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[Video] How to Create a Marketing Plan

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We publish videos every 4-6 weeks about the latest Digital Marketing news, analytics information, and industry-related topics.

Good afternoon. This is Danny Laws of DaBrian Marketing Group. We tried to go live earlier this morning. For whatever reason, ran into some technical difficulties, so we kind of want to try this, kind of take two, on Wednesday Wisdom. So for today, for those of you that didn’t catch it earlier today, kind of a follow-up on the last conversation in terms of business plans. So, today what I want to speak to and kind of give some information and some resources on, very much so, marketing plans, which in theory and in practice roll up into … excuse me. The business plan.

So, with that being said we’re going to talk a little bit about marketing plans. I have my notes over to the side here, so if you see me glance over, that’s what I’m looking at. So, with the marketing plan, the whole goal of this is to kind of outline … it’s a document that outlines what marketing channels you’re going to use, your approach to marketing, those types of things. In general, it gives you goals, objectives, your target audience, what is it going to cost you, and what type of marketing you’re going to use in order to acquire new business.

So, one of the classic examples when we talk about what types of channels or tactics or those types of things, we’re talking about social media, we’re talking about direct mail, we’re talking about perhaps a video, those types of things that would help you get in front of that target audience. And as I said to you before, it’s usually something that consists of a time, very specific time period. Some marketing plans are one year, some marketing plans are three years, that roll up into the business plan as I mentioned before.

One of the other things that you want to take into consideration is the marketing plan is not something that is static, that you create and it doesn’t evolve over time. Your marketing plan should evolve over time based upon your products, your services, your geographic footprint, your audience, your competitive landscape, those types of things periodically will have you adjust your marketing plan to the appropriate folks and to see improvement in results. So that’s definitely something you’re going to take into consideration.                       

So the purpose is really to align and give direction to your business goals and objectives, which many of those pieces are going to be inside of or are in the document that is often referred to as the business plan. So, again, forcing that alignment and making sure you’re staying focused on the high-level business goals and objectives, generally around revenue growth, promoting a product, launching a product, those types of things are going to be a part of that and actually flow into the marketing plan as well.

So, the benefits. Clear direction in terms of what kind of customers you’re going after, that new customer acquisition, and direction and guidance in terms of messaging to your target audience. So when you look at your marketing plan at a high level, who, what, when, where, how, why, what products, what service offering, those things, once you identify those elements, you can customize your message to speak to the appropriate folks.

So the same marketing tactics that you use to get in front of a teenager at this point in time are going to be uniquely different than someone who is in the business landscape, who is a business owner entrepreneur, and the way in which you would talk to them are going to be completely different dependent upon the product offering.

So that’s a classic example of how knowing the who, what, when, where, how, why and marketing tactics will allow you to tailor that message to the respective audience. So something you definitely want to take into consideration as you’re going through the process of creating a marketing plan.

So, give you a couple of things on how to create a marketing plan is often one of those questions, and so, with that, I’ll walk through a couple of questions that I have here on my side in terms of things that you want to take into consideration. What are the goals and objectives for 12 months, 24 months, 36 months, what does that look like, right? That’s something you’re going to want to answer.

What types of marketing are going to resonate or connect with your target audience. So, is that social, is that direct mail, is that video, and what are the goals of the marketing pieces? Like, what are you trying to accomplish? Is it simply an awareness piece, is it something around generating leads, is the intent at sales and promotion? Those types of things. What’s that look like? And what kind of challenges are you having getting or acquiring new customers and getting them to purchase or getting them to become involved in a promotional component or something along those lines, right?

And lastly, how are you going to measure it? And measuring that against the cost of what you’re talking about from a marketing perspective. So, what kind of returns are you looking to get and how are you quantifying success? Is that going to be new customers, or is that going to be something that you’re going to speak to in terms of revenue, you just want to have growth and x amount of revenue is what you want to achieve with the marketing plan over the next 12 months, right?

