A strategic plan is critical to executing a successful marketing campaign.
Far too often, business owners and inexperienced marketers, jump straight to tactics before doing the strategy and planning required to create the best possible opportunity for success.
These tactics are often based on quick assumptions, anecdotal information, or simply due to a provider ‘specializing’ in a specific type of marketing (eg. Google Ads). While these tactics can sometimes pay off, you’re risking both your time and marketing dollars with this approach.
Starting the process with strategy first can help ensure you create the greatest possibility for success and a strong return on investment (ROI).
Step 1 – Identify your goals, target customer, and evaluate your business positioning
Make a list of the following information:
- What is your sales goal for the next 12 months (in revenue)?
- What is the annual $ value of each client/customer?
- What is your close rate by lead acquisition type (referrals, inbound, outbound)?
- What is your unique value proposition (and are you a commodity)?
- Who is your target customer?
- Where does your target customer spend their time?
- What marketing activities are you doing right now / what have you had success in?
Documenting this information will help lay the foundation for your strategy.
Step 2 – Evaluate your findings
Now that we’ve identified the critical information about your goals, clients, and the current status of your business, it’s time to strategize.
Let’s say that your revenue goal is to generate $100,000 of new business in the next 12 months, and the annual value of each client is $5,000. This means you need 20 new clients to achieve the goal of $100k.
Next, let’s look at your close rate. Many service providers I speak with estimate an 80% close on direct referrals. That’s a great number. But what about outbound advertising? Unless you’re a high-profile online influencer, your outbound advertising and lead generation numbers will be significantly lower.
Businesses rarely have this information so in most cases, we’re going to take a guess. For this example, let’s say that it’s 2.5%.
This means if we want to generate $100k in 12 months with the average value of a customer being $5k, and our close rate is 2.5%, we need to generate 800 leads to close 20 clients.
$100,000 / $5,000 = 20 clients
20 clients / 2.5% close = 800 leads
Step 3 – Planning the marketing campaign
Now that we’ve identified we need 800 leads to reach our goal of 20 clients, we need to choose our marketing strategy.
In step one, we identified our unique target customer – what information were you able to collect about where they spend their time?
- Are they on social media? If so, what platforms?
- Are they part of any organizations, associations, or networking groups?
- Are they too busy to be social?
- Are they actively looking for your service (eg. Googling)?
The key is to identify the most probable place you will find your client and determine the level of success you will have marketing to them with a specific campaign type.
Some examples of marketing campaigns include:
- Social Media / PPC Advertising
- Direct Mail
- Sponsorships (eg. events, podcasts, etc.)
- Traditional Advertising (eg. newspaper, trade magazines, billboards, etc.)
- The list goes on…
Step 4 – Budgeting for your marketing campaign
Now that you’ve identified where you’re going to advertise, we need to figure out how much it will cost.
What is the number of impressions/viewers/circulation/etc. you will need to reach your target number of leads?
Let’s say that you chose to do social media advertising.
Through some research, you’ve identified that 0.005% of impressions result in a lead. To generate 800 leads, you will need 160,000 impressions (an impression = your ad displayed one time).
800 leads / .005 = 160,000 impressions
The cost per impression would depend on a few variables, but let’s say that it’s $0.02 ea. In this scenario, your ad spend is approximately $3,200
Other costs that you may need to factor in include Graphic Design, Copywriting, Photography, Technical setup (eg. Social Ads), management, etc.
Note: Most people need 3-7 ‘touches’ before deciding to take action on an ad. Out of these 160,000 impressions, you may be advertising to a smaller group of 32,000.
Step 5 – Evaluating the ROI on your marketing effort
There are a lot of variables that will dictate the final ROI of your marketing effort. The important thing to consider is that at the end of the day if your marketing spend is generating positive results (i.e. you’re making more than you’re spending) then it’s money well spent. If your ROI percentage is not aligned with your initial calculations, you may need to tweak and adjust along the way.
To figure out your return on investment, simply use the following equation:
(Sales Growth – Marketing Cost) / Marketing Cost x 100 = ROI
In our example, it would look like this:
($100,000 – $3,200) / 3200 x 100 = 3,025%
Impressive, right?
While the math is correct, this does not factor in operational costs, and assumes you have the perfect ad, the perfect offer, and perfect audience targeting.
With social media marketing, there is always some trial and error to see what ads/offers/targeting/etc. performs and delivers the highest ROI.
The big takeaway is you now have a framework to start planning and have actual data to work with.
How does this approach compare to how you market your business?
Does your business go through this exercise before starting a new marketing initiative? Or do you freestyle by choosing a popular tactic and making a lot of guesses and assumptions?
If you fall into the second category, it’s time to re-evaluate how you do things. With today’s economy, every dollar counts. Approach every new marketing campaign with a clear goal and strategy and you’ll be miles ahead of where you are today.
Does your business need help to implement an intentional marketing strategy?
Book a one-on-one consultation to learn about how we can help your business develop a refined marketing strategy that will reach your revenue targets.