When you search for marketing plan templates, suggestions, or best practices, there are bountiful articles, posts, videos to learn from. But out of all the examples and guidelines, are they truly the ‘best marketing plan’ for your efforts?
When it comes to the best marketing plan for your company/team, we believe it would be one that fits these criteria: it is achievable and relevant.
Achievability depends mainly on the resources that need to execute the plan. Yes, the right tools, support from the team, the approach and what the plan is does factor into success. But if the individual/team responsible for the execution cannot allocate appropriate time or efforts towards accomplishing milestones, even the greatest plan would not be effective. No matter how small you break the plan down, how often you attempt to hold your team accountable for results, or how seemingly feasible your plan is, if it is not a priority it will not take off.
Relevance will depend on your targeted audience and how you’re able to gain feedback. Undoubtedly, relevance includes quality content that addresses your audiences’ pain points, and/or instances that connect you to your audience’s issues. We add the importance for feedback as it acts as a catalyst on many fronts. When you know you are engaging your audience, it ignites the intensity of your efforts. Whether it is likes on a post, clicks without likes or comments, even just impressions or views; the ability to track how your audience interacts with your efforts allows you to understand the five Ws and one H (who, what, why, where, when, and how). This insight will help you create better content and interactions that your audience responds to.
Once you have an achievable marketing plan with dedicated resources to execute, the relevance of your efforts will create momentum for you and your team to continue forward. You’ll be able to open channels of communication with your audience that you may have overlooked in the past; or better yet, did not know existed. The magnitude of influence the word of mouth has, the impact of your audience’s subconscious recognition for your company and brand, even the demise of being out of sight and out of mind.
Whatever your marketing plan, make it count.