Strategic Marketing Plan | Actionable Plan Template (Free)

Feb 27 2017

How to fix your digital strategy while avoiding pitfalls?

Reading time: 6 minutes 55′.

Did you say how to fix digital marketing strategy to adapt to customers, competition and market technology? But these changes haven’t really worked.. yet.

Perhaps your online business is struggling to adjust to the new technologies and market demands? You’re naturally concerned, and your doubts are genuine.

But do not fear as your digital marketing strategy can easely be fixed.

Here is how you go about to improve it.

How to restore your digital marketing strategy?

Have I wasted opportunities and time? Is that what your are asking yourself?

If you’re changing things around, testing it and logging what is and what is not working. The answer is, more than likely not, because its an ongoing process.

Here is what you need to concentrate on:

Identify digital marketing goals
Create your personas
Revise customer strategy plan
Audit your content
Revise/Create content marketing plan
Identify best online channels/tools
Follow the promotional plan
Check key metrics for each performed action

However, if you’re curious or/and need rapid assistance I can work with you and show how to perform an audit to identify those issues. Very important.

I will also give you a (free) checklist to keep you on track along with tools and processes that will help fix the non-working components/parts within your strategy.

Before we go on bear these two in mind:

Firstly, mend a digital strategy only works if you align marketing and sales with your business goals and objectives, while managing the lead funnel effectively.

Secondly, prioritise phases and steer away from dangerous pitfalls when implementing your strategic plan. Also read the following 7 reasons why online strategy plans fail.

Seven reasons why online marketing strategy fails:

Aimless business strategy: the mission, vision and business values are setup for a 2-3 year period but not updated or revised. Often the global vision for a campaign has changed direction, and resources aren’t aligned with business strategic plan in order to fulfill customers, prospect’s needs/problems.

Worthless or poor tactical implementation: we often say that the devil is in the detail. This is even more true when the strategic planning is released with little or no actions – surely, this cannot guide your teams, hence leading to poor implementation.

Weak or lack of strategic management: poor continuous planning, data monitoring, analysis, marketing and sales assessment will danger the business in short or medium-term. All the above are required for an organisation to meet and carry out its vision, goals and objectives.

Poor or lack of communication: communications and strategic management do tend to overlap with each other, meaning if the plan doesn’t get aligned and communicated properly to staff members/employees, they will not understand why, where and when to improve and/or give useful feedback.

An unrealistic plan: has actions to be implemented but are unfeasible and/or there are too many to be executed in time because the team manager failed to hire qualified resources or outsource to help reduce team workloads.

Out of scope: often added-on tasks not covered in the statement of work, also called S.O.W (Scope of work), that will increase the daily basis workload leading to a direct change in the project cost or time.

No visibility and accountability: if there is no high-level visibility and accountability then it stands to reason you will not be able to see or detect opportunities in order to drive change. It is important that each process, task, data implementation and initiative must have an accountable owner.

Note: I am confident to say that business people don’t ignore the problems at hand, but their staff often do, simply because the problem has not been fully understood or identified.

To build a successful digital marketing strategy you must:

Identify and align the steps/changes that will be made according to your plan of action.
Make the strategy clear and easier to understand for everyone.
Include ground-level people in the creation of strategy and its implementation.
Walk them through the logic behind the strategy and tactical choices before going live.
Listen (online) and record what has been said (any resistance can pinpoint issues).
Provide the processes, tools and communicate it to everyone.
Implement a strategic thinking process board (continuous learning) and challenge your and teams views.

Your strategy’s success will depend on everybody’s desire for change. Positive strategy change will not happen overnight. It’s like a champion training process – it builds up over time surrounded by people with a positive mind and shared leadership.

A powerful but yet simple digital strategy checklist

What benefits will my strategy bring us?
What has to change in order for that to happen?
What do we need to do to make this strategy work?
Who is doing what?
Who will be implicated/affected?
What tools do we need to help team visualise the future changes.

Related methods to help improve your digital marketing strategy

We can find dozens of excellent business analysis tools/models to guide you and/or think more strategically.

Here’s a few:

Kotter’s eight steps process for change
Boston Matrix: How to use BCG Matrix?
Scenario planning: is also a powerful technique that will help you build credible (future) views for your business.

