Marketing can be a complex business process, but it doesn’t have to be. In fact, most brands these days work with streamlined marketing plans that fit neatly into a single page. Too many owners of small businesses try to fit their promotional efforts into traditional marketing plan templates that attempt to cover all angles. With a one-page marketing plan, you can take a quick glance at six elements that determine what promotional aspect you should pay more attention to.
Getting Started With One-Page Marketing Plans
To fit the elements into a one-page marketing plan, the concepts below should be separated into sections each around 60 words long. Writing the final version of the plan will be short and easy. Before you get there, however, you must go through brainstorming, ideation, research, and sometimes due diligence.
Target Audience
This is how you start your one-page marketing plan, by getting to know who you will be selling to and who would be interested in your products or services. Then, you have to find where your customers and clients can be reached. When we work with clients on this step, we look at consumer segments, demographics, geolocation, and digital habits.
Your Message
You want to deliver a general marketing message as a slogan or one-liner, ideally a message that can be included in the content of your campaigns. Keep in mind that the current business marketplace is very competitive, so you want to present a message explaining to prospects why they should choose your products and services. Don’t worry if you don’t have a snappy slogan; this section can be longer than the other five.
Media Channels
If you know your customers and prospects, then you know where to effectively reach most of them. Sometimes, the medium is the message. If you operate a Facebook Shop, for example, you want to stay in that network. But what about branching out to Instagram and WhatsApp? If your customer base doesn’t use a certain platform, you can avoid it. For one-page marketing plans, you only need to list the channels you wish to use with a brief description of the strategy.
Timing the Market
Business opportunities are created by events, moments, and circumstances. Many of our clients follow editorial calendars we have crafted based on their audiences and messages. For example, a neighborhood pizzeria with dine-in service should not ignore the opportunity presented by the holiday shopping season; this is a great time to remind prospects that they can bring visitors from out of town, stop by to take breaks from shopping, or check out seasonal dishes.
Methods
There are various methods and mechanisms for getting the attention of prospects, but converting them into paying customers may require more than one marketing strategy. Each of the strategies you implement should be conducive to the entire sales process, and they should stick to the general tactics of advertising, promotion, publicity, public relations, and salesmanship. For a one-page marketing plan, this section should only include brief descriptions, not the entire strategy in detail.
Budget
When allocating how much you will dedicate to your marketing plan, you should prioritize your strategies. In general, you want to dedicate more funds to the strategies you believe will have the greatest impact. This is crucial for small businesses that operate with tighter budgets. When clients leave the budgeting to us, we monitor spending closely to ensure it will deliver optimal return on investment (ROI). It’s also essential to be flexible in terms of being prepared to adjust your budget as needed based on performance.
Get Started on Your One-Page Marketing Plan
In essence, a one-page marketing plan breaks down many processes to make them fit into six manageable elements, thus providing you with a concise template to create a realistic plan suitable for small businesses. We can help you craft a strategy that attracts investors and customers. To get started today, contact My Marketing Department at 727.888.1200 to discuss your options for creating and executing an actionable one-page plan to attract new customers, increase your revenue, and promote your brand.