Rhind Marketing Communications

A Roadmap for Success

Marketing is the process of creating the desire to buy. Great marketing plan are built on knowledge and insight into your markets, your target audiences,  your competitors, key influencers (e.g. bloggers) and your company culture. Your marketing plan sets the foundation for all marketing activities.

 

Where to Begin

There are lots of marketing plan templates available online, almost all include the same questions. The big trick in creating a good marketing plan is thoroughly addressing each topic. This can take some time but in the end is well worth the effort.

 

As a starting point I use a list of Top 20 Planning Questions as a basis for the marketing plan.

 

Know Your Audience

Knowing your customer intimately is the first step in creating a great marketing strategy.  Until you know (1) who your customers are, (2) what they want, and (3) what motivates them to buy, you can't prepare an effective marketing plan. Here's a sample target audience matrix you can use to get started.

 

Know Your Competition

Planning requires a thorough review of your competitors; both direct competitors i.e., businesses who are selling a similar offer: and your indirect competitors – i.e., businesses with a totally different offer but who are competing for the same customers). Most important is conducting research to discover why your customers or potential customers might choose a competitor, their product or service over yours. Here's a sample Competitor Worksheet you can customize to fit your needs

 

Goals, Objectives, Strategies & Tactics

This is where the rubber starts to hit the road. 

 

Goals--The Way It Will Be.

Goals describe a desired end state and define the fundamental intentions, directions & what we strive to achieve. They  form the foundation layer, spelling out what we hope to achieve to achieve. Once established, these change relatively infrequently. 

 

Objectives - Measurable Objectives--Bringing Goals to Life

Goals become actionable only when they have measurable objectives associated with them. An objective states exactly what needs to be done to achieve the goal, in what timeframe and according to what metrics. Objectives set very specific bars for the group, clearly defining the parameters and measurements for success. 

 

Detailed Strategies--The Paths to Success

Objectives are realized when a set of detailed strategies is linked to them. It states: here’s how we’re going to achieve the objective given the resources and timeframe available to us. Each objective has one or more such strategies linked to it. Together these present a complete picture of exactly how the objective will be met. 

 

Tactics--Getting the Job Done

Once the marketing plan has a goals, objectives and strategies, it has a sound basis for planning and budgeting very specific activities to support them. The final step in this phase is determining which tactics will help drive the strategies. Tactics are the actual deliverables-- email, ad words, SEO, advertising, PR, direct mail, sales tools, etc. - - that support the achievement of the goal. 

 

Measuring What Matters

In the end it's all about results, and the ability to track & corrolate marketing spend to business ROI. Marketing dashboards that report marketing results are a good start. But the real goal is to create reports that measure buisness outcomes, turning data into actionable intelligence.  Read more...

 

Final Product

The final product of a comprehensive and well-documented strategic marketing plan with a set of specific Action Steps that clearly state: 

• WHAT is to be achieved.

• HOW it will be achieved.

• WHEN it will be achieved.

• WHO is responsible for achieving each goal.

• WHAT amount of resources (time, people, and money) will be allocated to achieving each goal.

• HOW we will measure our progress towards achieving each goal.