You can tap into another great methodology to ensure that when planning your objectives these are as SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, timelined) as possible.

Now, if your business is up and running and you’re stuck or need to quickly identify where to make the much needed improvements – I’d recommend to start with a fairly simple but efficient method to pinpoint and fix a failing part within your marketing strategy.

The Digital Marketing SWOT Analysis

It stands for: Strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats analysis.

SWOT analysis is the most popular strategic analysis models among the better-known methods to help you visualise which parts of your business you’ll need to focus on.

When you need to find where the strengths and weaknesses of your business are, and pinpoint any opportunities and threats then this tool can help you.

Once you have identified all of the above, you can continue analysing and assess how to capitalise on your strengths, while minimising the effects of your weaknesses, make the most of any open opportunities and reduce any possible threats.

You can now download SWOT-Analysis-Template 2017 and start your internal and external analysis. Good luck.

You can then start a Fishbone diagram

A fantastic tool to visualise the root cause of a specific problem, whilst exploring potential upcoming issues. The cause and effect diagram (AKA Fishbone, Ishikawa or Fishikawa in Japanese) and is often used by the Japanese automobile industry.

You should create a cause and effect diagram:

a) To quickly discover project problems/issues
b) To guide any team to uncover possible root problems
c) To make sure major issues are not overlooked during brainstorming sessions.

This technique is actually considered one of the best seven basic tools of product/service quality control.

So, let’s start a fishbone diagram.

TIP: You can get a free account with Lucidchart for an unlimited amount of time—no credit card required. Go here.

Let’s take the restaurant as an example.

Start by stating the problem in the form of a question, such as:

“Why do we have so many complaints”

Framing it as a “why” question will help in brainstorming, as each root cause idea should answer the question.

Effective questions to help you start:

What is the primary problem you’re trying to fix?
Where to start?
What are the root causes of initial problem?
Why do you need to fix it?
Who will do the job?
What other backup solutions are there to avoid further issues?

Can I use cause-and-effect diagram in marketing planning?

Yes, a fishbone diagram is often used by many marketing agencies for their customers strategic planning.

How to fix your digital marketing strategy using cause-and-effect flowchart ?

Step 1. Select two small teams: Create two balanced teams of around 2-3 people in each group. Why?

Because having two teams will help you quickly identify the problem by focusing on the issue at hand. You should mix front-line/customer service people who have experienced or knowledge of the problem.

For bigger businesses/projects do not be afraid to build 2-3 teams of 4-6 people to identify the initial root problems- each taking over a department or business unit. This will help you be much quicker at building a new action plan.

Step 2. Give the problem a relevant name:
At the head of your fishbone write down the problem’s name. This is very important, allow 5-10 minutes to discuss this, depending on size of the business.
Each team will have to agree on the issue to tackle. Be as specific as possible as this will redirect you at later stage to sub-categories.

Step 3. Decide the major categories: Create a root cause diagram on flip chart to include: People, software or servers, methods used, material and/or environment.

Step 4. Brainstorm session: Now its time to brainstorm the issue – start a session by listing potential causes – here you just ask three to five “Whys”. Make sure you repeat the process for each category previously listed.

Tip/Suggestions: Write onto self-stick-notes and place them under the relevant category.

Step 5. Review the diagram: Agree, validate and eliminate causes that do not apply.

Step 6. Start a second brainstorming: with categories with less items to find quick relevant ideas without stopping anyone’s creativity.

Step 7. Time to validate and finalise the diagram: Here you must identify the causes that are most critical, and urgent follow-ups.

Step 8. Control stage

Conclusion:

In 2017 and going forward, you’ll need to quickly spot and solve any digital digital marketing situation. Get deep inside on your analysis, draw and understand the priorities. From there, replan, realign business goals and focus on your audience lead funnel while refreshing and/or optimising existent content. Secondly, concentrate on mobile optimisation and third, I would strongly recommend you improving your website loading speed as part of your overall strategy.

Also, forget all the trendy gadgets, plugins and other fancy stuff as these aren’t essential to help your business provide valuable and relevant content to your readers or end-users.