So, these are some of the things that are going to be important to crafting a marketing plan, right?

And then let’s talk about a few resources. So, what I have here is, again, full disclaimer, we don’t have any relationship with any of these folks that I’m about to name. We’re not getting any kickbacks or anything along those lines, but I’ll name them and feel free to use them, and give us some feedback on what you think on them as well. One of which is HubSpot, who has a marketing plan template generator that I’ve looked at in the past and seems to be fairly useful for someone that the marketing plans are not necessarily their area of expertise and walks you through that process, makes it a little bit simpler for you. So, I would definitely take a look at that tool and how it might be able to help you.

The third one is Mplans. So, Mplans is a paid service if I’m not mistaken and it has the same parent company as Live Plans that I mentioned the last time when we were talking about creating business plans. So, that’s something that I personally used in the past when I first started DaBrian Marketing Group and looked at, so I would encourage you to perhaps take a look at that one and whether or not it’s worth the cost, only you would be able to justify that and make that determination, but definitely something I would recommend you take a look at.

The other one is Smart Sheets, which gives you an Excel breakdown and an Excel template for marketing plans, so you can use that piece as well to pull some of those items together to frame your thoughts so that it makes it a little bit easier for you. And take a look at some of those items that it’ll give you an opportunity to kind of clean some of that up.

The last piece here that I’ll get into in terms of actions, you know, actionable tips for marketing plans. Number one, create one, and if you’ve already created one I would allocate some time to review and revisit that marketing plan. Number two is measure success and failure, and on top of that, learn from those successes and failures as far as what works, what doesn’t work, what gets people coming in, what gets people calling, what gets people filling out forms. Those types of things are definitely elements where you’re going to want to take a look at the marketing plan and look at what is working for you, what is successful, what is not successful, and being able to pull those pieces together.

So, that’s one other actionable takeaway that I would have for marketing plans in terms of a recommendation.

The last piece is, in terms of actionable recommendations, actionable tip, is to revisit that marketing plan on a quarterly basis so that you’re able to see what’s happening, make adjustments based upon those successes and failures, and the learnings from those success and failures to be able to sell more products, get in front of the appropriate folks, build up the business, however you see fit in terms of aligning back to the marketing plan and the business goals and objectives.

So, with that being said, wrapping it up, I would say if you’ll give us some feedback in terms of these Wednesday Wisdoms if you will in terms of what your thoughts are and how we might be able to improve upon the videos, it’s definitely new we’re taking a look at. Follow our Facebook page, you’ll get free tips and information there. Subscribe to our blogs, there’s always a whole bunch of information there as well as downloadables, and continue to check us out on social media across Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, and we’ll be loading some of this stuff up to YouTube as well.

Appreciate your time. Good luck, and don’t hesitate to give us feedback. Have a great day.

One Page Business Plan

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We publish videos every 4-6 weeks about the latest Digital Marketing news, analytics information, and industry-related topics

Good afternoon. This is Danny Laws from DaBrian Marketing Group. First time ever going live from my office. So this is going to be interesting. First and foremost again, Danny Laws, I’m the principal owner of DaBrian Marketing Group and, so today I wanted to talk a little bit about business plans. We work with a number of clients in the US, some of that as well in the UK. Periodically we happen to come up against the challenge of having clear goals and objectives in terms of what we’re trying to accomplish as an agency. And so what is often very useful for us is having a business plan that lays out those clear goals and objectives for us, as well as giving some level ground in terms of our clients and the people that we work with. So we wanted to bring that information to you today.

So in terms of sharing that information, getting business owners off on the right foot, giving you a couple of resources to speak to, right? So we want to make sure that we’re giving you that information so that you can do what you need to do. Right? And so I have to my one side here, I’m looking at some notes to kind of high-level things. So if you see me glance off, that’s really what I’m looking at. Just so you’re aware. But, essentially what is a business plan, right? It gives you, an outline of goals and objectives for the future and how you want to go about achievement and achieving them in a nutshell. I’ve seen business plans range from, you know, five or six pages to 22 pages dependent upon the graphs, the information of financials, those types of things that are involved in business plans.

