Marketing Tactics Planning Worksheet

This marketing activity worksheet makes tactic planning easy

Are you “so close” to finishing your 2012 marketing plan, but just can’t quite get it done?

If you’re running a small business, you may be looking at pulling together all the components of your 2012 plan.

Or maybe you got started on the 2012 marketing plan but are still busy finishing up the measurements for 2011. No matter where you are, this is the week to finish your 2012 plan.

10 tips to help you get your marketing plan done so you can move on to the next challenge.  

Still in the brainstorming phase of your 2012 marketing plan?

1. May I suggest a simple tool that I’ve found very effective for organizing your marketing:  The simple Post-It note.  AKA “the stickie notepad”. Don’t worry about the color, or the size.  But instead use the pad as a brainstorming tool. 
2. Ask yourself “What works?” What tool did you use the past year or 3 that really worked?   Write each tool that comes to mind on a separate sticky. 
3. What do you “have” to do?  You know, the tool that you’d love to drop because it’s a pain, or expensive, or old fashioned… but can’t get rid of because it’s so effective. Maybe there are a few of them.  Write them on a sticky.  One tool, one sticky.
4. What have you wanted to try, but didn’t have time?  Perhaps it’s something new (a QR code?) or a modification of something existing (your email newsletter, but with an embedded video link?)
5. Next: Put 3 giant Post-Its from a Post It pad the size of a flip chart up on your office wall.  Label each one with one marketing objective.  Perhaps your goals are: Attract new customers.  Sell new products to current customers.  Win back former customers.  Only you know what you need to accomplish in 2012, right?
6. Now, brainstorm again with the stickies with your goals in mind.  Take a look at the stickies you’ve filled out from the first round.  Do they fit in one or more of your goals?  If the answer is no, why are you using that tactic?  If the tactic fits more than one goal, write it again on a separate stickie.
7. Place the stickies on the pad, under the goal that they help to reach.  Place a number on them for the quarter you’ll use the tool or the number of times you’ll use the tool in 2012.
8. Use the Marketing Activity Worksheet to plan the tactics by quarter or by month.
9. Get someone to type up your goal with the tactics under it.
10. Almost done.  Now. How will you know you’ve succeeded? With measurement.  Jot down the KPI (key performance indicator) measurement that you’ll use for the measuring stick. 

• For a tactic, it could be the number of times the brochure was sent out, or number of impressions of a press release printed in your industry’s trade journal or number of opens/ number of forwards for an email.
• For a goal, it may be the number of phone calls or email inquiry’s, the number of appointments with specific potential customers, or the number of proposals presented.

BONUS: For the marketing professionals who ALREADY have a measurement tool in place:

Work on honing your marketing based on the results:

1. Look at where did most of your 2010 and 2011 leads came from.  Depending upon how you capture your leads and new customers, can you see where most of the leads that closed came from?  How about most profitable projects by customer?  Do you see a trend?
2. What marketing programs did not return an investment?  Sometimes it is difficult to really figure out where the customer found you when they say “internet”, does that mean your website? Google results? Social media? 
3. Still not clear? Consider modifying your measurement tool for 2012 if it is vague. At a minimum look at Google Analytics, your website keyword phrases for entering the site and for exiting.  How many click on the contact page?  How many RFQ quote forms came into your email?

Set a timer for one hour and attack your marketing plan with one or more of these ideas.  You’ll be surprised at the result!

How do you finish your 2012 planning for your marketing activity?  Do you use tools like this?  Let me know what you find helpful.  Post it in the comments below so everyone can benefit.  Thanks!

The 4 M's of the marketing mix

In every entry level marketing class the 4 P’s of the marketing mix are always mentioned. 

(Say it with me: Product, Price, Place and Promotion.)

However, I’ve found that the 4M’s of marketing make more sense in many business and organization’s marketing plans:

Market, Message, Media and Measurement

• A well defined target market that your sales people know and love, your copywriter can picture and anyone who refers your products and services can recognize in an instant.
• The well defined message statement describing why your potential customer wants to do business with your company in a repeatable, memorable, compelling way
• A cost-effective way to communicate the message statement to the target market — communication media doesn’t have to be TV or newspapers. What about social media, signage, table tents, postcards or shopping cart ads? There are probably 2,000 different choices.
• Knowledge is power when you know your marketing is effective. How do you know? By measuring the results over time, against prior results.

