Football season is almost here, and that means chances for you to score a touchdown, too. No matter your business or industry, you can use the season to take your game up a notch.
Set Up Your Offense: The Marketing Plan
Your offense should consist of the key players in your marketing team. Your manager is your quarterback, calling the shots. The rest of your marketing staff is your offensive line, in position and ready to score. Don’t forget to have some second string players on hand to step in for people who are sick or are on vacation.
Together with your team, you should complete a company analysis, where you assess the company’s current situation. Define your company, the products and services you provide, and benefits that make you different from the competition. Include strengths, weaknesses, threats, and opportunities.
Look for and describe opportunities you can capitalize on. How can your business take advantage of football season? For example, popular doughnut chain, Krispy Kreme provides customers in the Carolinas with a $4.99 dozen donuts the Monday after a Carolina Panthers win. There are similar promotions with Papa John’s Pizza.
Position your product. What features do you have that are different from the competition? Who will be buying it? Remember, you can’t sell everything – so knowing your customers will help you decide what to offer.
Next, describe your target audience. Consider the demographics – age, gender, income, location, and more. Take the time to develop an in-depth buyer persona. Defining the personas of your target audience will guide you through creating your playbook.
List your marketing goals. What do you want the plan to achieve? Whatever the goals are, make a short list, and ensure they’re measurable so you can review them after the game to determine whether or not you’ve reached them.
With goals in hand, develop your marketing tactics and strategies you’ll use. Keep them on hand to use as you build your playbook. These are the steps you’ll take to achieve the list of goals you just made. Target all stages of your sales cycle.
Set your budget. Determine how much you’ll spend and where. You’ll want a mix of tactics, and if some of them are more expensive than others, focus on the ones you know you can afford until sales increase and you have the capital to expand on your marketing. The key is to never stop marketing.
Set Up Your Defense: The Support
No team can be successful without a strong defense. Your marketing team needs to have the sales team working alongside them, as well as customer service. Your sales and customer service teams are there to support marketing in all their endeavors.
Meet with the sales team and go over your marketing plan. They need to know the ins and outs of the offers, since they’ll be going head to head with you against the other team (the competition) and dealing with the customers (fans) head on. They will also need to know the details of the strategies you’re using, so they can understand where the leads are coming from, and how warm they’ll be when they make it to sales.
Making Your Playbook: The Campaigns
This is the heart of your marketing plan. Once everyone on your marketing team knows their role, you’ll position everyone where they need to be to make the plays. Your marketing strategies all come together in your playbook.
Go into detail with the strategies and tactics you’ll be using to achieve your marketing goals. If you’re using football season to draw in your audience, consider that college fans will be watching on Saturday, where NFL fans will watch primarily on Sundays. Pay attention to the Thursday night, Sunday night, and Monday night games, if you’re wanting to target fans of certain teams, and adjust your campaigns accordingly.
Plan which elements of the campaigns go together, and get the assets you need. Will you be running social media ads during the game? Will you be running TV ads alongside your social?
Training Camp: Testing Your Campaigns
No team gets ready for the big game without practice. Go over your marketing plan playbook with everyone, to make sure everyone understands what they have to do to pull it all together for the big game.
Run a small scale ad campaign on social to test the response before you launch for the big day. Split test various copy, images, and video, to see which ones the audience responds to the best. Choose the winner, and run those for the final campaign.
The Big Game: Running Your Campaigns
It’s go time! Run the campaign, and watch what happens. Keep track of all the data throughout the process, so you can analyze your ROI, and decide what to do in the future.
At the end of the game, go to the locker room. Listen to the coach, or the head of the marketing department, to learn more about what went well, and where there’s room for improvement for the next game. Watch the game tapes – look at the analytics of the program to see what was successful, and where the team fell short. Use this information to make adjustments to your playbook for more touchdowns in the next game.
Original article: Score a Touchdown with Your Marketing Plan
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