Five Topics To Address For Every Marketing Plan

As seen on Forbes

By Kathleen Lucente

Yesterday, I attended a new business meeting during which a CEO and his team outlined all of the press coverage they wanted. When I asked who his target audiences were, he responded, “Everyone.” It was sadly one of those moments that happens all too frequently in PR and marketing.

I immediately pushed back to help him understand that targeting everyone means an endless and unfocused budget. The smarter step would be to conduct the research and due diligence upfront to identify target customers and then map a plan against those targets. This step is even more crucial for brands that believe their products or services are meant for a large, or even universal, audience. If everyone is likely to engage with your company, which people with which characteristics or problems are most likely to engage with your company?

Growth is the lifeblood of every business. Clutching to past success can lead to stagnation or worse, irrelevance, in a quickly changing marketplace. Executives and their teams are constantly devising new customer acquisition strategies, plotting for market share dominance, exploring new methods to generate awareness or engaging in any number of similar activities. Often, the quest for the next big thing moves at hyperspeed, with companies rushing to get ahead of the competition.

Many times, this is exactly when they should hit the pause button. Before you can see the results you desire, you have to do the research. Too often, our clients come to us looking for a strategy, and we ask questions for which they don’t have answers. Yet they are spending money opening offices, hiring, designing logos and collateral, and racking up other expenses without the underlying customer or market data to guide those actions. And if you are looking to bring in venture capital partners, you won’t get past the first phone call if you don’t have a strategic, complete and thoughtful plan. If you haven’t taken the time to dig deep, how can you expect people to invest in what you are doing?

We work closely with our clients to help them find answers that make sense for their brands and their ultimate goals. Aligning their internal and external values, mission, and core strengths with breakout initiatives and enhanced product lines is crucial for delivering the ROI they expect to see.

Before you go all-in on a marketing plan, consider how you will address the following topics:

Regardless of the strategy you employ, stretch your reach into new contacts. Going back to the same well for customers and partner contacts isn’t always feasible. And you can’t keep pushing the same old product and strategies; you have to guide your product evolution. That can look like features or services you can add to what is already working or innovative strategies to break into a fresh market.

Decide whether you are looking to add customers, bring new products to existing customers or both. What is the most attractive segment of end users for your business? On the flip side, what segment of your base is inhibiting the company’s growth and reducing profitability? Your marketing strategy should pull from key research and court new end users who might need an entirely new approach to gain their attention. Be bold.

It is easy to get caught up in the big ideas that many brainstorms produce, but not every new idea is necessarily a good fit for a go-forward plan. Take the initial idea a little further, and determine whether the new product or service adds value or fulfills an existing need in your marketplace. Sometimes, launching the next new thing is simply adding noise to the market without any real benefit.

Trying to be all things to all of your target end users can be a risky venture — and an expensive one. Look for the channel partners who are achieving tangible goals in customer engagement and acquisition in your desired spaces, and leverage their skills and success to build your own.

Once you have vetted your new product strategy, don’t fall back on what you have always done. Marketing and sales need to align with everything your channel partners and research reveal. Put company resources into the right buckets to get the right message to your target market. To get the most for your marketing spending, analyze what return your company is getting for your current marketing and sales structure, and be willing to pivot where needed.

Jumping into a side market or introducing a new product or enhancement takes an honest look at what you are doing now, what you need to do for a successful launch and how you will work in the space.