I was reminded of the 4 M’s this morning as I read business advice in the New York Times intended for small business owners about the 10 steps they should take to Diagnose What’s Wrong With Your Business. They only had 3 of my 4 M’s and mixed up the order, but there it was.

Marketing

1. Targeting. Do you have a strategy to reach your best potential customers with your sales and marketing efforts? A shotgun approach is too expensive and inefficient for any company, especially a small one. What percentage of the people you approach actually buy a product or service like yours?

2. Advertising and Public Relations. There are many choices for where to place an ad and how to execute a public relations campaign. The problem with many small businesses is that their marketing activities are driven primarily by which salespeople happen to call on them. Ineffective advertising or public relations can be not only a tremendous waste of money but a tremendous waste of opportunity. If you are doing things the same way you did them 10 years ago, you are probably getting less response.

3. The Message. Lots of companies still use this line: “We will exceed your expectations.” I even saw it on the back of an ambulance. (I don’t know about you, but I have pretty high expectations when I call an ambulance! Are the technicians going to give me a haircut after they bring me back to life?) It was a good line when someone first thought of it. Now, it is old. It is tired. It needs to retire. You need to exceed people’s expectations by coming up with your own line. Maybe it is not a line at all. Maybe it is a message. Whatever it is, it should say something about your company that means something to potential customers.

I’ve talked about the 4 M’s for a long time in Branding & Marketing, but I think it holds true today.

Do you agree? Leave a comment below.

Do you consider Red a BAD color for branding?

I always have. You know. All those negative connotations:

• in the red
• bleeding red
• red line something
• seeing red

“Retailers aren’t afraid of the color red in branding.”

I heard this the other day from John Ekman, the Conversionista, at the Conversion Conference.

“Yeah, he’s probably right.” I thought to myself. But then I started noticing how much I see the color red in branding from retailers.  Yeah.  He is definitely right.

Retailers are NOT afraid of the color RED in BRANDING

So if green means go, red must mean ON SALE NOW!

By the way, can you guess which one at the conference is John?

Source: Vistage CEO Confidence Index — Q2 2012

This index of first quarter 2012 from Vistage tracks the confidence level of CEOS and small business owners against the GDP YOY (Gross Domestic Product Year over Year.)

If you’re finding it more difficult to generate leads and close proposals, looking at the CEO Confidence level survey (from March 2012) you probably aren’t alone.

It’s summer and people are on vacation. It’s an election year. There are always excuses, right?

Some people believe that the advantage for business owners who market when the economy is uncertain: their business stays top of mind among the customers who are searching for their products and services — and when the economy does stabilize, more customers are ready to buy the goods and services over that of your competition.

What do you think? Is it time to grab market share? Or is it time to pull back? Leave a comment below.

What’s the best way to spend the marketing dollar to get more customers?

Isn’t that the fundamental question in marketing?

Supporting sales is what marketing is all about. “Follow the money” is a good strategy for figuring out where to place your marketing. I was particularly struck by the way this was illustrated in the video below. This quick and informative video from NPR, about the 2008 U.S. presidential campaign, illustrates that example. Because it’s about politics, it’s sure to be controversial, but please look beyond the politics, to analyze the strategy and the marketing concept behind the decisions for spending.

Have you clearly defined your target market? So who is the best group for you for you to invest your marketing dollars in? And, maybe more importantly, who/where should you ignore?

If you were going to create a visual like this, does your balloon look lopsided or are you trying to reach everyone?

Editor’s note: As a marketing professional, this makes sense to me. But as a voter I remember how the Fall of 2012 felt when my home phone message machine had on average 5 or 6 recorded messages every evening – from both sides! There does come a point when too much marketing can make everyone mad!

Photo credit:

Marketers know that a change in a household can signal a great marketing opportunity. The beginning of school. Moving to college. Buying a home. Getting married. Having that first child.