Every business is different, what is working for your competitor may not work for you. Like I said above, if you want to save your digital marketing strategy you’ll need to first assess or audit to see what is not really working for you. Start with your goal priorities, revise them and work the plan, educate your team, republish your content, make it valuable, unique and persevere, so you can finish the year with a smile on your face.

I also think that marketing strategy is much more than tapping into that egotistical concept or product idea, if you see what I mean.

If well designed, mixed, followed and aligned your content strategy can deliver and empower your overall strategy on its own, and that from the moment you deliver the value people are expecting, whether it is through emotional facts or educational meanings.

But one of the ways to do this quickly – is to implement and/or customise your marketing automation process to get you activity reports across departments (know when and what your leads are reading) and get sales lead intelligence (lead tracking and scoring setup asap so you will know where to go.

Do not attempt to persuade people (old school tacticts) who read your blog post when you absolutely don’t know what they’re looking for, what their pain points are, etc. Your business can actually have a much more pivotal role in your industry if you do your home-work properly.

Thanks for reading this post.

Do share it around you and please leave a comment if you enjoyed or find the topic useful. 🙂

Aug 31 2016

Strategies to Market Your Small Business – Guide Part 1

Marketing-strategies-for-small-business Are you confused when it comes to find effective marketing strategies for your small business? You keep marketing your small business day in and day out, but you are struggling to find clients. We know it is a tough one to crack. Let me tell you that you are not alone.

For some strange reason many entrepreneurs think that starting and running a business is easy – a bit like running a 200m sprint sport event. No offense sprinters, I know there is a huge preparation before the sprint competition happens.

When it comes to implement an effective marketing strategy you need planning, resources based upon your goals. Let’s put this into perpective.

If you are familiar with Heptathlon (which consists of seven track and field events over two days) and the Pentathlon (consists of five events in one day.) you soon realise that is a long competition. In business terms its the same thing, but here you’re taking financial risks in the hope of making a profit – so… you’re running a marathon or Decathlon ( consists of ten track and field events ) but with two big differences. First: you do whatever it takes and hope to get the gold medal and secondly, you’ll push on and on for months and months or maybe years.

So, what are the typical questions we ask ourselves when we start a business?

Would that be: How do I market my small business? Where do I start? How do I plan? What to plan first and stay focussed? Which strategic channel should I use?, etc.

These questions also work for freelancers as they’re faced with very similar business challenges. Both share the same big struggle – which is:

How to plan a strategy and stick with your daily actions!

Marketing strategies to market your small business [sample]

In this post I’ll share simple ways to plan your marketing.

This will include:

structure your mission,
define and discover your audience,
set SMART goals,
how, where to find your first client and get them to try your skills,
followed by how to turn completed work into referrals.
tips and proven recommendations

Bonus tips: I’ll also share some extra great marketing ideas from others! So if you’re ready stay tuned, continue reading and let’s build your client base!

Let’s imagine you’re just getting started and you need to work out fine marketing strategies to get some quick results.

Define your mission

Step one: Write down your mission for the next six – twelve months. The draft should include:

What you’re aiming to achieve, What is the voice of the business (V.O.B), the resources needed, what your success looks like and how you’ll get there etc.
For many this step seems unnecessary, but trust me, later you’ll see why it is so crucial.

So, your first step is the most important of all. Now you can either – grab a computer and open a word document or stick to good old fashioned note paper.

Define your target market

Step two: Who is your audience? What needs do they have? Know their pain points and associate them with your start-up/freelance goals. Create and tailor your initial campaigns based on your audience’s problems and offer a solution.

You should dig deeper into your target market and by that I mean segment your clients:

Tip example:
You visit a manufacturer webiste selling middle range shoes – they’ve got basic images and it’s not mobile user friendly.
So if you’re an App designer what do you do? You create a simple demo and show it to them to spark their interest.
You can also sell market innovation and how to improve their brand awareness. You want to be the guy who can turn dreams into reality, so go find who is in charge and what immediate needs they have. If they agree it’s a foot on the door. Then invite relevant people and show them how you’d like to work with them.

Another example:

Let’s assume you don’t know which target market to go to first. No problem, this is what I’d recommend you do. Offer your main skill set. Even if you’re just good at just one thing, focus and do it well.

