The recipe for a successful marketing plan

Rome wasn't built in a day and neither should your marketing plan. It takes time to carefully and thoughtfully craft a results-driven marketing plan.

Think about it. Before you dive into baking a cake, you need to first make sure you read through the entire recipe so that you know where you're going, and gather the right tools, resources and ingredients to make the cake.

Then you need to evaluate all of the directions you just read. You need to look at what steps are required before going on to the next one. If you just jump into the step that gets you the most jazzed you'll miss adding the crucial ingredients that are required to make things happen successfully.

The same thing goes with your marketing plan. You need to look at your goals first and then create the tangible steps that are going to help you meet them.

Are you looking to increase sales? Perhaps you want more social media followers. Whatever the dream, you need to break that sucker down into SMART goals. It needs to be Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound.

Get Specific

Instead of just wanting more social media followers, identify what social media platform works the best for your brand. Maybe it's better to increase your Facebook followers because they are your strongest brand ambassadors.

Measure it Out

Try something along the lines of acquiring 200 new Facebook follows each month to create a year-end goal of more than 2,000. Now that's a nice goal. Or maybe you just want to increase your amount of published content from three posts a month to 15. Whatever success looks like to you - make sure to measure it!

Can it Be Achieved?

Do you need to publish more content each week? Are some social influencers in the recipe of ingredients? If you can't see it happening, you need to reevaluate your goals or hire a professional that can help you. Consider bringing on a marketing agency that specializes in digital marketing.

Make Your Goals Relevant

If your company's sole purpose for having a Facebook page is for optimizing your visibility online and that's not where your customers are, you might want to reconsider a lofty goal of increasing followers. Although it's possible to add thousands of followers to your page, you need to ask yourself if they're actual leads? There are countless social media marketers that will tell you they can get you more followers, but if they aren't potential customers and have no interest in your company, they're ultimately irrelevant leads.

Set a Timeline

Once you mix all of the ingredients together for a successful marketing plan don't forget to set the timer. You need to build it out into your project timeline and set deadlines for you and your team. Keep them realistic, stick to them and the rest will fall into place. We also recommend reviewing your goals each month and each quarter to adjust them as necessary.

If you want to launch the best marketing plan of 2019 but need a little help, request a quote and we'd be happy to chat. Now if you want to be a better baker, that's another blog.