Shifting demographics can make make you need to re-evaluate your marketing positioning:

For instance:

• Marriage not only occurs later in life than it used to… In 50% of the first marriages, a baby precedes the wedding. Since 1988, when the “Great Crossover” happened, it is more common in the USA for the first baby to be born to an unwed mother. And the trend is definitely rising.  Baby then marriage: In 2011, the average age for the first baby is 25.5 and for the first marriage is 26.5
• Since 1970, there has been a huge change in the number of drivers in the USA. The number of drivers has doubled since 1970 from around 100,000 drivers to over 200,000 drivers on the road.
• And many people don’t realize there is a giant gender gap in new car purchases with women buying 63% of the new cars, and influencing an estimate 85% of all car buying decisions.

Surprised by any of these?

As a marketer, it’s important to know your market. A bit of research can make all the difference. Who is your target market? What do they read, listen to and think about? What are their values?

If you can more narrowly focus your efforts onto a key demographic… and you actually understand how they think, feel and act… you’re way ahead of the game.

A little over a year ago I quoted Vistage’s CEO Confidence Index. 

Now, CEO’s optimism is at a 2 year high.  If your company is a Business to Business Manufacturer, now may a good time to up your marketing budget.

Focus on both active and passive marketing to attract new customers.  Reach out to existing customers and cross sell services.

Active marketing keeps you top of mind.  It’s interruptive advertising.  Sending an email campaign.  Setting up a face to face meeting at trade show. Reaching out to talk to a new prospect.  It’s persuading and presenting.

Passive marketing helps potential customers find you when they are ready – through the website, search, pay per click, social media.  Referrals and memberships in directories.   The ways that they find you when they need you.  It’s attracting and involving.  It’s being there when they’re ready.

So, is your marketing program poised to capture the increased revenue with new customer acquisition?

Are you working on your website marketing and having second thoughts about your search engine keyword choices? Sometimes it may seem that hardly anyone is searching for the terms you have on your website. don’t despair, sometimes that exact phrase is what the people who are ready to buy are using to search.

But how do you know? Sometimes you don’t.

The words you use on your website matter– a great deal!  They are so important not only to communicate your company’s brand, but also in terms of bringing your marketing website up to the top of the search engine results.  This contributes to building traffic to your brand’s website.

Today Orbit Media Studio’s president, Andy Crestodina, has shared 131 words that will help you build a stronger traffic flow to your website. And more than just the list, he tells why some of them are searched at certain times during the buying cycle.

Take a minute to check it out and see how many of the words or phrases you use in developing your marketing copy for your website.

The post Selecting Specific Words for Marketing and Branding Your Website to Increase Traffic appeared first on Branding and Marketing.

Trying to build your brand? Should you focus on Twitter or Facebook?

A quick glance at this chart (green means go) you’ll know what to do. The guide indicates which social media program is best to use to help you to meet your online marketing goals and objectives.

I know what happens to me. I get more comfortable with one format or one of the media outlets makes a big change. Then it’s harder to get comfortable again posting and using the media.  CMO has made it easier for me to push myself to learn. It’ll help me use some of the less popular social media outlets, because I know it will better help me meet my goals.

Online Marketing Tips You Can Use

If your goals for your online marketing are any of these four… improving search engine results, building brand awareness, increasing customer communication or generating traffic, you’ll like the new CMO’s 2014 Guide to the Social Landscape.

Customer communication? Consider Instagram for communication, but it doesn’t look like Google+ will help you very much.  I’m sure it matters how many followers you have for each of your various social media accounts, but the using the right medium to communicate the message that best supports your overall goal will help you align your tactics with your goals.

I was surprised that YouTube only had one green category.  Here I thought that Video was it!!  Maybe it’s great for customer communication. But I guess not as much for seo, brand awareness or traffic generation.  It used to be that a video with a keyword phrase and link to your website would really help with brand awareness .

What about you? How do you use social media to improve your online marketing?  Do you consider your goals when you’re taking time to do your social media marketing?  What is your “go to” format?

Thanks Denise Wakeman for the tip. (She posted it on Google+ which is my least favorite media, but probably the one with the most upside for me at the moment.)

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We all want to keep our marketing efforts secure. By now, you’ve probably heard about HeartBleed, the security loophole that is very serious for many many websites.

