We understand that the words marketing plan or an action plan is enough to send shivers down your spine. Who wants to add extra work when you’re already wearing so many hats as a business owner? It doesn’t have to be as intimidating or as labour intensive as you might think. We’ve narrowed down how to create a marketing plan, into a few simple steps.

Step 1. Analyse the current state of affairs with your company’s marketing efforts

Before you can create your marketing strategy for the year, look at your goals and what you’re doing right now to achieve them. Are you on track, or are you a little off the path? Look at all of your marketing efforts, your website, social media, networking etc.


Here are some questions to ask yourself in the process:

• What pain points are we currently facing?
• Are we focused on the right things to have the most significant impact on the business?
• Do we have the right knowledge, experience and tools at our disposal to be effective, or do we need to supplement the team in some way?

Step 2. Brainstorm a list of everything you can do to improve your marketing efforts

When you’re working on and in your business, it can be hard to find the time to take a step back and reflect on what you’re doing and what you need to do. I know it can feel like another task that doesn’t have a deadline against it but having the discipline to do this, can yield some significant opportunities.

Take a look at your goal, and then your current marketing efforts, then look at any gaps between the two. It’s also a good idea to look at your customer touch points to see how you can improve marketing efforts to current or past customers (as they tend to be cheaper than trying to acquire new customers). Compile a list of the stuff you know you should be trying but may not have the time or expertise to execute. 


Here are some common points small businesses miss:

• Consistent social media posts
• Having an optimised Google My Business listing
• Having Google Analytics set up on the website - to see where customers interact with it
• Actively requesting online reviews for Google and/or Facebook
  

Don’t forget to think about what message you’re telling your customers. A key aspect of your marketing campaigns should be the content you’re using - making sure you talk to your potential customers and customers at the right time, right place with the right message.

Step 3. Prioritise your list

Whether you have 10 things or 100, putting them in a list and prioritising them can make the process less daunting. Put the amount of time and effort you think they will take to execute and then figure out how much of an impact that would have on the business. Those that have high impact and are easier to execute are the best to focus on first.

• Write a list
• Look at the time/effort
• Rate the impact
• Rearrange list based on the time/effort and impact

Step 4. Create an action plan

What are the little steps you need to do in order to tick the items off your list? Break these down into actionable steps, indicating who does what, when. It can be helpful to break it down into a weekly, monthly or quarterly action plan.

You may be the person that wants to “eat the frog” and do some of the harder/bigger projects first or tackle some of the “quick wins” and build momentum while not diverting too much time. The most important thing is that you’re moving your projects forward and on the way to reaching your goal.

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It’s important to have an actionable plan so that you can successfully promote your business and make your goals a reality - Get in touch