Developing a marketing plan is crucial nowadays due to the practice of marketing which has evolved greatly in recent years, particularly in the age of the web, social media and mobile devices, when consumers are constantly in demand and advertising messages abound, losing effectiveness in the process.

Today, we don’t communicate like we used to – or rather should I say, we shouldn’t communicate like in the days of the one-way message from brands to customers.

Communication is not only two-way between brands and consumers, but above all multi-directional, as we communicate with each other via social media and forums.

Are you looking for online training in digital marketing? Join the Course Now!

Not easy for a brand to perform in such a rapidly changing context!

THE EIGHT STAGES OF A MARKETING PLAN

That being said, even if new technologies are invading the marketing mix and the daily lives of consumers, certain principles remain when it comes time to design a marketing plan for a brand.

I am thinking in particular of the principle of the 4 Ps (Product, Price, Promotion, Place) that some claim has been exceeded, or replaced by the 7 Ps, the 4 Es and other equally valid concepts. Maybe I’m old school, but I persist and I sign with the 4 Ps, but obviously adapted to today’s reality.

These 4 Ps should thus be found at the heart of the process of thinking and drafting your marketing plan, regardless of the industry in which you operate, both in B2B ( business-to-business, or inter-company) and B2C ( business to consumer ). So here are the eight basic steps of a marketing plan:

1. Define the objectives

I can’t repeat it enough: a marketing plan should respond to business objectives, not the whims of a manager or the sheer creative ideals of an agency.

Your business may have one or more of the following goals for the next year:

• Increase in turnover and sales
• Increase in brand awareness or a particular service
• Reduction of operating, hiring or other costs
• Retain customer segments
• Increase income by type of clientele
• Increase the yield for a type of product (room, headquarters, etc.)
• Improve the perception of certain market segments towards your product or brand

Obviously, we will not use the same approach, nor the same budgets, according to these objectives. Communication tactics must therefore arise from strategies aimed at achieving these objectives, for example choosing to bet on Facebook or a corporate brochure.

2. Identify target markets and audiences

Over the years, especially since I started consulting with various clients, I have always asked the question: who is your typical client? Do you have an idea of ​​the ideal customer for your product or services?

Even mass consumer products like Coca-Cola can’t target everyone – there are people who don’t want to drink liquor, especially junk food. In short, who is your consumer?

In the same vein, we will want to identify the target markets in which your marketing dollars will have the best return on investment.

To make these decisions, you must first have an idea of ​​the target markets where you will seek to carve out an attractive market share.

3. Articulate the axis of communication and positioning (Product)

In the same vein as what was mentioned in the previous point – your product should not seek to appeal to everyone.

What makes you different others?

In other words, what is your competitive advantage, the thing or the way that makes you “unique”?

For a hotelier, perhaps this is a unique location by the sea. For a restaurant owner, it will be a table featuring local products, through a young starred chef, or rising star. This step is crucial because it comes down to the most fundamental element for any business: the strength of the product or service.

You can have the best marketing in the world, but if the product is bad, you won’t work a miracle. The reverse is unfortunately not always true: you can have the best product in the world, but if no one knows, or if the price is not well suited to market demand, you will be on the wrong track.

Which leads us to the next two points of the marketing plan: price and promotion.

4. Define your pricing (Price)

Pricing has become a science, or almost when we look at revenue managers in hotels, airlines and several industries.
Several factors come into play, and it is seldom easy to deal with this reality. We nevertheless think of:

• Demand for the product or service, depending on the time of day or year
• Notions of seasonality: high season, low season, shoulder seasons, etc.
• Operating costs depending on union reality or not, in the region vs. Urban
• Competitive intelligence, to see what the competitors are doing
• A crucial point to clarify here is that pricing should usually be the result of a market positioning strategy.

Do we want to charge more, keep more attractive profit margins, but with a lower sales level or rather aim for massive sales, but with a low-profit margin? Various scenarios exist, but each comes with its strengths and weaknesses.

5. Prioritize digital tools and tactics (Promotion)

This stage is too often the one with which some managers begin when we must choose the tools and tactics according to the objectives, and not the other way around. For a business launching a new product or service aimed at a large audience, for example, placement in mass media may be a wise choice.

For another brand, specializing in a niche targeting trendy young people, we may then want to favour a digital marketing initiative via a messaging application, for example, Snapchat or Instagram. There is no magic formula, nor universal.

5.(a) Traditional tools

Even though digital marketing is in vogue, the fact remains that traditional media continue to have a role to play. Some of these tools include:

• Television
• Outdoor signage
• Public relations
• Sponsorships
• Events, exhibitions, and fairs
• Radio
• Printed matter (newspapers and magazines)
• Newsletters Etc.

5.(b) Digital tools

Added to these well-known media are the panoply of tactics that have emerged over the past 10-15 years, and for which managers are still reluctant, often due to a lack of knowledge about them.

• Web banners
• Buying keywords (Google, Bing, Yahoo)
• Remarketing
• Mobile marketing
• Newsletters with dynamic content
• Social media advertising
• Native advertising
• Marketing by influencers Etc.

6. Choose the distribution channels (Place)

Each industry has its particularities, but it is often said that distribution is the sinews of war. Have you seen several Gatorade ads today, are thirsty and are walking into a store to quench your thirst? By opening the fridges, you find everything … except Gatorade!

You will then fall back on the brand offering an attractive price, the product on promotion or perhaps the one evoking a video recently seen on YouTube. (Red Bull, anyone?) This is a classic example of (in) efficient product distribution.

In the hospitality industry, the distribution of the inventory of available rooms has really become an issue. We can thus find the same room, at different prices, on various channels:

• the website of the hotel establishment
• online travel agency sites (Expedia, Booking, Travelocity, etc.)
• traditional travel agencies, via their in-house reservation system
• destination sites, such as bonjourquebec.com for example
• brochures from international tour operators, such as Transat, Thomas Cook and many others
• receptive, intermediaries between travel agencies, tour operators and hotel suppliers
• Each of these channels operates with a different business model, commission or net rate, which requires tight, continuous management.

7. Budget for actions

The notion of the budget is essential, and conditions to a certain point the level of success that can be expected for the marketing of a brand.

Even with the best of intentions, you can accomplish great things with a marketing budget of $ 500 per year… but we agree that a lot more could be done with $ 5,000 or $ 50,000. However, the amount is not a guarantee of success!

The marketing budget should first and foremost align with the degree of maturity of your business and/or your products and services. You usually have to invest more at launch, when budgets are reduced when a product reaches a certain level of maturity.

More often than not, these amounts will be represented as a percentage of estimated revenue, but some companies include salaries while others only calculate media placement. So you have to be careful and compare similar data when it comes to setting the marketing budget.

Read also: The 15 essential qualities of an Entrepreneur

8. Define and measure key indicators

Last but not least: how to measure your marketing efforts and investments. You may also be familiar with the expression: if you can’t measure it, why do it?

Here again, I too often see marketing efforts that are based on a vague objective, like “we want to boost our notoriety”. OK, so how are you going to measure this?

However, it is not that difficult, insofar as the tactics stem from the objectives defined from the start, and that for each of these tactics we will have identified performance indicators.

An example? If increasing awareness is indeed one of the objectives pursued, we must first have defined the parameters: we are seeking to increase the reach of our publications on Facebook by 25% over the next 6 months. Or we want to get a 10% increase in mentions about our brand on the web and blogosphere.

This is where digital marketing usually does well, due to the many performance indicators that can be tracked over time, especially on the web and social media.