So, it can be a rather daunting task. And there are a number of different things that you can do in order to make your life easier in terms of putting together a business plan. Right? So, the other piece of this is why do you need a business plan? Simply it gives you some direction. It gives you direction, your organization direction and allows you to revisit that plan and perhaps pivot or adjust when you need to further down the line. So, um definitely something that’s important. And as I mentioned before, I’m working with an agency or working with consultants and any type of business space. Right? We want to make sure that we’re able to take that information and take action on your behalf. So it’s often very useful in terms of what’s your vision, your mission, your unique value proposition, what are the values that are important to you?

Those are really good things for your agencies, your partners, your marketing folks. If somebody is providing a service um for you as a vendor, for them to have that information at their fingertips, so that they might be able to use that information and act on that information best on your behalf. Right? So definitely something important you want to take into consideration. Let’s talk a little bit about resources for business plans. Right? So, being in a greater Reading PA area, I would definitely speak to a Greater Reading Chamber Alliance, if I’m not mistaken, Jobany over at the Greater Reading Chamber Alliance on the small business side has been helping organizations perhaps not with a formal plan, not, don’t hold me to that, but in terms of putting in thinking about some of these items.

So what is your vision? What is your mission, what’s your story, what’s the story behind your brand? Those types of things. Putting together recommendations and kind of helping companies walk through that process and work through some of those things so that they had them. It gives them some clear direction. So Jobany, Greater Reading Chamber Alliance, definitely a great resource in the greater Reading area. I would also recommend SCORE. I myself have used SCORE, in a number of different ways and those individuals can come together, help you with your business plan, give you some resources, some ideas, act as a sounding board for business plans to best to have you hit the ground running as efficiently and effectively as possible. And they’re great resources as well. And they’re also located, if I’m not mistaken, in the same building as the Greater Reading Chamber Alliance, they come into that building and they partner with you to pull those things together.

Right? So definitely a great resource there. The other one that I would recommend that I’ve also used in the past as I was going through the business planner, revisiting business plans, is LivePlan. Which is an online software to put together business plans. Relatively inexpensive, if I’m not mistaken, you know, $15 or less on a monthly basis and you put together the plan. It also gives you some updated reminders, in terms of, acts as a check-in if you will. Via email, in terms of progress and where you’re at on certain things. So I found that, found that to be rather useful for me. In terms of followup and follow through that, that was a great benefit. I liked that it was really relatively easy to use. And so, it didn’t hurt for you to be able to pull some of those things together in terms of pulling together a business plan.

It was very easy, pulled in a chart for you, gave you some templates to kind of have to work off of. So I thought that that was a value. So that’s why I figured I’d share. The other piece of this that I think that, that I want to mention again, we’re DaBrian Marketing Group. We’re an agency. So we do happen to have a free one-page business plan with metrics that is, that is on our site. So, in terms of helping our customers is something that we put together internally that kind of speaks to the mission statement, value proposition, you know characteristics of the brand, what’s important to you, what’s the story and essentially strategy tactics, metrics that align to that, that are often very important. So when we start talking about a lot of the business plans, the information is all over the place.

So what we tried to do was pull together one document that kind of gave you that and I happen to have one here. It speaks to the strategy, tactics, metrics, the goals. So how many goals do you have on a quarterly basis, who’s the owner of that metric or that outcome is also listed on the document and then a section for comments and results. So definitely something that I would encourage you to take a look at. If you don’t have a plan or you don’t have a formal document, it’s rather easy. It’s a one-pager that kind of stays with me to kind of keep me on track as a business owner as well. So I would say it’s a free tool. It’s on our site if you’re interested in looking at that. If you go to the search bar that’s in the top right-hand area of our site, put in a business plan and you’ll be able to skim through the results, click the button, fill out the information and downloaded and you’ll be able to use that document free of charge.