Time to change your password on your accounts for these websites and more: Twitter, FaceBook, GoDaddy, Tumblr, Dropbox, YouTube, Google, Vine, Pinterest, Instagram, Gmail, Foursquare, Yahoo, Amazon, SoundCloud… Basically everything.

This infograph, from LWG Consulting, says it all in very few words.

Marketing efforts are not worth it if you have compromised security. Before you have a bigger problem on your hands, change your passwords on these sites.

Having a problem with your logins and getting your website or accounts stolen, not only locks you out of your own accounts, but allows someone else to post on your behalf. Which could ruin all the work of your marketing efforts. Worse, some of these sites are attached to your credit card, which can lead to credit problems.

Take the time now to switch your passwords. Make sure you keep your marketing efforts secure or you may turn a good thing into a very bad thing!

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I was recently asked by a small business owner, “If I only have $5000 to spend on marketing… What would you do for my business?”

Generally, its best to begin with a plan rather than jump in on a tactic. Having a plan is important – even if you are trying to figure out how much to spend on marketing budget or you have a budget and are trying to figure out where to spend it.

Start with the goal.  What do you want to accomplish?  I know, I know, you want more sales. But back it up.  Do you want to sell more products to existing customers? New products to new customers? Existing products to new customers?

What’s your goal? What actions will get you closer to your goal? How will you know when you’ve achieved it?

For instance, if we assume your objective is to get more Request For Quotes (RFQs) and you know who your best target customers might be – we would select one of the industries from your “who we supply” page, research a list of good potential customers and develop a plan for reaching out to them with a variety of media.  You would be working on more market penetration and more market development.

We’d also need to develop the measuring tools so that you’d have a way to tell which tool in your marketing program was the most effective so you could enhance that one and ease up on the not so effective ones. That would be the push marketing (more expensive but faster results). I would prefer to mix that up with a pull marketing program too (more of an investment in long term results and less cost per lead).

Plus, besides selecting a target market, we’d have to determine which of their 4 products (in this case compression, torsion, and extension, or manufacture of custom wire forms) or features (engineering design, quality, service or price) would be the focus of their message. What’s the benefit to the customer? What does the customer care about.

It’s tempting to jump in on a tactic (like a direct mail postcard program, Google adwords or a video or advertising specialty or press release etc.) but if that particular tactic is not the right way to go, without building a plan and having tested a few things, you might be out the money with little results. And if all the tactics were set for short term results without balancing with some long term passive tactics, it won’t help you down the road.

If you’re measuring results towards a sales goal, you’ll need to make sure you have sales actions as part of your budget. You can be successful with your marketing program, but not have it translate to sales if you don’t have the sales part of your program in place. You’ve got to complete the chain and not let sales be the weak link.

While I usually recommend that you start with a plan that you can use to roll out over time as you are able to fund the marketing budget, you’ve got to define the basics first.  What are you hoping to accomplish when you spend your marketing budget? Leave your answer in the comments below:

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How important is it that people know about your city, county or state?

Test yourself on your ability to name the 50 states here.

I think you’ll agree that the scores make it apparent which ones invest in branding and marketing their state.

When a city or economic area leaders decide they need to brand and market their city, town, county or state, critics often argue back with two threads: why does it cost so much… and why do we need someone outside to tell us who we are?

The costs to market vary widely — but most areas will agree hiring someone from the outside is more effective than trying to do it yourself. They have often tried to do it themselves without a lot of success.

Probably the best way is to hire a marketing firm that specializes in location marketing for cities, counties or specific areas. While that may seem too expensive, trying to do it from the inside, can result in lost opportunity dollars for many many years to come. When someone looks at his or her own area, it’s too easy to assume that people should just KNOW how great your area is and all the wonderful benefits it has to offer.

My hometown (population about 25,000) has hired a marketing company to help bring new business into town. The city council hired a firm that specializes in helping cities distinguish itself from surrounding towns and county, to help promote tourism, to help create jobs, and to help retain or increase home sales in Hudson Ohio. The three year program from Atlas Advertising from Denver CO will total over $250,000.

A town just north of Hilton Head, Port Royal South Carolina decided to hire a branding company with this RFP. They hired Rawle Murdy Associates for $40,000.