Pratical Tips:
Google offer many search operators to help you save time and go much quicker – Just Google your area of expertise to figure out how others are presenting themselves. How many are in your area? What skills set are they selling? It is useful to figure out which keywords they’re using, whose commenting etc.

You can try these: related: example: related:http://www.yourcompetitor.com – very useful indeed and/or – try date range, The daterange: operator can restrict the search results to pages recently added or updated within the specified date range. Unfortunately, it only accepts Julian dates, but you can convert them to Gregorian dates online. here: http://www.fourmilab.ch/documents/calendar.

See the idea?

Setting SMART goals

Step three:
You have some big ideas, and want to go live as quickly as possible. First, lets figure out what your SMART goals are.

What are SMART goals? SMART stands for: Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Timely.

Get into the habit of using S.M.A.R.T when planning your main goals.

Test SMART yourself:

Instead of writing “I need to find more web projects” try the following:

Identify 5-10 local business websites that aren’t mobile friendly. Include heading topics: I will email to inform or educate them about my skills and services.
Search for Web agencies in my region with 5-10 employees specialised in App development. Then I introduce myself, what I do and ask if they have any occasional work or run-off I can help with.

These actionable tasks (above) will improve productivity, help you stay focussed and feel positive on the long run.
Often we think more is better, it is, but only if it’s well planned. That is why SMART will leave you with this great energy to tackle the goals ahead.

How to find your first clients?

Wouldn’t it be great if clients were calling or emailing to give you work?
Believe it or not, this is possible, but you’ll need to show them great content, work examples, and one or two case studies etc.. You need to show the prospect what they’ll get from your business.

But until then, you have to do some brain work. Bear in mind that your prospects aren’t going to know you unless you start getting your services out there in front of them.

How to promote your business without getting stuck?

In the first few months don’t even bother promoting yourself, if you haven’t written at least 10-15 pieces of content.

Use free social media to listen and curate other people’s content.

Here I listed some social media listening tools that I think would help SMB’s – but it also gives you extra great insight in other departments.

Buzzsumo
Pros: BuzzSumo is a must have social web platform for SMBs looking to track daily to monthly shares, but with an edge, as it will work more effectively than any other platform. I love it. It trows content alerts if you need it or simply schedule real-time brand monitoring. Plus side: Finding industry influencers, what they said; sharing great metrics and its real-time social monitoring
Cons: Can’t find one.

Sproutsocial
Pros: I heard good things such as listening capacity.
Cons: Can’t comment as not tested yet.

klear-advanced
Pros: Perfect tool for marketers who are new to the social media. Uncomplicated.
Cons: Not trully tested yet.

There is a plethora of free social media analytics on the web, such as: Social mention, Followerwonk, Buffer, SumAll, etc. I would suggest to try them yourselves and see which ones suits your business better. You can also find them through recommended sources. Social media examiner post showing 4 free tools to spy on your competitors.

Take time to listen, analyse what others are doing, test and take notes. Then, get your brand/name in front of your audience. Pic a steady pace, introduce and ask them to read your blog posts, share fun or relevant content.

From here you get to know your influencers better, take part in their blog posts, leave a nice comment and repeat. Go where they talk, share and comment. At later stage you get to ask them to RT your stuff. Don’t be a stalker. But what if I don’t have any proper work examples to show?

We will get there.
Your prospect’s have got needs, you just have to figure out what’s in it for you. Just keep adjusting your plan and stick with it.

Do not cold call – Email them instead

Guy Kawasaki once said that before you write an email you should provide just enough information to answer the following five questions:

Who are you?
What do you want?
Why are you asking me?
Why should I do what you’re asking?
What is the next step?

I use this framework and it works just fine.

There are three basic approaches to cold email

Email someone high up in the business to introduce you to the right person
Email the decision maker if you can – ask for 20-30 minute call/meeting/etc
You can email someone who wrote a blog post and tell him you like it and that you can help/add alternative.

How to achieve that in four simple steps:

Find the right person.. search his/her profile. Research well your prospects.
Find accurate email information. You can use emailhunter.co or use http://rocketreach.co
Compile and segment lists
Create/use epic email template.

