Who better than Maureen Shelley, head of TCC, to give advice on marketing?
Maureen has extensive experience helping businesses across the private, non-profit and government sectors achieve their marketing goals.
Recently, Maureen hosted a free webinar workshop to share just some of her wisdom on developing a marketing plan.
In case you missed it, we decided to distil the key takeaways and present them to you in this quick guide.
So, without further ado, here are seven steps to improving your marketing for 2021.
Step 1: Set objectives
Begin your marketing plan by outlining your objectives for the year. Use SMART goals to craft your objectives, to help you narrow down to what’s practical.
To set a SMART goal, simply make sure your goal is Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Timely.
While being ambitious is great, try to limit your objectives to just four at the outset. Once you’ve achieved this first batch, you can always set more.
Step 2: Know your audience
Never underestimate the value of knowing your audience, understanding their needs and how to offer them solutions.
A great way to determine who your audience is versus who you want them to be is to look at your existing customers and figure out who’s paying you the most. These are the sorts of people you will want to start targeting.
Step 3: Take users on a journey
Use this historical information about your ideal customer to craft your audience personas (a profile of your ideal customer) and define their buyer’s journey (the steps they take towards making a purchasing decision).
Now you can figure out how to reach your customer at each stage of the sales funnel, from attracting and engaging to converting and retaining.
Step 4: Set targets
Look over your objectives and your newfound knowledge about your ideal customer. Use these to set actionable targets across all areas of your marketing, including social media, content marketing, search engine optimisation and lead conversion.
Step 5: Renew your strategy
To achieve your new targets, you’re going to need a new strategy to match. In broad strokes, your strategy will involve:
- Branding: getting you message and your look just right
- Campaigns: offer-specific marketing techniques
- Monitor, review and refresh: frequently checking the progress of your marketing and tweaking as required.
Step 6: Remember your timeline
Imagine you’ve sent a marketing email promoting an event the next day. Your customers may not have enough time to sign up, or even to think about signing up.
While we want to avoid situations like this, timing can also be an invaluable marketing tool when used correctly.
Use time to your advantage by setting realistic timeframes for your objectives and targets. Based on these timeframes, you can schedule all your marketing so that it reaches your audience at the right moment and achieves great results.
Step 7: Convert with case studies
If you’re not using case studies, you could be missing out on a winning marketing opportunity. By presenting what your business can do for your customer in a fun, engaging form, you can turn your qualified leads into sales. For each of your key audiences, develop case studies that demonstrate how your business can offer them the solution they’re after.