marketing plan Archives | Solopreneur Solutions https://solopreneursllc.com/tag/marketing-plan/ Digital Marketing Agency Mon, 24 Dec 2018 14:00:43 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=7.0 https://solopreneursllc.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/Soloprenuer-Soloutions-Icon-Full-Color.png marketing plan Archives | Solopreneur Solutions https://solopreneursllc.com/tag/marketing-plan/ 32 32 40518766 Steps to Preparing Your 2019 Marketing Plan https://solopreneursllc.com/steps-to-preparing-your-2019-marketing-plan/ https://solopreneursllc.com/steps-to-preparing-your-2019-marketing-plan/#respond Mon, 24 Dec 2018 14:00:43 +0000 https://solopreneursllc.com/?p=5392 We all know that without a plan, we will accomplish nothing. And, while it may be a bit late to begin developing a marketing plan for 2019, beginning now is better than forging ahead without a clear direction of what you want to accomplish, and how you plan to accomplish it. That’s basically what a […]

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]]> We all know that without a plan, we will accomplish nothing. And, while it may be a bit late to begin developing a marketing plan for 2019, beginning now is better than forging ahead without a clear direction of what you want to accomplish, and how you plan to accomplish it.
That’s basically what a marketing plan is – a plan that lays out what you want to accomplish through your marketing and how you will accomplish those goals. It’s usually best to follow certain steps that help you create a month-by-month plan for each avenue of advertising. Below are the steps we recommend for preparing your 2019 marketing plan.
 

Learn From 2018

The year is nearly completed, and you should have plenty of data to work with. Look at the first three quarters of 2018 and ask yourself: what went wrong, what went right, and what could have been better?

  • Did you have a 2018 marketing plan? Did you stick to it? Why or why not?
  • What worked in marketing? What didn’t?
  • Did you make your lead goals?
  • Did you reach your revenue goals?

These should be the starting points on where you focus your efforts for the coming year. This is also a good time to review each of your marketing activities and determine whether it helped achieve your marketing goals. If the answer is yes, consider keeping the same amount of budget, or increasing it.
 

Revisit Your Buyer Personas

Go back and examine your buyer personas. If needed, make revisions with each of them. Then, with their present challenges and opportunities fresh in your mind, think about which marketing channels are best helping you connect with them. Do some research on approaching trends that may affect any of your personas. How will these changes dictate adjustments to your marketing efforts in 2019?

  • What changed in the past year?
  • What stayed the same?
  • Where are the greatest challenges for each persona?
  • What changes have occurred in your industry that affect your personas?
  • What has changed in the competitive landscape that affects your personas?

Now is the time to revisit and update your buyer personas. The insights you gain from this exercise will shape your brainstorming for the better.
 

Document Your 2019 Objectives

You can probably reel off your marketing goals in your sleep: increase brand awareness, grow repeat customer business, generate leads. But what are your marketing objectives, the specific conditions you need to meet in order to reach your goals?
I think of objectives as the essential building blocks that, once met, add up to a successfully achieved goal. For example, if my goal is to increase brand awareness, a good objective might be to attain 1,000 net new social media followers by a specific date. The date is vital—almost all of us work better under deadline.
Break down your 2019 goals into concrete objectives. These objectives will make clear where you need to invest your time and energy in 2019, and which channels make sense for you to focus on.
As Stephen Covey says, begin with the end in mind. What are your company’s end goals for the upcoming year? Connect your marketing goals to your organization’s goals. Set no more than three or four marketing goals for 2019. Anything more, and you’ll be shooting at too many targets, and likely missing all of them. The principle for success here is under promise and over deliver.
Then, establish additional goals and tasks that fall underneath your big objectives. For example:
Key Goal: Deepen customer relationships to reduce customer churn by X percent.

  • Subgoal 1: Launch onboarding/upsell email nurture programs with above industry standard engagement
  • Subgoal 2: Identify mostly likely to churn and create video tutorial/email nurture campaign to get them engaged.
  • Subgoal 3: Develop and activate a plan for Net Promoter Scores and produce monthly case studies featuring your best customers

Also seek to establish hard methods by which your goals will be measured, in order to document your successes or failures. You will not only want to know if your efforts worked or not, but what contributed to their success or failure.
 

Marketing Planning by Channel

Here’s where the nuts and bolts of the plan come together. Prioritize the needs of your buyer personas and keep in mind the things you learned from 2018. With those items before you, imagine the campaigns that will help you achieve your marketing objectives. If you’re working with an agency, this is the part where they go away with all of your data and come back with concepts for content and creative. If you’re handling things in-house, my advice at this point is to think big — you can always scale back later.
Establish your 2019 themes and messaging as the roots of your marketing tree. All your marketing activities should be rooted in these themes and overarching messages.
Lay out your marketing communications plan by channel, and break down the activities in each channel by quarter and by month. You may include the following channels, depending on your industry, business size, budget, and goals.

