The Front Zone News: Your Marketing Plan

Google

First Published

I was looking for some marketing ideas for one of my products and I came across this information on SCORE.org. The post breaks down a Year‘s Action List into a monthly list and makes it a lot more manageable, so I thought I would share some of the ideas.

“The plan is progressive, which means that stuff you set up early will establish routines and systems you’ll use later on. Because of this, the last half of the year will feel repetitive and simple. That’s an intentional part of our design! We want to make things easier for you to run your business seamlessly and efficiently.”

Image result for lists for email marketing

Google

March

Create a mailing list of everybody who’s ever bought something from you or asked about buying something from you, plus everybody you’ve ever bought something from. Use your email records and invoices payable and receivable to farm these names. Compile them in an email list.

Look at all of your social media profiles and make sure they are professional and engaging, and include photos of both your team and the benefits of your product/service.

Review your entire website with a fine tooth comb and note which pages have spelling errors and what sections include other issues like bad formatting and broken links. Are you missing pages or information? Put yourself in your customer’s shoes.

Use your memory, your employees’ memory, and the mailing list you created to triage existing customers into three categories: C customers: those you might lose B customers: those who are solid, but not excited A customers: the ones who love you more than your spouse loves you

Image result for special offer marketing email

Google

April

Starting this month, you’ll be doing both new things that build additional planks for your marketing platform and tasks that leverage the work you’ve done before. Attacking the problem with “combination punches” is one key to creating surprisingly rapid growth.

Send an “opt in” email to everyone on your mailing list. The tone and specifics will vary according to the realities of your business and customer base, but it should include the following elements:

> A sincere thanks for being involved or interested in your company

> An announcement that you’ll be sending out news and special offers each month.

> Instructions that explain they only have to ask once to be removed from the list, but if they’re still on the list in March they will receive an awesome special deal.

Repair all of the spelling and grammar errors on every page of your website

Research the charities that are most active and respected in your community – for best results, use a locally based charity (the local food bank, not Habitat for Humanity). Choose one to three that you either like best or that are linked thematically with what your business does.

Google

Spend the week before Easter weekend posting one teaser daily about a special you’re running on the day over the holiday weekend. (If this is Facebook, we recommend being a little lighter handed since that social media community is sensitive to over promotional posts). On that weekend, offer a discount for any order placed by somebody who is a fan on your social media accounts (you can keep this to just Facebook, or just Twitter – whatever account is most important to you to grow)

Choose a day in April for an after-hours client appreciation event. If your customers are widespread, make it an online live event. If most are local, arrange a behind-the-scenes tour.

Call each of your C customers and invite them personally.

Announce the event to your B customers via social media and email.

Contact your A customers by email and ask what they would like to see at the event. Confirm that you can count on their presence at the pre-party one hour before the general event begins.

This covers March and April.

The information for May will follow soon!

Thank you for stopping by!