The other piece and in terms of today, I’m going to try to keep it brief again is an actionable tip. And so what I would say is as an actionable tip is one if you haven’t already done so create a business plan. If you’re a business owner if you’re looking to start a business, if you haven’t touched your business plan in three years, you know, now it would be the time to do that. Revisit it because the technology, things are moving, things are changing, the environment and our consumers are, are becoming more diverse and how they go about shopping and purchasing. So it’s definitely something that I would encourage you to revisit. I would recommend revisiting your business plan quarterly. That’s just my recommendation because we’re in the marketing and mark tech space, if you will, because of the ever-evolving technology and needs of the market.  

That’s often important for us. It gives you ability to adjust and if that doesn’t work for you, at least annually to take a peek at it just see where you’re at. The last thing for today that I would ask you to do is I’d love to get some feedback on the video. We don’t do this very often. This, again, this is our first time. So tell us what you think of the video in the comments.  The other thing that I would mention is if you’re interested in more free information, come to our blog, subscribe to our blog, follow us on social media. We generally try to put out something on a blog at least, you know, I’d say two times a month in terms of those components. We’re getting more involved in the video as you can see. And so we want to continue to bring you useful information and some actionable tips on for those individuals that are trying to do it themselves. And for those business owners that are just those business owners, those marketing people that need additional resources. So we’ll keep trying to provide that information and try to be useful. Even in as a competitive a market, we’re always trying to be useful for the people that are around us and supporting the greater Reading area. Stay tuned. Thank you very much, and I hope you have a good day.

Target LinkedIn Profiles on Bing Ads

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What is Bing Ads with Linkedin Profile targeting?

Microsoft is combining the advertising ability of Bing Ads and the profile information on LinkedIn to bolster your ad target capabilities. One of the biggest challenges with advertising is getting the right message in front of the right people at the right time. Bing Ads helps with the right time – when someone is searching. LinkedIn Profile Targeting now helps with finding the right person based on their position/title, company and industry on their profile on LinkedIn. Getting help from Microsoft sounds great but how does it  work? And how can it help your business, specifically?

How can it help improve your PPC Marketing?

Using Keywords to target your ads is just the beginning with Bing Ads. If you are a B2B marketer trying to reach healthcare professionals with the keyword “business support tools” you’re wasting your ad dollars. While this is a longtail keyword phrase (3+ words), it does not identify an industry or type of tool that is being searched. However, adding the industry to the search term (ie. healthcare business support tools) causes the search volume to drop drastically.

Now you have a better targeting solution. Targeting “Healthcare industry professionals” with LinkedIn Profile targeting with your Bing Ads will ensure you are getting your ads in front of the right audience without losing as much search volume. Imagine the impact this would have on your PPC Budget (less unwanted Clicks), your CTR (improved quality of Impressions and Clicks), your Conversion Rate (whether your goal is awareness, leads, or online sales), and ultimately your  return on ad spend (ROAS)!

Who should be using LinkedIn Profile Targeting?

If you are running Bing Ads and trying to target business professionals then LinkedIn Profile Target could help you. Improve your audience targeting based on Company, Industry or Title parameters. This type of targeting allows you to setup a bid adjustment (either up or down) on these audiences. This means not only can you increase the likelihood of your ads being seen by the right audience (more leads), you can also minimize the risk of showing your ads to the wrong audience (lowering wasted spend).

How To Get Started With LinkedIn Profile Targeting?

First, it is important to know that this feature is not available for everyone (as of yet.) Microsoft is still  refining it before rolling in out to everyone. The other important thing to note is that you cannot target any and all companies, industries, or job functions (initial list is 80,000 companies, 145 industries, and/or 26 job functions – source: searchenginejournal.com) I am sure more will be added.

If you are fortunate enough to have this feature, Bing Ads give details instructions on how to implement LinkedIn Profile Targeting

If you don’t have this feature yet, you can request access to the Beta Test.