The nearby area, just a 10 minute drive away Port Royal, Main Street Beaufort is spending $12,000 collected from parking meters for their marketing plan.

And a little farther south, Miami Florida and Dade county are doing it for free “in house” with the help of the tourist and convention center’s staff.

Regardless of what is actually spent on the plan, there are usually several stages… discovery, gathering information, surveying people, creative – developing the positioning, creating a logo and tagline and all the supporting materials, and execution – distribution of the materials and getting all the stakeholders to actually use the branding in their marketing efforts.

Some companies will use steps like these:

1) Establishing core values through a marketing audit
2) Best-practices review
3) Work session meetings with residents and social media monitoring
4) Developing a brand identity
5) Action plan for marketing

Getting the community to embrace it after the work has been done and paid for is a crucial step.

Other area marketing plans:
Tour Chautauqua
Visit California – Find Yourself Here
Virginia – LOVE campaign. Virginia Tourism Authority 2012-2014 Strategic Plan
Teton County – Idaho

Have a good one? Please leave a link to it in the comments. Add the price that was paid as well if you know it.

Thanks!

Having a tool that allows you to modify the settings can be really helpful.

That’s why I like this interactive map that is driven from data from the US census.

If you are including average household income in your marketing plan and your business is geographically based, you may find this interactive map that uses census data to isolate counties and tracts within the county by income extremely helpful.

It allows you to have a visual analysis of average income which could be a handy tool in creating your marketing program in your business plan.

The tool includes the enlarge and reduce map components with the Google guy (the little orange/yellow figure that you can drag into the map to get a visual of walking or driving in the area.)

I could imagine if you were trying to figure out an EDDM mailing or where to open your next store, this could be a real help!

For income, age, lifestyle and population density of any particular area, Zip Tapestry, a handy website tool, allows you to just type in a zip code and have quick demographic info at your finger tips.

Could be great if you’re looking for the next location for your retail shop, planning to relocate your business and not sure about neighborhoods… or just planning your next move in general.

Reminds me a little bit of a program called Claritis from Neilson that I learned about in the late 90’s. You can look at a variety of factors of a geographic area… and then look at the psycho-graphics.

I like how easy it is in Zip Tapestry to enlarge the map, set it to one of the parameters like average income… then just mouse around to find out the various zip codes… You can see the screen cap of Franklin TN outside of Nashville in the photo.

Switch it to average age to find the pockets of the age group that is most likely to use your products and services.

Click on the Tapestry tab to see the phrase that describes a percent of the population. Then click the arrow to learn the definition of there phrase. It’s a quick way to get direction on geographic areas.

Hat tip: LifeHacker

Carolina Rogoll’s new book, Star Brands: A Brand Manager’s Guide to Build, Manage & Market Brands is a  great resource for anyone seeking structured guidance on creating a brand plan.

Rogoll presents a five-step practical guide on taking a business and brand from conception… to realization… to success.

I like her five points – They are  very similar to the 4 M’s of Marketing that I use. I would combine point 3 and 4 (Crafting a Communication Strategy and Establishing a Marketing Strategy) into a single point, but a 4 sided star looks a lot more like a rectangle!! So I completely understand why she separates the two.

She has a great background – real world experience (her LinkedIn profile says P&G experience since 2003) — combined with working as an educator in branding (School of Visual Arts In NYC.)

I also like that she uses case studies from famous brands, such as Harley Davidson and MasterCard, and  interviews withbusiness school professors, advertising agency leaders and former CEOs.

Star Brands is a practical book that business professionals and entrepreneurs can use as their own brand building “workbook.”

Of course, I can’t let a book review pass without mentioning my book. I wrote it to help the small business owner who wants to brand and market their business: Simple Steps, Big Results. It’s been my experience that learning lessons from big brands is very helpful – especially in theory – but when you’re dealing with a micro budget, sometimes lessons don’t translate from the million dollar brands.

Full Disclosure: While my Amazon link does NOT attach to an affiliate link, nor am I being paid for this review, I did receive the e-book for free in exchange for doing this review.

Have you been keeping up with your 2015 marketing program?

Perhaps your plan called for posting weekly in social media for your company and sending out a press release quarterly.

