Creating A Marketing Plan That Stands Out
In our last post, we highlighted the difference between a marketing strategy and a marketing plan. While a marketing strategy is focused on winning in the long term, a marketing plan is targeted at winning in the short term. A marketing plan documents all tactics involved in achieving the marketing goals written in the marketing strategy.
As a recap,
What is a marketing strategy?
A marketing strategy is a document shaped by your business strategy. It must align with your business goals and the overall purpose of your business.
What is a marketing plan?
A marketing plan, on the other hand, is a detailed sequence of activities. The details involve what marketing activities will be carried, how they will be carried out and where they will be carried out. It also includes success metrics — key milestones you will reach to signify that you have truly made progress.
As an African entrepreneur, it helps to remember that you face very stiff competition regardless of how innovative your product/service offering might be. When creating a marketing plan, it helps to create more than just a regular marketing plan but to create a strategic marketing plan. To create a strategic marketing plan that hits the goals you set out to achieve with your marketing strategy, we have laid out a few key steps to help you create the marketing plan that yields results that stand out.
NOTE: Before you begin creating a marketing plan using these steps, make sure you read through it all first and understand the requirements of each step.
1. Remember your target audience
This is one similarity between the marketing strategy and the business plan. Always have your actions tailored to suit your target audience and their needs. Remember their pain points, their goals and aspirations, their buying habits, their lifestyle habits and the way they consume content.
Their mode of consuming content will help you define the best way to reach them. Do they consume content digitally or do they consume content over more traditional ways (television, radio, newspaper/magazines etc)
2. Define and create your marketing material
Depending on how your target audience consumes content, you then move on to defining and creating your marketing material. When defining your marketing material, keep in mind that the material you create (article, video, audio recording, graphics) must be in line with your brand (reputation) and must be in the language and tone your audience will understand and appreciate.
3. Define your sharing strategy
As an African entrepreneur, it is easy to get caught up in the wave of online marketing. However, keep in mind that the requirements of your target demographic are more important than marketing trends. Since a relatively large population of older Africans do not have access to digital platforms where such marketing efforts thrive, it makes sense to meet them where they are. The exception to this rule is when these older people are the users but not the buyers of your offering.
Also, consider marketing in ways that deviate from what is expected. Remember, you are in competition for your audience’s attention. Get it in a way other people do not consider.
4. Plan for success with well-defined metrics
This is the goal of every strategic marketing plan. There must be well-defined objectives of the marketing plan. They are usually called Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). Some of these KPIs could be
- Leads generated
- New clients vs returning clients
- Average sales volume
- Customer acquisition costs (total cost of marketing divided by the total number of customers gained)
IN SUMMARY
While your marketing strategy is the big picture, your marketing plan goes into the details of the actions you will take. Both must work together for marketing efforts to be successful. Only execute your marketing plan if it is in line with the goals you have outlined in your marketing strategy.
Did you find this article helpful? If you did, please share this post and drop a response in the response section. We’ll love to hear from you. Also, follow us on Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn and join in the conversations.
Are you an entrepreneur in SA or Nigeria? Head over to the Thriving Africa Academy to access our free How To Startup course.