Looking for more information about Pay Per Click, check out some of our other PPC Blogs. If you are already running Google Ads, we are offering a Free PPC Audit to review how you are doing and where your account could improve.

Why You Should Embrace Social Media Advertising

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If you are not doing social media advertising for your business, then you are doing it all wrong! Social media is full of content, so it is easy for your business to get lost in the feed. This is a problem that you do not want to face. So how do we fix it? Start using social media ads!

Social Media Advertising, or Paid Social is highly recommended to get your content in front of users. For starters, according to Hubspot, organic reach is down across most of the major networks. It is crucial to use social ads to stand out. Let’s break down why this is is needed.

First things first, what is the difference between organic social and paid social? Organic social is using the free tools from social networks to build a community, share posts and responding to customer comments. Paid social is paying to display advertisements or sponsored messages to social networks users based on user profiles.

Both are important to have, but organic is reaching limited amount of people. Organic is still important. You should use it to interact with your community and keep a presence online. However, it does mean that social media has turned into a pay-to-play space.

Here is a short list of reasons on why you should embrace social media advertising:

  1. You will stand out from competitors. Advertising will increase your reach and will create brand awareness. If your brand or business appears more, it’ll become more recognizable and set you apart from everyone else. 
  2. You can enhance your targeting. You will be able to refine who you want to see your ads! This can be based off of interests, demographics, locations, etc. This will help you become more intentional and reach who you want to buy into your brand.
  3. You can understand audience interactions. You can see which ad type was interacted with more. Does video work better? Who does it work for? What do people respond to? These questions can be answered through results and collected data. If you know what people like, then you can make more ads like it.

Know your audience. Each platform has a different audience. For example, most Latinx people will be on YouTube, women are dominating Pinterest, and African Americans are on Twitter. You should know how each demographic use these particular platforms to be more effective. Understanding your audience will make you more effective with social ads. 

Social-Media-Demos-e1551286144761.png

Each platform also provides different types of advertising, too. Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook, have different ways and methods to target people. This blog gives you an introduction to how social ads are being used today, but a social marketing professional can help you determine which platform would maximize your ad dollars.

So again, why should you embrace social media advertising? Today, most businesses of all sizes must include paid social media in their strategies. Paying for social media will boost your reach, provide better targeting, and drive better results!

For more ideas and suggestions, check out how DaBrian Marketing optimizes social to drive conversions and generate leads HERE!

Check out our previous blog on social media management tools HERE.

3 Pro-Tips for Using Hootsuite as a Social Media Management Tool

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What is Social Media Management?

Social Media Management is the act of monitoring social content, developing and posting content, and managing conversations on social media platforms. This is different from social media advertising, which is paid efforts and targeting on social media. Social media management is customer service, while social media advertising is sales.

Social media can be overwhelming for most people, but there are tools in place to help minimize the stresses that come with social media marketing. Hootsuite is a social media management tool where you can schedule posts, curate content, monitor interactions with your social accounts, and more! This is a crucial tool for every social media manager to have in their arsenal and will help your business prosper in the digital age.

DaBrian Marketing Group is a proud user of Hootsuite which allows us to manage multiple clients, on multiple platforms, all from one dashboard. This blog will introduce three crucial tips that each social media manager must have.

Pro-Tip #1: Proactivity is a MUST!

Proactivity should be any social media manager’s best quality. It is important that you are at least a month ahead on any and all content. This way you can see your entire content schedule with just a glance while also leaving room for critical social monitoring responses throughout the month.

DaBrian Marketing Group utilizes Hootsuite to keep up with a variety of clients across multiple social media sites, which includes Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn. This helps us stay on top of who takes priority or who has posts scheduled for the day.

If you are proactive, this will allow you to post about any sudden shifts or articles that come out, which leads into the next tip!  