Mapping campaigns by channel across an entire year allows you to recognize patterns and synergies you might not have seen otherwise. It also helps to ensure that everyone on your team is on the same page about what’s happening when, shifting more of your time from reactive, surprise deadline work to proactive, strategic work.

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]]> https://solopreneursllc.com/steps-to-preparing-your-2019-marketing-plan/feed/ 0 5392 Content Creation an Important Piece of the Marketing Plan https://solopreneursllc.com/content-creation-an-important-piece-of-the-marketing-plan/ https://solopreneursllc.com/content-creation-an-important-piece-of-the-marketing-plan/#respond Sun, 09 Dec 2012 17:10:09 +0000 https://solopreneursllc.com/?p=1828 Today content creation must be an important piece of every businesses marketing plan.  There was a recent study completed about B2B Content Creation and a report that is useful for marketers.  As a solopreneur you may not see yourself as a marketer but this information will be as valuable to your business as any big […]

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]]> Today content creation must be an important piece of every businesses marketing plan.  There was a recent study completed about B2B Content Creation and a report that is useful for marketers.  As a solopreneur you may not see yourself as a marketer but this information will be as valuable to your business as any big brand.
Content Marketing Institute and MarketingProfs partnered with Brightcove to research and produce a very useful report for North American marketers.   The complete report is embedded below but if you want to quickly see the facts you might want to click over to TopRank where Lee Odden pulled 100 statistics from the report.

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]]> https://solopreneursllc.com/content-creation-an-important-piece-of-the-marketing-plan/feed/ 0 1828 Do Solopreneurs Really Need a Marketing Plan? https://solopreneursllc.com/do-solopreneurs-really-need-a-marketing-plan/ https://solopreneursllc.com/do-solopreneurs-really-need-a-marketing-plan/#respond Thu, 20 Aug 2009 17:24:59 +0000 https://www.donnaamos.com/archives/202 Implementing a step by step marketing plan will relieve stress and make that part of your business easy and fun. Think about the stress that will go away when there is no guessing about what marketing activities guide your profits. Freeing you up to spend more time on other important areas in your business. Anything Worth […]

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Implementing a step by step marketing plan will relieve stress and make that part of your business easy and fun. Think about the stress that will go away when there is no guessing about what marketing activities guide your profits. Freeing you up to spend more time on other important areas in your business.
Anything Worth Doing Is Worth Measuring
Once you have implemented your marketing plan, you need to measure the results. Where did you have success? What could use some improvement? Including is there an opportunity to add a new strategy or to omit one that you didn’t enjoy. If you are not enjoying the process most likely, you will not be consistent with it and therefore ineffective. The success of measuring, fine-tuning and continuing what works is where the results happen in marketing! Think about that for just a moment, and let it sink in. It is critical to have a step-by-step system, you can measure, fine-tune and repeat!
Spend Less Time
One of the reasons that new franchises are more successful than other new businesses is all of their systems are created for them. They dramatically reduce the amount of time they spend thinking about and stressing about all of the systems in their business, including their marketing. Once you have your established your system for marketing it becomes easy and takes a lot less time to implement. A well thought out marketing plan will remove the need to continue spending time to create and execute new strategies.
Maintain a Consistent Flow of Prospects
An effective Marketing (Plan) System will allow you to create a steady stream of prospects with as little effort as possible. Once you know the results your activities bring they can virtually be duplicated at will. Think of it like this: You know it takes 30 prospects to create 6 sales conversations which equals 2 new clients. Now if you know that your active strategy generates 15 prospects, you now know you will need to implement that strategy twice to capture 2 new clients. Knowing you have an effective system will make your business easy, fun and profitable. Get planning!
If you are interested in an automated system to stay on top of your marketing efforts visit www.simplemarketingpro.com

What is stopping you from generating the profits you desire?  I am offering a 40 minute complimentary consultation to my blog readers through the end of August.  If you would like to explore what is in your way simply send me an email with a couple of days and times that work for you.  Don’t forget your time zone.  email: donna@donnaamos.com

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]]> https://solopreneursllc.com/do-solopreneurs-really-need-a-marketing-plan/feed/ 0 202 Top 10 Ways to Make the Most of the 80/20 Principle https://solopreneursllc.com/top-10-ways-to-make-the-most-of-the-8020-principle/ https://solopreneursllc.com/top-10-ways-to-make-the-most-of-the-8020-principle/#respond Wed, 27 Aug 2008 11:53:44 +0000 https://www.donnaamos.com/top-10-ways-to-make-the-most-of-the-8020-principle/ The “Pareto Principle” contends that you get 80 percent of your results from 20 percent of your actions.  To maximize this 20 percent, use the following tips to give yourself a competitive edge: 1. Develop a clear idea of what tasks are most important so that you can focus on them. 2. Make a to-do chart that […]

