Gather Your Resources

Before you begin writing your marketing plan, make sure you have everything you need:

• Description of target customer (segment, description or demographic)
• Value Proposition with unique selling idea and competitive positioning
• Messaging with key selling points, supporting evidence for key selling points
• Available budget estimate
• A sales team ready for leads!

Step-by-Step Success

1. Draw Up Your Plan – Include the following as an outline:
   • Campaign Goal
     Begin by explaining the goal of your campaign initiative. Strive for concise, action-oriented language. Goals may include:  Lead generation, launch of a new offering or product, or event or program promotion.
     Promote new service to current customer base. Grow new customer base by 20% by June 2005 with special offer.

Target Customers
Targeting the right customer segment is one of the most important steps in creating an effective plan; a campaign that addresses a customer’s unique needs will yield the best response. Group your customers into profiles using common buying behaviors or attributes, such as longevity (in business <5 years) and geographic (in metropolitan area), and by the characteristics personas of the individuals you hope to reach (decision-maker, influencer, early adopter, mobile user, technologist, business owner).
Example:  “Technology Light, Basic, Dependent, Strategic.

• Identify how you will obtain your customer list, whether you use your existing customer records or purchase a new list from a mailing company (see How to Guide “Selecting a Preferred Mailing List Vendor”).
• Competitive Landscape
  Study your competitors’ marketing efforts and summarize their current positions. Where are they focused? What markets are they missing? How can you accentuate your strengths to differentiate yourself from their offerings? Identify the ways in which your competitors have evolved their solutions, so the path you choose is distinct and well planned. The better you understand your customers’ perceptions of competing solutions — as well as your own — the better you will be able to create a well-defined niche for your offerings.
• Background and Historical Information
  Interview your sales staff about past marketing efforts and current sales approaches to determine the methods they have found most effective in engaging customers. Document best practices, and be sure to note those areas proven least It is also useful to interview customers and document their perceptions about your offerings. “Why do they do business with you? Impressions about how they see your solutions compared to your competitors are valuable information. Make sure you make note of terminology and phrases that customers use, so you can incorporate these customer-friendly terms into your messages.
• Key Differentiation Points

Describe your company’s key selling points, focusing on the way your product or service is unique in the marketplace.

• Customer Offer and a Clear Call-to-Action

Your offer and call-to-action should give your customers an incentive that will interest them enough to take action so it must be easy for the customer to understand — there should be no doubt about how to take advantage of the offer. If the offer’s benefits are unclear, or the call-to-action is too complex, your customers will probably ignore your message altogether. See the Creating a Compelling Customer Offer How-to-Guide

Define Communication Media and Marketing Mix
Assess ideal ways to contact your customers. Do they prefer newsletters, trade shows, e-mails, or other publications? A well planned marketing campaign is useless if it doesn’t reach the right audience. See the Defining the Right Media Mix How-to-Guide

• Implementation Plan and Schedule

Outline the timeline and resources you will need to execute your marketing campaign. Your plan should cover at least one year, breaking down initiatives by month or quarter. Devote an additional section to the future, two to four years down the road, and revise your plan depending on the approach that brings the greatest results. Finally, don’t be afraid to test — before spending significant resources on a campaign, start small and measure results. This allows for vital modifications before you launch your larger campaign.

2. Connect your Plan to Potential Co-Marketing Partners

Consider complementary partners for co-branding opportunities in order to save costs and expand your campaign’s reach. They may be companies you already work with, or they may have targeted the same market segment that you have. Make sure your co-marketed message makes sense to the customer, and is not written just to satisfy the two parties making the offer. Your combined effort may bring the customer a more end-to-end solution. For example, a security-focused partner could complement your infrastructure services, and ISV software could draw your platform services into new businesses. Even professional services (i.e., accountants, engineers, architects, etc.) can bridge you to vertical markets and new business solutions.

3. Integrate Related Activities to Support your Campaign Plan

Identify activities that may assist your campaign effort, such as your own upcoming sales incentives, new product launches, branding activities, tradeshows, business cycles, and other elements that affect your customer interaction. Try to combine related activities into a higher-impact collective approach. For example,  you could combine an incentive program and tradeshow into a special promotional offer, effectively promoting both endeavors more thoroughly.

4. Share Your Plan Internally
   Take advantage of your internal staff. Make sure you share your ‘Target Customer Profiles’ with everyone your company, so that everyone can assist in finding prospects. Arm your sales staff with “Prospecting Questions to Ask” so they’re more effective in qualifying and leads.
   Example of key qualifying customer questions about technology:
   • Do you have pressure to comply with industry standards?
   • How many members of your staff are mobile?
   • Has your organization been threatened by security breaches?