford much then social media advertising is the best you can get.
Decide a period to run each advertising campaign, the channels, the frequency, trust me it all depends on your budget. You can hire an advertising agency to curate engaging content. They create content by following the latest trends and technologies that will save you time and effort.
E-commerce SEO Marketing Guide by industry experts
The eCommerce industry has performed exceptionally well in the past 10 years with millions of people buying products and services online. This boom in online shopping is possible due to the internet and smartphones coupled with other indirect technological interventions and digital marketing strategies like (search engine optimization) SEO marketing.
The goal of every eCommerce website is to secure a high rank in search engines. How do you think you can achieve this goal? E-commerce SEO is the solution that displays your website to your potential customers so that they can find exactly what they are looking for. If optimized correctly, it makes sure to bring organic traffic to your web pages. This means less reliance on other advertisement methods where you spend a lot of your money.
With the help of SEO marketing, most business owners have been generating a huge profit. They outsource a digital marketing agency or have a separate team to perform this special job for them. Every page of their websites, for example, the landing page, is jam-packed with proper keywords with the motive to bring organic traffic.
