We are already 3 weeks into January, and that whole “goal-setting phase” is starting to fade away.
But I wanted to jump on this topic now because you’ve had some time to think about your goals this year.
What most people do is come up with their goals, put them aside and then never look at them again.
Doing that and not having a plan is one of the quickest ways to waste time and energy on activities that don’t generate results.
So I want to walk you through exactly how I create my marketing plan.
There are 4 main steps:
- Determine your main focus
- Create a holistic digital marketing strategy
- Come up with your content strategy
- Determine KPIs to track and measure
#1 Determine Your Goals & Main Focus
As I said, determining your goals and primary focus for the year is the first step.
Now, I get many businesses that can focus on multiple offers.
But we all have, or should have, ONE key focus within our business.
For example, if my main focus for my business is my coaching program, I’ll know that at the end of the day, everything I do will always result in some progress toward people joining the coaching program.
Once you figure out your main focus, you can set some smart goals. If you need a quick reminder of what I mean by setting smart goals — it’s setting goals that are Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and have a time frame associated with them.
And once you set your goals, you can start building your strategy around them.
#2 Develop a Holistic Digital Strategy
Do you have goals to host webinars?
Do you want to be on people’s podcasts?
Create your podcasts?
What about launching specific programs or offers in your business?
Write down all your goals, start prioritizing them, and pick some flexible dates.
When doing this, you want to always keep in mind your goal with that principal offer you want to grow.
For example…
When I’m doing this, I know my Spotlight Theory Program is 12 weeks long.
I don’t like to jam myself back to back with the program, so I know I’ll do 3 of those this year.
I’ll pencil those into a calendar.
And then I’ll look at the next ones.
When you see how you’ve planned your year, you may realize you don’t have time for all your ideas.
That doesn’t mean you don’t do it ever…
Just put it on the back burner for now.
Stay focused on the ones that are priorities for you. This will significantly impact you and help you get closer to your goals.
#3 Create a Content Calendar
Once you’ve selected a few activities to focus on and you have your annual overview, it’s time to create a timeline and budget for each one.
Again, you want to be as realistic as possible to set yourself up for success.
Based on the activities and plans you set up in step 2, it’s time to look at the timeline to make that happen.
For example, when doing a masterclass promotion for my clients, I’ll always run ads for a minimum of 10 days before the masterclass.
So any place where I have a masterclass written out, I’ll pencil in ads, plus prep time.
The goal is to determine what is needed and when to make that activity happen.
That would include looking at adprep, social media content, emails, funnels, text message sequences, and even offline promotion in the digital world.
And you can always put a budget towards it, too…
… especially if you’ve done this in the past and have stats you can set as a baseline.
If I know my audience has a $5,000 ad budget for their webinar, I run their ads for ten days. I can budget $500/day to spend.
And If I know we are doing 4 webinars a year, they can plan for a $20,000 budget.
Pretty specific.
But again, I’m being realistic, and nothing is 100% locked in stone.
I just have a game plan to follow to keep me on track.
#4 Determine Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to Track and Measure
Now speaking of staying on track…
The last part is setting up the ability to track and measure your results.
I’m all in for crossing something off your marketing plan IF it’s not converting and generating the income or results you are looking for.
But you need to know the stats to make a good decision.
I also don’t recommend changing anything drastic for a minimum of 90 days.
Minor tweaks, yes…
But don’t ditch something after running something once.
When tracking, you want to look back to the main goals you’ve set for yourself and your business and ask yourself:
How would you know if you achieved that goal?
What stats do you need to hit on a quarterly or annual basis?
Are there stats you could measure to determine the marketing plan’s effectiveness?
Look at the funnel stats, email stats, ad stats – you name it.
Keeping track of the progress will also help you improve each time you set this plan up.
Check out this week’s podcast for a deep dive into creating your annual marketing plan.
And stay tuned for more info about my free upcoming masterclasses! If you want to join me, head on over to masterclass.lisaanne.ca!
