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The truth about creating a marketing plan

Marketing

Let’s just be honest: you really can’t do much of anything without a marketing plan. How could you?

If we define marketing as the way that you engage your audience, through a particular process, in order to increase that engagement and to increase conversions–all to meet your business goals–then everybody gotta do this at some point, even if it’s just you marketing yourself.

Marketing is Essential and You’ve Gots to Have a Plan!

There are seven extremely important steps to the right marketing plan. Failing to follow these steps means failing to accurately market your business.

Number one: You gotta know what makes your product or service different from the others. You gotta know what sets you apart. If you don’t know that, you won’t know what to work on for yourself.

Number two: You gotta understand your audience. You gotta know who you are talking to, who wants to buy from you, how to talk to ’em, and what makes ’em tick. Everything ain’t for everybody.

Number three: You gotta define your offering to meet your target audience and their needs. Everything ain’t for everybody–but what you sell us for them. Make sure you stay in the pocket, so you can stay in their pocket!

Number four: You gotta surround yourself with folks that match your energy and your passion. This is critical, fam. Like attracts like. You need to be around people that match your growth stage and beyond–at all times.

Number five: You gotta establish a realistic set of goals to reach within a realistic amount of time. This requires you to be honest about your goals and about yourself. You cannot afford self-deception.

Number six: You gotta stabilize behavioral and engagement metrics and CVR–before you do anything else. This isn’t 1950. You don’t just hang a shingle and start. You gotta do your homework, and your homework is unfinished without the metrics.

Which brings us to number seven: You gotta grow your channel–or channels if you can handle that–with the best metrics compared to traffic and the level of effort. Again, these are the differences between being a hustler and being a real entrepreneur. Don’t take shortcuts. Maximize your metrics.

Know there are some things that you need to know and do BEFORE creating your marketing plan.

So, let’s talk about doing that homework, shall we?

There are a few other things that you have to talk about when it comes to creating a marketing plan– one specifically is business analysis. Where is your traffic coming from? Where is your revenue coming from? And just how hard were those two things to come by? Does your product sell itself? Just how much do you need to convince your audience and build their trust? This is the kind of serious analysis of yourself and your business that you gotta do if you wanna make it work.

Ok. There are a few more things that you need to know.

You gotta be on your grind for this. Honestly. It’s Business and Marketing 101: it takes an average of seven interactions with a business for a user to convert. Make it happen. Stay involved. This thing will entirely depend on your effort, not just your product. At the same time, make sure you have steady sales before you focus that hard on traffic–or else you’re gonna get looky-loos and rubberneckers–a whole lot of starting, but not a whole lot of spending. Oh, and just because you know your audience doesn’t mean they’re all the same person. Don’t treat them that way. Segment. Create niches. Make ’em feel like they’re the most important clients in the world, and they will spend accordingly.

Let us throw a few numbers at you in conclusion:

It’s all according to your grind, fam. If you struggle to make a buck, you’ll struggle to make a rack. Grind like you run Wal-Mart. The little things matter in the big time. The average conversion rate across the industry is 2%. Savor every victory–just not for too long. Do not neglect modern technology, fam. Email platforms at an average conversion rate of 15%. Things like blogs and captions and emails matter. Handle your business. Literally.

If the traffic isn’t quality, if it doesn’t lead to sales and conversions, it’s irrelevant.

Remember all the points, and stay on task.

“If you cannot measure it, you cannot improve it.”–Lord Kelvin

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