Are you on track with the plan… or did it get derailed?

I’ve seen companies put together a very aggressive marketing program at the beginning of the year with many trade shows, print ads, keynote speaking engagements, and other expensive or time intensive tactics.

Much like many January New Year’s resolutions, those over-achieving plans can get derailed when reality of the day-to-day, month-to-month workloads take hold.

And just like those resolutions, you shouldn’t just throw in the towel because things haven’t worked out the way you wanted them to. Now is the time to take stock of your 2015 marketing plans, get done what you can for 2015 and update your plan for 2016.

Ask yourself these questions:

• What worked? What didn’t get done but would have worked?
• Do you need to have your 2016 marketing budget set? Now is the time to get quotes and estimates for next year.
• Does your 2015 marketing budget disappear if you don’t use it? Don’t waste the opportunity to get your business off to a strong start in the New Year.

Take time today to review the 2015 plan. Look for the activities that will set you up for a strong 2016.

Preparation now will provide rewards down the road.

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In the early marketing courses in college, they teach the 4 P’s of marketing: Product,
Price,
Place, and
Promotion.

I believe that the 4 M’s in marketing plan are a better place to focus.

Market – who your target customer is

Message – what you want to communicate to them

Media – the tools you will use to communicate to your customers (with a schedule and budget)

Measurement – what you hope to accomplish and tracking how well it worked.

Last night I spoke to a room full of business owners about developing their marketing strategy. As business owners, they are all wearing many hats. I’m sure that finding the time to create a full marketing strategy is a challenge. If they don’t have a good background in marketing, it may be even more difficult.

To make it easier in the 90 minutes we had together, I helped walk them through their 4M’s and also touched on each of the 4 P’s of marketing.

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Creating persuasive messages and distributing them in targeted media that your audience and market will respond to everything in marketing.

If you are targeting a business to business customer, you are likely crafting a message for one of three generations. If you are wanting to target market three generations (Baby Boomers, Generation X, and Millennials) you probably already know that they all think and act very differently.

Trying to appeal to all three generations at the same time is difficult at best!

Do you know who is buying your product? Influencing? Recommending? And what criteria they use?

In the chart below from 2015, you can see that there are three distinct groups.

The different generations have a different criteria of what is important and use different words and phrases. When you are trying to target market three generations you have to be very broad in your appeals. And depending on who is doing the copywriting, you may find the wrong words actually offend rather than attract the very potential customer you’re trying to talk with (Take a look at her reaction at 3:07 into the video!)

Target Market Three Generations: How Old Is OLD?

I guess it is all about perspective, but putting yourself in someone else’s shoes is crucial to creating the right tone. Years ago I resented being called a “kid” when I was in my late 20’s. By the same token, the word elderly, senior and old have connotations and denotations that you just shouldn’t ignore.

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So often I’ll get a request from a company representative for a price on execution of a piece of marketing. A Facebook page. A website. Maybe a PDF brochure or a prospecting email.

All of these items are fine on their own. Marketing Tactics. A marketing tool that helps support marketing results.

But alone, without being in support of a goal, the tactic simply doesn’t work.

Marketing Strategy Must Come First!

If you don’t have your strategy planned out, you will just do things and wonder why it doesn’t have the intended results.

So what is strategy? Many people ask me that. Personally I like to talk about the 4 M’s of marketing. It’s not the same as the 4P’s of marketing.

Today I wanted to link to a website that has many different marketing strategies. Ways to approach the marketing. No one way is correct and the others wrong, but it helps to understand the concepts behind these strategies.

I share this link to Marketing Strategies because it’s a great starting point. This page has 30 different methods, concepts and models of marketing strategies.  Notice each one of these models and concepts are not talking about your social media tactics in your Instagram or Snapchat account, or the color of your logo or how you’ll blast out this email content? No, these strategies are talking about the foundation of the marketing… the why, not the how.

There is definitely a difference between strategy and tactics.

The post First Comes Marketing Strategy appeared first on Branding and Marketing.

Thanks Cult Branding! Great info and I like the way you’ve made it easy to understand with examples.

tag: Marketing Strategy

Nod to Denise Wakeman.

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