I am all about making things simpler. I’ve spent a lot of time working in communication, marketing, business and all the associated activities, and I’m pretty good at hacking things to make it easier. Maybe it’s lazy, maybe it’s smart. Who knows, but here’s my two key reasons for helping people with this stuff.
I know when you’re working in your own business, you’re wearing all the hats, and some of them don’t fit that well
People are time poor, so it brings me great joy to make someone’s life easier.
I’ve created a one page worksheet to assist you with better communication and results with your marketing. This is the very important run down on what you need to think about when you’re thinking about it.
Objective. This is the guiding principle for your marketing activity. What on earth are you trying to achieve?! None of this spray and pray palava, you need solid, defined goals. SMART is a good format to do this in.
Specific
Measurable
Attainable
Relevant
Time bound
An example of this, let’s say you sell shoes, and you want to do a little sales campaign.
Achieve $5000 of sales of the Fancy Shoe range, for the month of June.
This simple statement covers off all of the above requirements, and you’ve set yourself an objective.
Next up your Offering and Price.
Well, you’re selling shoes. Nice. How much are the shoes? Are you giving a discount? Let’s say they’re $100 a pair.
Time. You’re running the campaign for a month. We worked that out already.
Budget. So you need to sell 50 pairs to meet your objective. OK, so how much have you got to spend on selling these 50 pairs of shoes? You may need to do some number crunching to work out the conversion rate of your particular channels, there’s more detail to that than I can put in here. But lets say you have an email list of 1000, and a conversion rate of 2%, bingo! You could sell 20 pairs on an email campaign, which is free. Then spend your budget on gaining new customers on your Facebook page.
I’m making that sound a bit simple, there’s more to it than that, I will get into more detail on revenue goals at a later date. Stick around!
So, lets get into the part of the plan that will help you craft your message.
Target audience - who are you talking to exactly? What do they care about, where do they live, what do they do? You hopefully have a good idea about your customers.
Now, this is going to drive your copy writing. What problem are you solving for people? Are your shoes the most comfortable, are they going to boost self esteem, are they saving money by purchasing yours instead of others, is your delivery overnight or same day, is it a limited offer, what is the point of difference that solves an issue for people?
Then summarise into 3 key points that you’ll use for your copy. For example:
No more sore feet for you!
These are the most comfortable shoes you will ever wear because of the insole technology.
They are on sale for a limited time only.
Soooo...Where do these people spend time? What social channels, do they open your emails, do they read particular websites? This will guide your channel decisions. OR you might be wanting to try something new, great! Just make sure it aligns with your customer profile. For example, you won’t sell women’s shoes on Linked In, or if you set your Facebook ads too broadly, you might miss the niche people who will love your product.
So now what? Fill int the form and get started on your plan.. duh!
I should also explain, that I am ALL ABOUT writing by hand. I do all my planning with an old fashioned pen and paper, and I believe it’s the best way to get the crap out of your head. Mind my french. It’s mindful and slow, and I hear there’s evidence to suggest it’s better for information processing. So that’s how I roll. With printable sheets you write on.
Its absolutely essential you let me know how you go with this. I want to know what was helpful, what questions come up for you, and how we could tweak it. Remember I’m all about trying to make simple tools, and I’ll need your help on that.
Speaking of which, I’ve also created an analysis worksheet, so you can work out if what you do in this plan is actually working for you!
Talk soon.
Jade