How to Write a Marketing Plan

A well-defined marketing plan outlines your goals, target audience, and strategies for reaching them. It should consider your objectives as a business - do you want to sell one hundred more units per month, or sign up ten new clients; or are your goals around engagement and exposure? All goals are valid, and unique to your business, and your marketing strategy should reflect that. Many small business owners find preparing a marketing strategy daunting or overwhelming, it’s hard to know where to start, but once you’ve done your initial research and preparation, the next step is being clear on what you want to achieve. 

Ideally, your marketing plan should include: 

- SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-bound) goals

- An overview of the marketing channels you will use (online vs. offline)

- Your budget for each of your marketing activities

Setting SMART Goals for your Marketing Plan

You’ve heard it a million times, but setting SMART goals is the foundation of any successful marketing strategy. As a reminder, SMART stands for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound. There’s no point starting any marketing activities if you don’t know what you want to achieve. Goals allow you to strategise, but also to review your activity at the end of your planning period and determine whether your plan was successful or not - did you achieve your goals? If not, why not? If yes, amazing, let’s capitalise on the success and keep optimising.

So realistically, here’s how you can set SMART goals:

• Be Specific: Clearly define what you want to achieve. For example, increasing website traffic by 20% or generating 100 leads per month.

• Ensure your goals are Measurable: Establish metrics to track progress and determine success. Use key performance indicators (KPIs) like conversion rates, click-through rates, or sales revenue.

• Make your goals achievable: Be realistic, ensure your goals are attainable based on available resources, market conditions, and timelines.

• Ensure goals are Relevant: Align your goals with your overall business objectives and target audience needs. They should contribute directly to business growth and profitability (if this is your objective) if you have other objectives like participation or engagement, then align your goals to these outcomes.

• Set a Timeline: Set a specific timeframe for achieving each goal, whether it’s quarterly, annually, or within a specific campaign period. There’s no rule for this, it could be one month or one year - it all depends on what you’re trying to achieve. You could also set multiple goals that each have a different timeline.

Document your goals, share them with your team (if you have one) and make sure you save them somewhere you are likely to revisit (they shouldn't be a set-and-forget exercise).

Choosing the Right Marketing Channels 

There are literally hundreds of different options you could choose to market your business. Social media, newspapers, radio, Google, paper-based mailouts, events… the list of possibilities is endless. So how do you choose the right channels? Ultimately, it comes down to your target audience and the research you have done to understand their behaviours; and your available budget. If they are more likely to be using one social media channel over another, utilise that one, or if they are avid listeners of a particular radio station then you might consider placing some radio ads. There’s no one-size-fits-all and there’s definitely no silver bullet that will make all your marketing dreams come true. It’s about being strategic, and a little creative, using the data you have available.

Depending on your budget, it’s advisable to utilise a range of marketing channels to reach your audience. It’s likely that your audience will interact with your advertising a number of times (up to ten in some industries) before they will convert and make a purchase, so you want to make sure you are targeting them across different platforms and channels so that you can first establish brand awareness, and then achieve conversions. 

Remember, marketing doesn’t always have to involve spending money, sometimes, what you need to invest is time. For example, attending a networking event will likely not cost you much, but it may take an hour of your time. Likewise, posting on your social media pages will also not likely cost much (or anything) but time. When you’re planning your marketing strategy, think of all the paid and unpaid marketing - it shouldn’t just be about your advertising, it’s the whole strategy.

To get your creative juices flowing, here’s some ideas you might consider:

- Online Channels: Your company websites, search engine optimization (SEO), pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, social media marketing (Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn), email marketing, content marketing (blogs, videos), and online marketplaces (Amazon, Etsy).

- Offline Channels: Print advertising (newspapers, magazines, direct mail), radio, television, outdoor advertising (billboards, signage), networking events, trade shows, and local community sponsorships.

To determine the right mix of channels for your business:

- Know Your Audience: Go back to your customer personas. Who are they, and where are they likely to be interacting with your business? 

- Evaluate Cost vs. ROI: Consider the cost-effectiveness and potential return on investment (ROI) of each channel based on your budget and marketing goals. If you’re not sure on the potential ROI, you can find a lot of industry benchmarks online. For example, if you search ‘Standard ROI on email marketing for small businesses’, you’ll find some data that suggests for every $1 spent on email marketing, $42 is returned - which is a very solid ROI. Of course, this may not be the case for all businesses, but if you’re just starting out and have no data of your own, then this would be a great case for including email marketing in your strategy and testing it with your own audience.

- Integrate Online and Offline: Leverage a combination of online and offline channels to maximise reach and engagement, ensuring consistency in messaging and branding across all platforms. For example, can you create a campaign that will allow you to design a flyer to take to your networking events, promote the campaign on your social media and write a blog about your website SEO?

When you’re first starting out, it can be hard to know which channels to utilise, particularly if you don’t have a huge budget to play with. By planning your activities, choosing channels that cover both online and offline, and then analysing the results over time; you’ll start to get a good understanding of which channels deliver the strongest ROI for your business and you can start to optimise your plan based on that. If you’re uncertain on where to start, or how to assess the effectiveness of your strategies, working with a marketing consultant can help. Most will be able to guide you on effective strategies for your target audience, suggested budget, and how to determine the effectiveness at the end of your campaign period.

Budgeting for Your Marketing Activities

We’ve all heard the saying, you need to spend money to make money. As a business owner, it can be tricky to balance the budget and allow spending on marketing activities; but in most cases, a well-thought out marketing plan will deliver a return on investment and make the spending worthwhile. But, you need to set a budget. 

As a general rule of thumb, a B2B business should allocate around 2-5% of revenue on marketing, and B2C businesses a little more, at 5-10% of total revenue. If you’re just starting out and your revenue is expected to grow over your planning period, factor this into your budget to allow a staggered increase in your marketing spend over time. 

Set a budget for each of your activities in your marketing plan and think of any costs associated with your chosen activities; for example, if you’re going to attend networking events, do you need business cards and flyers? Include the printing and design costs in your budget. If you can, give yourself a bit of a buffer for ‘sundries’ - any unexpected costs that may arise through the execution of your strategies. Over time, as you become more experienced, you’ll be able to identify all of your marketing costs at budget time, which will reduce the need for this sundries allowance.

Spend a bit of time on your budget. A well-planned marketing budget helps control costs, measure ROI, and align resources with strategic objectives, ensuring sustainable growth for your small business.

Let’s recap…

Creating a comprehensive marketing plan involves setting SMART goals, selecting the appropriate marketing channels (online vs. offline), and budgeting effectively to achieve desired outcomes. By defining clear objectives, choosing channels that resonate with your target audience, and allocating resources wisely, you can optimise your marketing efforts, attract new customers, and foster long-term success. Continuously evaluate and adjust your marketing strategies to adapt to changing market dynamics and maximise return on investment.