What’s in your 1-page Marketing Plan?
How would you feel if your entire marketing strategy could fit on 1 page?
Well, I’m here to tell you it’s possible. Despite the daily minutiae of business operations, the complex departmental intricacies of organizational structures, and the frequent exchanges with suppliers and customers, the Author of this week’s Wise Marketing book spotlight gives you the tools and insights necessary to make it happen!
In his 2016 book titled ‘The 1-Page Marketing Plan:.,’ Allan Dib provides a concrete, tried and tested, and systems-based approach to building out your marketing strategy and customer service process. By the end of it, you’ll be looking down at a piece of paper divided into 9 sections with your roadmap to marketing and business success.
Get your notepad ready for this one as it’s filled with useful anecdotes and best practices for everything from getting to know your customers to strategy, email marketing, building a strong offer, how to price your product or service properly, how to measure the success of a campaign, and what metrics matter most. Importantly, you’ll also be actively encouraged to think about how these insights can be applied and implemented into your business right now.
Can’t find the time to read? No problem, that’s why I created the Wise Marketing Blog.
To start, it’s important to remember the Two Most Important Things in Marketing:
1. Why should they buy?
2. Why should they buy from me?
It’s really easy to get caught up with all the different facets of a business and at times it can seem hard to figure out where to start. With that, Allan offers a simple phrase to help keep you on track and remember that it’s better to focus on one thing at a time than everything at once: 100 Watt Lightbulb can light up a room. A 100 Watt laser can cut through steel. — I can’t emphasize this enough!
So, according to Allan, where should you start?
Well, you should start with really identifying who your customer is and why they’d be interested in your product. Put yourself in their shows and imagine a day-in-the-life as your customer. It helps to know who your community is before going back to work on your product.
This will save you a ton of trial-and-error time and it’ll help you deliver the product or service that customers want or need most!
Next, you’ll want to create a strategy. And importantly, before you get rolling you should have a clear elevator pitch about what you do. How will you get your message out? What communication channels will you use?
Allan recommends to stick with the tried and true method of email and having customers interact with your website—your home base.
He prescribes this as a marketing focal point because things change. You could spend years building a following on a social media channel just to have the platform vanish before your eyes (think myspace!).
The truth is, the major social media networks of today may not be their tomorrow so it’s best to keep the line of communication open with your customers without any major disruptions. That’s why email and having a website is so important.
Next, lets briefly touch on what Allan has to say about email. Here’s the golden rules that you can start practicing today:
1) Don’t spam people. Just don’t do it!
2) Keep in touch with your customers at least once to twice a month
3) Make sure you’re providing value with your emails and not just trying to sell things all the time.
4) The length of an email is secondary to it’s content!
Metrics & Customer Analytics:
As a business owner, you now have more access than ever to feedback and customer analytics.
It’s really easy to get caught up with all of this data and fall into the trap of paralysis by analysis.
So what should you focus on here?
Well, keep it simple and focus on the following statements: Good marketing pays for itself and people only find out about the quality of your product / service AFTER they buy.
Measure the metrics that most the business forward and count. Look at who is buying and if they’ve decided to come back, or refer you to others.
The buying process: Make the experience amazing and add some theater to it! Any little extra thing helps.
For your marketing efforts, use powerful copywriting and words that have impact. There are a lot of free resources available to you. Namely with Google AdWords and what key terms people are searching for.
Referrals and Repeat business is Everything:
AND, the most valuable commodity today is reputation. The reputation economy requires that you transform your marketing from just information and high-pressure sales tactics to education-based marketing.
Tell your audience about all the effort that goes into delivering your product or service.
If you’re a successful business owner, you can quickly see how dependent the business is on you. Allan provides a cautionary tip to make sure you can alleviate some pressure with the use of a business system that can be replicable and by breaking down all parts of the system into their processes and component parts.
Overall, the goal of creating a business system is so that the business can be run without you. This is done through clearly defining processes and capturing them in something like an operations manual, training videos, etc.
Simple tips for offerings and pricing:
A customer one on price is a customer lost on price. So don’t focus on the race to the bottom and being the cheapest business out there.
Offer structured options for pricing your product or service or offer subscription-based services.
Most people typically operate on a bi-weekly purchasing schedule. Offer a payment plan if your product or service is on the pricier side of things.
Lastly, MAKE IT EASY. Use a payment system that’s easy to use and offer different methods of payment. When a happy customer is ready to buy, the last thing you want is a hiccup at this final step.
I hope this summary was helpful! If you’d like to grab a copy for yourself, you can get it here or likely in your local book store.
As always, feel free to reach out if there’s a book or topic you’d like me to cover next!
