Hands up if you work in a small business, have multiple responsibilities and there’s not enough hours in the day to do everything? If this resonates with you, and marketing is one of your responsibilities, I have one recommendation that will make life feel just a little less stressful.
What is this revolutionary magic you speak of, Shona?
Well, nothing revolutionary but often overlooked: Marketing planning!
What!!! That’s it? Surely everyone does this.
It sounds obvious but when you’re doing a thousand things at a million miles an hour, just trying to stay on top of the day-to-day work, thinking ahead to next year can be overwhelming. I promise you though, that taking just a few hours to put everything that’s in your head into a planner will provide the clarity and consistency you need.
Six steps to translate your marketing strategy into a plan
- Spend focused time on creating your plan. It doesn’t need to be weeks and months, a few hours will do the job, but please make time to do it.
- Key events, activities and campaigns will probably already be in your head so get them down on ‘paper’. Think about your objectives – what does success look like? List all the individual actions needed to make the activity happen. Detail is the key and will help you with budgeting. This leads me nicely onto…
- Allocating resources. It’s tempting to put too much into a planner which can leave you feeling disillusioned when it’s not achieved. Aim to leave some capacity for new activities throughout the year. Assign estimated spend and time required before you make a start.
- I can’t emphasise enough that having a documented plan gives you the structure and discipline to make your plans a reality. You will need to assign dates, actions and owners so it’s clear what role everyone plays and when. I find excel works just fine for this – it’s essentially a big list.
- Make it happen! Sounds obvious, doesn’t it? Why go to the effort of writing a plan and not actually execute it? Well, sometimes, other things get in the way, especially if you work in a small business and have multiple roles. Allocating time to reviewing your planner on a weekly basis and diarising key deadlines will ensure you do what you say you will. It’s also very satisfying seeing your planner turn to green once actions are completed.
- Is it working? Reviewing your activity and the impact is crucial for informing future plans. Planning is very circular and shouldn’t stop. You should be able to identify the activities that have helped achieve your objectives in the most time and cost-efficient way. Think about your systems and processes and if they support this data capture.
This is a very top-level, but hopefully accessible, approach to marketing planning for anyone working in a small business.
A little time now really will go a long way next year, leaving you feeling more in control of your marketing.