How to design a marketing plan that helps you make an impact

Overview

Marketing is a promise. Our plan will help us spread that promise to the people we seek to change.

We’ll be releasing a full guide on how to design a marketing plan that helps your startup make the impact it wants to make.

The guide is 15 posts long, releasing one every Monday.

Planning: Roadmap to reach your goals

“Plans are useless but planning is indispensable.” – Dwight D. Eisenhower

While Eisenhower was talking about war, this directly applies to business. You can’t predict the future. But plans act as guides to our goals. They give us a sense of direction.

The first plan you write down might not get you exactly where you want to go. But, it will get you closer to your goal and you’ll discover things that you didn’t know before.

Plans are in constant evolution. You might realize that you were focusing on the wrong target or using a tactic that wasn’t quite right for you. A way to see if you’re on the right track is to review your plan weekly and change it when necessary.

Marketing: A promise

Marketing is the promise we make to the world. The promise of making a change for the better. The first thing we need to do is craft our promise.

Once you have your promise down it’s time to let the world know. But who should know? Who are you seeking to change? Who cares about this? Why should they care?

Once they know, why should they be a part of this? Will they be proud of being part of this?

Once they’re a part of this, why should they tell their friends? Why should they stay with you?

Marketing plan outline

To design a marketing plan that actually works we need to answer questions that help us define who we want to be, who we want to change, and why we’re doing this.

These questions will guide our strategy and help us choose the right tactics to reach our goal. Each question will have a separate blog post getting to the core of what we want to define with each answer.

We will wrap everything up in a marketing plan that has a clear strategy and useful tactics to make the impact you seek to make.

1. Defining us question: Who are you?

Before getting into who we’re going to change. We need to define who we are and what we do. A clear and concise sentence defining who we are and what we do will help us communicate it to the world.

2. Target audience question: Who are you for?

We don’t make average stuff for average people. We will define who is that person you seek to change. If you target everybody, you will change no one. We need to know what are their wants, needs, worries, and desires before we’re able to connect with them.

3. Promise question: What promise are you making?

What’s the change you want to make? Why should people care?

4. Positioning question: What makes you different?

Every person has different beliefs. They care about different things when shopping for stuff. For people who believe this, they can choose us. We’ll introduce a simple exercise that will make it easy to position your brand in today’s noisy world.

5. Empathy question: What do the people you want to change care about?

Everyone has different walks of life. What do they know that you don’t know? What do you know that they don’t know? What do they need to know before they buy?

6. Outreach question: How do we get the word out?

How will they know that you exist? Do we hang out where they hang out? What will you do so they can notice you?

7. Capturing question: For those who are interested but aren’t ready to buy, how will you capture them?

Email lists and small communities are great for achieving this goal. We’ll break down a few options so you can choose the right one for your needs.

8. Nurturing question: What will you tell them?

Those who you’ve captured, it’s time to show them that you’re what they need. What will you say? How will you tell them? How often?

9. Converting question: What’s the next step?

What’s the action people need to take? It needs to be clear and easy to do. Converting people from a list to people that are part of your brand.

10. Deliver on your promise

That promise that we defined earlier, it’s time to deliver. What will you do to ensure that you deliver on your promise? What will make them remember this experience?

11. Growth question: Why should they tell their friends?

Will their friends care? Does your business have a way to create a network effect?

12. Branding

A great brand is something we want to belong to. It’s the sum total of all your marketing. It’s what people believe when they see you. We’ll go more fully in-depth into branding in our next guide.

13. Marketing plan worksheet

An actionable worksheet that will help you define the steps you need to take to make the impact you want.