First of all, let me say that there are a bajillion pictures of mad scientists out there on the net. This one was my favorite by far.
And why, do you ask, do I need a photo of a mad scientist in the 2015 Marketing Plan? Here is where we begin to think about how we’ll test the efficacy of our marketing programs. For most entrepreneurs and small businesses, well for most people really we mainly just look at sales. Did we sell more or didn’t we?
If you wait that long until you review your results you could be dead in the water. Waiting until the end game means that you hold your breath, tap your heels three times and hope your marketing works by looking at your numbers every three months or so. Yeah, that’s pretty stupid and why most people hate marketing.
Instead you’ve got to test your results – and you have to test at the tactic level. And in order to do that, you have to decide if the tactic has contributed to the strategy. You’ve done enough work now to know that your strategies are pretty solid. So here is where you put the guarantee into your marketing plan.
Take the 2014 tactics you want to keep – and you know they’re good because a) they contribute to a chosen strategy and b) they were effective (3 or more). Add the new tactics you’ve chosen. And then write down how you’ll know if they worked and when you’ll check. Here are our tactic examples again, with the test criteria added. What you’re really measuring here are the conversions that lead you to your best customer and ultimately to more sales – or whatever your end goal is at the beginning of this madness.
Strategy: Develop content marketing to reach influencers in my field
Tactic: Write one blog post per week and distribute via Twitter and LinkedIn. Success equals engagement of at least 2 RT’s per post and
Tactic: Find five influencers each week, follow them and RT their work. Success equals getting a strong response from 5 major influencers within two months. The response must be a RT of my work, guest blog on their site or something of equal value.
Tactic: Curate influencer work on
blog. Same as above.
Strategy: Create cool online ad campaign to reach my best customer. Success equals significant traffic to the landing page and 30% conversion to downloading my ebook.
Tactic: Develop Facebook ads and run them once a month. Success equals adding 200 new Facebook likes per month.
Tactic: Create banner ads for targeted zip codes within 5 miles of retail store. Success equals increase in store traffic of 20% over three months.
Tactic: Review response from ads and adjust every two months. Same as above.
Strategy: Develop consistent public relations campaign.
Tactic: Create one press release per quarter and distribute to local newspapers and blogs. Success equals 2 news stories per quarter.
Tactic: Create five SlideShare presentations and distribute via social media. Success equals 50% increase in site traffic to landing page from SlideShare.
This task might seem hard, but it’s crucial. You’re figuring out the steps in the buying cycle that lead to a sale or the end goal for your brand. For many of you this part will be mainly an exercise. You’ll see the true benefits from tactics as they happen. This will make your testing get better and better as it goes. You may be choosing targets right now just to get used to the idea of choosing targets other than sales. That’s fine. Marketing is about learning. You’re learning. Me too.
