HOW TO CREATE YOUR MARKETING PLAN IN 10 EASY STEPS. STEP #9: PROMOTION

We are now on Step #9 in our 10 simple steps for creating your marketing plan.  Thus far, we have covered Step #1: Create a Unique Selling Proposition, #2: Don’t Put the Cart Before the Horse which addresses the logical sequence of events in the planning process, #3: Establish Your Sweet Spot which revolves around defining your target audience, #4: Articulate Your Brand,  #5: Competitive Reconnaissance, #6: Consumer Access,  #7: Pricing and Step #8:Internal Branding or creating brand ambassadors.

Now that you have put your ducks in a row, it is important to let the world know about your brand.  The promotional piece is something that can feel daunting, as there are so many options. In this step, we will touch briefly on both “traditional” promotional methods, as well as the online marketing techniques. 

Let’s start with traditional promotions which are probably what you are most familiar with—these techniques represent what is called a push strategy where you are trying to push your message out to your target audience.  These traditional methods are becoming more challenging because consumers have become so inundated with information; they have learned to filter it. And with everyone being bombarded, it can be a real challenge trying to cut through all the clutter.

Depending on your brand DNA, some of the traditional methods may prove more effective for you than others.

Public Relations is always a good option as it is free press.  The great thing about PR is that if you have a good story, you can garner more “ink” for editorial coverage than what you could probably afford via an advertising campaign.  Another plus is that editorial coverage is more believable to a consumer than paid advertising as it seems like the info is coming from the publication, not the brand itself.  The key to getting your story placed is to have a strong hook that is topical, and that reporters will want to talk about.  It is important to think of ways to position your story so it has relevance and editors will pick it up.

For all PR, it is essential to have a good understanding of lead-times for different types of publications so that you can plan accordingly. This will help you to properly time your stories with any big news you have breaking.  Magazines are typically long-lead, meaning you would owe your story roughly 3-4 months in advance of publication, while newspapers are short lead and you can pitch your story within the week.

A big piece of your decision when it comes to other traditional media is your budget.  In order to do a paid advertising campaign, it is important that you have reach and frequency.  This means you must be able to fund an ad campaign that will help you reach a broad swath of your target, and your ad needs to appear frequently enough to get noticed. 

You will want to look at the big picture and decide where it makes sense to budget for advertising, your website, print material and/or signage.  In order to do this, you must evaluate your return on your investment.

With the inbound marketing techniques, you are focusing more on getting found by your customers.  Inbound marketing uses tools such as social media to build brand awareness.  These social media platforms function as the frontier where customers find you, then the goal is to bring them back to your home base, which is your website, for more information.

One key difference between traditional promotion and some of the social media platforms is that the former is a one-way conversation which preaches to your consumer.  Social platforms provide a forum for dialogue with your target audience and a way to create user generated content.

If you do plan to run traditional ads or launch a PR campaign, don’t forget to integrate both forms of marketing by doing things like including your Facebook page URL in your traditional ads and press pitches.

Be sure you understand how to use each form of social media so that you are creating appropriate messages and using appropriate language for each.  Some of the most popular platforms, like Pinterest, are highly visual and that is something that resonates with consumers.  Even on Facebook, the most popular posts these days incorporate photos.

The goal with social is to get everyone to share your content so it goes viral.

Social media has its pluses for small businesses as you have the same opportunities as any big corporation—it is a leveled playing field.  While it does not represent a large financial investment, it is a major time commitment if done right.  You want to be sure you have the bandwidth to invest the time.

There is simply too much to say about social media to include it all here, but one last quick point on this: don’t sit on the sidelines because you are afraid of what might be said online about your brand.  Customers are going to talk about you whether you like it or not—so you might as well join the conversation.

For planning purposes, it is ideal to create a big grid with all of your promotional ideas, and all of the corresponding “outlets” for getting the word out to your audience.  So, for example, if you were announcing a new product-you would want to look the appropriate promotional tools-be it public relations, magazine ads, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, email campaign, your website, signs in your place of business, etc.

Your messaging across each platform should marry so that there is cohesion.  (The messages don’t need to be identical; they should be tailored to the medium.)  You will want to put deadlines against each so you know when you need to get your promotional message out to the public in order to maximize its effectiveness.