As we head into the 4th quarter of 2018, I wanted to talk today about starting to lay out your Marketing Plan for 2019. http://bit.ly/2OeIZPU 

There are 8 components that should be focused on. The GOOD news is that once you do this the first time, most of these don’t change a whole lot from year to year! So, if you were a rockstar and put together your 2018 Marketing Plan, then your 2019 Marketing Plan should be a breeze. If this is your first year putting together your marketing plan, buckle down and the work you do now, will pay off later - I promise.

To begin laying out your 2019 Marketing Plan, identify your primary product or service offering, and then develop your plan around the following 8 components:

Ideal Customer: who is your ideal customer? Start by thinking about your current customers, and create a short list of features and elements to describe them. Focusing your efforts on your ideal customers will help you to weed out any “less than ideal” customers, so that you can increase performance.

Unique Selling Proposition (U.S.P.): what is your unique selling proposition? Why are you different or better than your competition? Don’t get caught up thinking you have no competition. Even if your product or service is revolutionary, how will people know about it or find it? What keywords will customers enter into Google to find it? Those results for that keyword can be your competition.

Message and/or Mission Statement: knowing who your ideal customer is, and what your USP is, draft a mission statement. Touch on your training, experience, value you bring to the table. Spend a little time on this, as this will change very little year to year. This message will be utilized in part (or in whole) on most all of your marketing materials.

Platform and/or Medium: there are many places where you can marketing your business - both on- and off-line (we just happen to specialize in digital marketing - therefore all things on-line). This is where some of that “pre-planning” work will help! Put together a list of 5 - 7 different places that have generated your best leads. Don’t forget - in theory, these leads would be your best customer! http://bit.ly/2OeCpIS

Benchmarks & KPIs: this one is very near and dear to our hearts at THAT Agency. As a whole, we - at THAT Agency - define one of our USPs on our vigilance with website analytics and reporting and our transparency in doing so. After all, there is no better way to tell our customers how awesome we are - it’s right there in the numbers! For this last step of your marketing plan, it is imperative that you measure everything, so that you can review and analyze the results, and make tactical changes as needed throughout the year. Define 5 - 10 KPIs, along with their current benchmarks.

Goals: this one can be difficult depending on how eager you (or your boss) wants to be! Based on the above benchmarks and KPIs, define reasonable goals. If you haven’t done this before, take a look at the numbers and start with a 10% increase - you may need to adjust this depending on the KPI (while this may work for something like website traffic, it might not apply for click-through rate).

Marketing Budget: not to be confused with your overall budget, your marketing budget should focus on identifying the allocation of funds to the various platforms defined within a few steps above, so that you can effectively market to, and capture your ideal customer. Define funds needed for each platform, in order to reach your goals.

Marketing Calendar: while this is likely the most important part of the marketing plan, don’t let it become a daunting task. Start high-level, outlining each of the marketing tasks you will implement each month. From there, you can flesh out further, which will ultimately help you to determine how much money you will need on a monthly basis to market to your customers.

I know this can seem like a daunting task, but it is one that cannot be undervalued.  If this is your first time, business planning - don’t worry, it gets easier, especially once you have an initial plan in place.  Lastly, if you need any assistance with developing your 2019 Marketing Plan, I know some good people…check us out at www.thatagency.com.  Visit and follow us on Facebook for more great marketing tips!

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