It’s a deal!
It’s not just a deal when you’re making tie-ups and formulating a marketing plan. It’s a big deal! There are many factors to consider that you should be aware of, even if you’re outsourcing your marketing needs. There are certain basic concepts that have to be in place before you can even think of making a marketing plan. Let’s have a look at what these are:
Budget:
Everything starts with a budget. Now there are two levels of budgeting involved in formulating a marketing plan. One is a macro level budget, which is the overall budget of the marketing spend for the year, quarter or month, depending on the scope of your plan. The other are micro level budgets that determine how much you spend on specific campaigns throughout the plan. Typically, 2% of revenue should be spent on marketing. This includes both online and offline marketing. Now, what percentage of this is spent offline and what percentage is spent online depends on where your customers spend most of their time. What is the best way to reach them?
Scope:
This will include factors such as duration, geography, product or service.The scope of the work on the basis of duration determines whether you’re planning your campaigns for the entire year, for just one quarter or for just a month. Typically, when a marketing plan is made, it is made for the entire year so that there’s a clear view of how much of the budget is needed in ad spends, how much is spent on public relations, how much is spent on events and promotions etc. The geography will include the markets and locations all these campaigns will be carried out. These could be physical locations or online locations bound by geography. The product or service scope will tell us about which lines are being advertised for example. There could be multiple verticals of business that have a comprehensive marketing plan or an individual marketing plan. Determining the scope depends on the business.
Format:
The toss-up between traditional and digital marketing seems like an unfair one. Traditional or offline marketing is expensive and does not provide directly measurable results. Digital marketing or online marketing is fairly straight forward with a what-you-see-is-what-you-get approach. Online or offline planning has to be in tandem with each other. Campaigns have to be planned together so that they support each other because audiences that may get filtered out by certain advertiser algorithms will definitely be captured by a widespread offline campaign. Each type has its strength and weakness and neglecting either one is a cardinal business sin.
Platforms:
In both online and offline formats there are various platforms to choose from. For example, in offline marketing, billboards, flyers, posters, standees are some examples of platforms that are utilised by offline or traditional marketing. Print ads in newspapers, magazine ads, inserts etc are all examples of offline platforms that are quite popular and effective. Depending on whether you have a brand awareness campaign or a lead generation campaign, you will choose your platform for messaging. In the online format, online banners, interstitial ads, contact forms, social media are all platforms where you can directly reach your audience on a personal basis. Each platform has its own speciality which should be taken into consideration before planning on utilising it.
Metrics:
This is the most crucial element of the marketing plan that one has to be familiarised with before embarking on a marketing journey. If you don’t understand the metrics and what they do for you, the results will be meaningless to you. Some of the most common metrics that are of significance are: Expected Conversion Rate, Return on Investment Expected, Leads Expected. The expected conversion rate determines how fruitful your campaign has been. You know already that you expect a set number of leads for your marketing efforts. How successful are you in converting those? This gives an insight into the quality of leads, as well as the ability of the team to convert those leads. This brings us to the expected number of leads. This has to be a realistic figure. In both online as well as offline formats, brand awareness is fairly easier than lead generation. The percentage of impressions is always far greater than the percentage of leads. It can never be a 1:1 ratio. The leads could be a few units in thousands or millions of impressions. Next comes calculating the return on investment. The return on investment is calculated on the basis of how much you have spent and for what duration and what amount has been brought in as earnings. Marketing investments are tricky. There’s no guaranteed result. There’s no predictable trajectory that can v=be followed. For example, if we say, the higher the cost per lead, the lower your return on investment. This equation doesn’t factor in quality of leads. A few excellent quality leads that are sure-fire conversions are a lot better than a large amount of low cost, low quality leads. It should be mentioned here that the cost of a lead in no way determines its quality. A high cost lead could be of low quality and a low-cost lead could be of high quality. It works both ways.
These are just a few rudimentary aspects to be aware of in the business of marketing. It makes sense to study the aspects mentioned here, in further detail before you venture out to create or outsource a marketing plan.