WHY SHOULD YOU WRITE A MARKETING PLAN?

The purpose of having a marketing plan is to write down marketing strategies in an organized manner. Writing a marketing plan will help you think of each campaign’s mission, budget, tactics, and deliverables. It works as a roadmap, helping you to stay on track and to discover what works and what doesn’t by measuring the success of your strategy. True fact is that unplanned, uncoordinated efforts can produce sporadic results, but usually not sustained growth. If you want to get the most out of your marketing dollars, I recommend that you create a plan and stick to it. Here are a few sections you should consider incorporating in your marketing plan.

Start with some research

Perception of your company: It is important to know what other people besides you think about your product/ service, what “the outside world” thinks about your company. I recommend you spend some time talking to your employees, partners, customers, and any community members who are involved with your company. It is important to find out what they truly think and how they feel about your product/service.

Perception of your competitors

Also ask people who they think your competitors are, and how your company stacks up against them. Take some time to check out your competitors’ marketing efforts.

Write down SMART goals & how you will achieve them

Lay out what you want to achieve. Pay attention to list SMART goals — specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and time-bound — so you’ll be able to clearly know whether or not they were met. A SMART goal example could be: “Increase current customer base by 15% by the end of the quarter.” In addition, write down the milestones you must hit in order to achieve your goals. For example the milestone could be: “To reach 5,000 sales prospects with an email campaign that has an open rate of at least 30% and a clickthrough rate of 5%.”

Define your target markets & buyer persona

Specify whom you intend to reach through your marketing efforts. Generally, this is your customers and prospective customers defined in a geographical area or demographics offers and thus the reason for doing business with you instead of your competitors.

Create a content strategy

Just as your business might have more than one type of customer, your content strategy can cater to more than one type of user. Using a variety of content types and channels will help you deliver content that’s tailored to each persona.

Your strategy should stipulate:

* Which types of content you’ll create. These can include for example blog posts, YouTube videos, infographics.

* How much of it you’ll create, for example in daily, weekly, monthly, or even quarterly intervals.

* The goals and Key Performance Indicators (KPI) you’ll use to track each type. KPIs can include organic traffic, social media traffic, email traffic, and referral traffic. Your goals should also include which pages you want to drive that traffic to, such as product pages, blog pages, or landing pages.

* The channels on which you’ll distribute this content: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Pinterest, and Instagram for example.

Our marketing team at HCC can assist you with recommendations for your website, social media tips, and create a banner among other services. Additionally at HCC we can promote your business through our social media platforms, with an article in our en Contacto magazine, interview you in our Members on Air — An HCC Podcast or Cámara en Vivo and/or showcase your restaurant in Los Sabores de St. Louis. Additionally, let me list some members that provide marketing related services: Spry Digital, Success Brands, Cartel, Thomson Printing, PrintFlex graphics, among others.

As always, I am available if you have any questions or need assistance at mdegregorio@hccstl.com

MARIA DE GREGORIO Business Counselor, Hispanic Chamber of Commerce