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]]> The “Pareto Principle” contends that you get 80 percent of your results from 20 percent of your actions.  To maximize this 20 percent, use the following tips to give yourself a competitive edge:
1. Develop a clear idea of what tasks are most important so that you can focus on them.
2. Make a to-do chart that categorizes tasks by priority level: High, Medium and Low.
3. Have a clear understanding about what is important to the other members of your work team, associates, or family members
4. Schedule time to respond to voicemail and e-mail; then do not allow yourself to interrupt your work at other times to check for messages.
5. Give yourself time to think.  Make an appointment with yourself when you can let your creativity loose.  Use an idea book.  (Explanation coming later this week)
6. Write down your goals.  When you are unclear about where your focus should be, look to your goals for guidance.
7. Organize your workspace so that you have easy access to what you need to perform important tasks.
8. Plan each month, each week, and each day.  Give yourself enough time to meet deadlines.
9. Plan each project by going backwards from the deadline.  Break it down to its’ components, allot reasonable time estimates to each component, and decide how many days ahead you should start the project – and how much time you can devote to it each day.
10. Learn to delegate!  The goal is to get the job done and to make other people feel as if they are part of the team; the goal is not to have everything done your way.
You probably believe you spend your time doing the most effective activities.  I challenge you to track your activities over the next seven days and then honestly evaluate where you can make improvements in your daily activities.  After your evaluation select a few of the top 10 ways to make the most of the 80/20 principle and put them into practice.

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]]> https://solopreneursllc.com/top-10-ways-to-make-the-most-of-the-8020-principle/feed/ 0 1020 At What Point Do You Give Up? https://solopreneursllc.com/at-what-point-do-you-give-up/ https://solopreneursllc.com/at-what-point-do-you-give-up/#respond Mon, 25 Aug 2008 11:02:51 +0000 https://www.donnaamos.com/at-what-point-do-you-give-up/ Are you the typical solopreneur?  You are excited to begin your marketing plan and you envision the masses running to purchase your product or service.  You put your ducks in a row and kick start your plan.  You complete step one and no sales.  It stings but you are okay and you proceed to step […]

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]]> Are you the typical solopreneur?  You are excited to begin your marketing plan and you envision the masses running to purchase your product or service.  You put your ducks in a row and kick start your plan.  You complete step one and no sales.  It stings but you are okay and you proceed to step two, again no sales.  You reach step four and still have not made a sale and now you are questioning your plan.  You make it through to step six and your resilience fails you and you stop.  Obviously that just didn’t work.  You now begin looking for the next solution to your problem which is the lack of a profitable marketing plan.
Unfortunately you did not give your plan a fair shot.  Most of us don’t purchase because we read an advertisement a few times.  We have to build trust and that can take some time and consistency. Check this out…This was written by Thomas Smith in London in 1885 and reprinted in Guerrilla Marketing by Jay Conrad Levinson.
20 Steps From Resistance to Relationship
1. The first time a man looks at an ad, he doesn’t see it.
2. The second time, he doesn’t notice it.
3. The third time, he is conscious of its existence
4. The fourth time, he faintly remembers it.
5. The fifth time, he reads the ad.
6. The sixth time he turns up his nose at it.
7. The seventh time, he reads it through and says, “Oh brother!”
8. The eighth time, he says, “Here’s that confounded thing again!”
9. The ninth time, he wonders if it amounts to anything.
10. The tenth time, he will ask his neighbor if he has tried it.
11. The eleventh time, he wonders how the advertiser makes it pay.
12. The twelfth time, he thinks it must be a good thing.
13. The thirteenth time, he thinks it might be worth something.
14. The fourteenth time, he remembers that he wanted such a thing for a long time.
15. The fifteenth time, he is tantalized because he cannot afford to buy it.
16. The sixteenth time, he thinks he will buy it someday.
17. The seventeenth time, he makes a memorandum of it.
18. The eighteenth time, he swears at his poverty.
19. The nineteenth time, he counts his money carefully.
20. The twentieth time he sees the ad, he buys the article or instructs his wife to do so.
At what point do you give up? Take this to heart and the next time you launch a marketing plan hang in there. That doesn’t mean you don’t test and tweak because you absolutely do. It means you must not stop before giving it a real opportunity to be successful. Happy marketing.

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