Pro-Tip #2: Stay Relevant! Keep up with competitors and industry thought leaders

Hootsuite allows you to host streams that will update you with new trends and it features the app Nuzzel. This app allows you to track news sources and industry trends from the top influencers. This can help you curate information that will be relevant and can help you stay on the pulse of the industry, which allows for higher engagement.

We use this to make sure that we can pick our client’s brains about what is going on with them and if they want to separate themselves out as thought leaders. This will make your brand seem more attractive and trustworthy.

Pro-Tip #3: View Your Insights!

According to Hootsuite contributor, Christina Newberry, “it gives you bird’s-eye view of the conversation about your brand online.” This is important, since you can quantify your insights, but also see how people engage with your brand through how they receive your brand. Understanding this will allow you to recognize behavior on these digital platforms and adjust accordingly.

You can view your insights, but make sure that you also report on these insights as well! You can check in with all of your analytics and see how well your social media campaign has been doing. This is important to know how to plan for the future and manage your social strategy accordingly.

In the next blog post, we will delve into Social Media Advertising with a focus on Facebook and LinkedIn.

For more information on what DaBrian Marketing Provides on social, click here.

To get a crash course in Hootsuite, click here.

What Is A Local Business Listing?

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What is my "local listing" and why does everyone want to manage it?

Businesses often get phone calls and emails offering “local listing” management. If you work at one of these businesses, I’m sure you have a few questions about what exactly you’re being offered. Before we discuss what a local business listing is, let’s start with why you might want to check and maintain your business’s local listings. Here are some compelling consumer behavior statistics to consider:

  • 72% of consumers who did a local search visited a store within five miles. (Wordstream, 2016)
  • 30% of mobile searches are related to a location. (Google, 2016)
  • 28% of searches for something nearby result in a purchase. (Google, 2016)
  • Local searches lead 50% of mobile users to visit stores within one day. (Google, 2018)
  • Nearly one-third of all mobile searches are location-based queries. (The SEM Post, 2016)

Essentially, it’s very important to manage your local listings, especially if you’re a local business that relies on local awareness of what you do. Think of how often you’ve searched for things like “chinese restaurants near me” or “gas station near me.” When people want to find goods or services locally, they use a search engine every time. With good SEO practices, you can grab the top spot for a local search query and increase your organic traffic by leaps and bounds.

Local Business listing

Local Listing Management is about getting found more often by people searching for your services locally!

Often times businesses register and claim their local listing with Google, along with a Google My Business page. This is a great first step! Google My Business allows business owners to choose what appears on the Knowledge Panel for their business. The Knowledge Panel is the box full of information about a business that appears on the right-hand side of your screen on the Google search results page.

Knowledge Panels are more likely to appear for searches with local intent, which is why it’s important — especially for small businesses — to stay on top of their Google My Business profile.

In addition to the business owner, Google also receives data from many other sources. In a recent “Whiteboard Friday” video, David Mihm, Director of Local Search Strategy for SEOMoz explains how Google generates its business listings. David’s whiteboard video is one of the most concise explanations of the online directory entry creation. It’s worth watching!

There are hundreds of business directories online that all come with the opportunity for through traffic and lead generation. It is important to keep your “N.A.P.” — business name, address and phone number — consistent across all directories. This is very important and affects your search rankings, especially locally. Also important to keep consistent is the inclusion of your website’s URL. You want to link to at least your homepage on each of your local listings so you don’t miss any opportunities for referral traffic. Google My Business also gives the option of making posts from your profile, just like on social media. These can be used for promotions, events, or just general bits of information that your business would like to present to those users who find it through Google.

The process of keeping all of this information up to date can be very tedious. Keep in mind in addition to your NAP, directories often want images, videos, business descriptions, customer reviews, website links, category your business fits in, accurate hours, etc. Often — for a business owner or marketing executive — keeping up with all these directory listings is simply time prohibitive. This is why business will often employ a marketing agency for their local SEO services.

If you would like to learn more about Local Listing Management services offered by DaBrian Marketing Group contact us today!