by
Yasi ZhangEvery startup founder needs a marketing plan. In fact, in order to be successful as a startup founder, you need to show the market that your company is worthy of investment by providing clear and concise marketing goals. If you want to impress an investor or potential partner, it’s important for them to see exactly how you’re going to spend their money and have measurable results.
1. What is a marketing plan?
A marketing plan is a roadmap for your company’s success. It can be used to set goals and measure progress towards those goals and help you create the right message or product for your customer base.
In another blog post, I talked about Marketing Strategy. In this article, I will explain to you in detail what is a marketing plan and how you can create one.
Marketing Strategy is about the why. The marketing plan is more action-oriented. The plan covers the what, when, and how. One clear and concise comparison from elementhree stated:
Marketing Strategy:
– Owned by a CMO
– Supports business objectives
– Contains high-level elements like products, niches, competitors, brand guidelines, etc.
Marketing Plan:
– Owned by a Marketing Manager
– Supports marketing strategy
– Contains specific initiatives, measurables, and tactics to reach goals.
In your marketing strategy, you might have listed your distribution channel as an e-commerce store. Then in your marketing plan, you will list out on which platform the store will be built, what features will be there, how you will drive people there.
If you are a B2B business, you might have identified your core target audience as companies providing accounting services. Then in your marketing plan, you will identify the places you can reach out to them, e.g., industry conferences, direct reach, SEO, etc. And you will list out the actions, timelines, and measurable KPIs to evaluate your marketing activities.
In short, marketing strategy is the WHY, and the marketing plan is the WHAT, HOW, and WHEN.
2. Why do I need one?
In my work with startups, one of the most common mistakes I have seen is that startup founders started promoting their businesses without a marketing strategy or plan. They wanted to do social media, videos, go to conferences and have a booth, etc. All marketing activities are very tactical, and there is no coherent strategy and plan behind them. As a result, investment ROI suffered.
There is no clear target audience profile, no focused channel, no coherent branding. When you see the brand communication assets online, you will see different styles. When you read the website, you have no idea to whom is their product or service for. Not only are visitors or potential customers confused, but startup founders also lose time and resources on activities that do not bring the desired results.
When startups pitch for investment, they show their business models. We know how important it is to have a business model. The same goes for marketing; if you don’t have a marketing strategy or a marketing plan, you are shooting without a target.
To have a solid marketing plan:
– It aligns your marketing activities with your marketing strategy.
– It gives clarity to the team of what to do, how to do to achieve what results.
– It identifies the most effective way to reach your target customer.
– It gives you a set of measurable KPIs.
– It helps you to maximize the ROI of your marketing efforts.
3. How to make a marketing plan: the basics
Step 1: take out your marketing strategy. Make the whole team understand and align on your 4Ps.
Step 2: Competitor analysis. Who are your direct and indirect competitors in the market? What do they do to gain customers, how they position themselves? As a result of this study, think about how you can learn from them and be better and be different.
Step 3: Set goals. What do you want to achieve with your marketing activity? Are you a new brand, or are you already existing in the market? For new brands, you need to establish brand awareness, brand authority and build trust with your potential customers. At this stage, your focus is to present yourself in front of your target customer. Via content marketing, you can produce useful and valuable content that eliminates doubts, concerns and provide solutions that your target audience is looking for.
Step 4: Make an action plan for the most effective marketing activities for your business: content marketing, social media, network marketing, affiliate marketing. I generally avoid
traditional media for startups as it is expensive and less measurable. But you can use it tactically when it helps you to achieve your marketing goal.
For example, when we make a content plan as part of a marketing plan for our clients, we will create key content pillars for them and start creating content that helps them achieve marketing goals. After understanding their business and competitors, we use marketing tools and a methodology we follow so that the content pieces will be effective. I know many startups have created content, but how effective the contents are in helping them to achieve marketing goals, we don’t know. Therefore we advise all startups, take a deep dive into their business and their competitors, understand their target audience fully, then using the right tools and methodology to create contents that work for you.
If you want to know more about content creation for your business, you can book a free 30 minutes consultation call with us.
Step 5: Set KPIs. Using SMART goal setting method to track your marketing activities. If you want to increase brand awareness and you are creating content. You can track how many reads per day or month. If you are using social media, you can track how many followers or interactions your posts have. Each company has its own KPIs, and it depends on your goals. Not everyone should aim for the most following on social media. Research has shown that smaller accounts have more social engagement than giant accounts.
Step 6: Review and improve. For startups who have no historical records of marketing performance, it is hard to judge what you decide on is the best way. Therefore, as a founder, you need to adopt a growth mindset. Work with your marketing service provider or marketing team in-house to test the ground with your assumption. If you are running advertising, you can do A/B testing and see how your advertisement performs then optimize it along the way. You can start as little as $1 in ad spending with Facebook! Check your email open rate, test your titles, test your website CTA button, test everything that is helping you to achieve your goal.
Conclusion
If you are struggling with your marketing, most likely that you do not have a clear strategy and plan. Once you nail them down, what you need to do next is execution, according to the plan. We are here to help startup founders or CMOs so that you can focus on what matters. Book a 30 minutes free consultation call and find out more about our services.We are Promote and Scale, an agency specialized in digital marketing and lead generation for early-stage tech and e-commerce start-ups.
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We are Promote and Scale, an agency specialized in digital marketing and lead generation for early-stage start-ups.
It is our mission to help you stop wasting your time and money on ineffective and inconsistent marketing activities. It is our vision to offer you comprehensive, high-quality, and efficient marketing services, so you can focus on what really matters — building your product, business development, and acquiring new customers.