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Creating a Marketing Plan for Small Business is as Easy as 123…456

August 14, 2014 / by Vicky Zancanella

blocks with numbers 123456 steps in a marketing planSo I am not here to tell you that creating a marketing plan is so easy that anyone could do it. But there are steps that you can learn to create a plan you can implement to market your small business and increase your profits.

We know Inbound marketing is a very effective long term marketing strategy for small business to use when marketing online. Building your online presence with customers who rarely turn off their electronic devices is a smart marketing plan.

But where do you start? How do you reach all those googlers?

Start with these 6 steps to create your online marketing plan:

  1. Find your ideal customer. Who are they, what do they want, what questions do they have, what grid do they see the world through? What is important to them and what do they value? These are all pieces of your customer persona you need to consider. Write up a description of your ideal customer. We call this a buyer persona and it is a crucial part of your plan.

  2. Research how your ideal customer is behaving online. How do they research, what do they search for? What social media platforms are they on? If you are ecommerce, what are their buying habits? Lots of research needs to go into tracking their behavior. This is also part of the buyer persona.

  3. Choose keywords and key phrases. After you have an idea of the keywords your ideal customer is using in their online searches, choose those keywords/key phrases you want to focus on ranking for. If you sell pet supplies, small pet supplies may be an appropriate key phrase to go after. Using these keywords will help your business be found online by the people you want to have as customers!

  4. Make a content plan out of the questions they have.  After doing your research on questions your ideal customers have, organize the questions and create blogging titles out of these topics. These blogs should help answer questions and give helpful information to your ideal customers. Out of these questions you can also plan titles/topics for your content “offers.”

  5. Create content from the plan. Based on the plan you create, start writing your content. We recommend posting a blog at least twice a week, but once a day is even better. Create content you can offer to your website visitors, content that will be helpful: an eBook with great info, a checklist to help organize, a video that is instructional, a webinar to teach something new, a free demo to get their hands on your product/service. Make it good. Make it helpful. Make it irresistible.

  6. Promote that content! This is a “do not skip” step in your marketing plan. Share your blog posts through email and social media. Promote the amazing work you do and the helpful information you have put together. Promote your content offers on social media. If you have a webinar scheduled in 2 weeks, send out invitations on the social media platforms where your ideal customers are spending their time. If you have a new downloadable eBook, share the link to download their own copy. And invite them to share with their family, friends or anyone who might also be interested in the help you have to offer.

So now what?

Get started on your plan! Go out and do your research. Find out what your ideal customers are really thinking and what questions they are asking. Be the one to answer those questions with helpful, engaging content that meets their needs.

The goal of your marketing is to not only be helpful to real people, but to show the search engines that your company is who you say you are and provide the best solution for your customers.

There you have it, marketing in 123…456 easy steps. So start with step one and get your online marketing plan moving in the right direction.

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How to SWOT Your Marketing Plan Into Shape

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Topics: Inbound Marketing, Content Marketing, Marketing

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