My winning tips for email outreach:

Keep it simple (Start with Hi, Hello instead of Dear Mrs/Mr)
First sentence is your prime-time ( Do not waste it – go for powerful stats, or a question about their assets)
Write as if you were talking to them face-to-face
Focus on one benefit/pain point /offer (per outreach email)
Use plain English and kick the adjective superlatives out for example: “We offer you the best security app on the market” Instead try this: “You will be protecting your business assets but also your peer’s confidentiality”
Use your best active voice for example: “Our software is used by Hundreds of thousands” instead of “Our software was used by many”
Add a sprinkle of emotional/value or even fear (these elements are crucial for email strategy )
Build trust – Add compelling stories/testimonials etc
Keep it friendly and professional (but not to friendly either).

Next time we’ll go through email examples.

Feel free to comment or add any questions/ideas. It will be very much appreciated.

Sep 23 2013

12 Steps to Control your Business Strategy

Why developing a business strategy is vital? [Updated]

From an early age we are trained to perform tasks, the right way. It all starts at school with a strategic plan of action. With our parents; at work; and so on. .

At the present time, business strategy is one of the most important steps you can take. Planning ahead, is therefore vital. I’d say that we all need to learn how to plan an effective business strategy if you want to be successful.

However, I disagree with the principle of doing things the right way, there’s no such thing “the right way”.

Start with the basics:

What is your Vision?
What are your Goals?
Who is your primary segment?
What is your purpose/objectives?
What channels to implement the above?
When to control your strategy and monitor what is working for you?
How to create a overall business performance dashboard?

Well, let’s see how to plan your business marketing strategy. Hope this can help you out today.

I’ll show an example based on our case studies that have worked, but this also be applied to many other businesses.

A good approach– is called: See -Think – Draw.

How to draw a business strategy plan?

Vision – Define the global vision and set your tactical mission plan with priorities and clear objectives. You can do this by using PEST analysis – Based on desired goals create SWOT .

Ex: Social media campaign – Which market segment, What message, Why am I sharing, With Who, When…

Formulate – Actions and specific processes to reach business strategy goals.

Implement – Resources, processes, marketing strategies and solid market research with winning stratagems.

Control – Monitor overall customer situations to fully control the outcome in order to improve results and strategic objectives.

Regardless the size of your business, you’ll have to market research, analyse data, results and quickly adapt by implementing new tactics in order to be successful and reap the rewards.

Long-term plan approach could be shaped as follow:

Business strategy and marketing plan – Design or refresh your mission, business vision, objectives and its priorities for the next 12 to 18 months.

Customer centric – Who is your ideal customer ? Where do they go – develop scenarios and get an insight into their mindset and world, check opportunities and competition – Define purposes, scope, map user profile information and its usability to help you control the entire customer experience process.

Search Engine optimisation and social media – Create different buckets with keywords list – add it to your (niche) content. Promote, engage/interact, serve and analyse your social activity in just one place and collect rewards. Analyse your best content, see what’s trendy and adapt it in order to write better articles based on your data to deliver that added value.

Online advertising – Identify top social media and bookmarking sites and other advertising platforms – Use AdWords as it can help you achieve your target and objectives.

Set-up key metrics – To keep an eye and measure, control performance through all your channels.

Is this the only way you can build your business strategy?

Of course not. This is a proven framework, that could effectively work for your business.

Let’s find out if you really are in control of your business strategy.

You should be able to answer the following questions – If you cannot answer six out of ten – then you’re going to need to rethink and recheck your business planning, starting with vision.

1. Are you able to see where you can increase your customer database and offer better value/services than your competitors?

2. Upon your market research could you differentiate your marketing (best selling products or/and services) from the crowd in order to meet the needs of customer segments?

3. Could you reshape your sales operations within few months and get quick wins across traditional and digital channels?

4. Can your business provide marketing mix or/and multi-customer platforms with dedicated or personalized service 24/7?

5. Are you able to challenge your operational business strategy model to increase market penetration? Example: by implementing new tactical short-term offers/discounts per segment, etc.

6. Are you open to new ideas from others or are you the “know it all” person? What are you using – direct marketing or mixed marketing strategies?

7. Would or could you accept external help to plan quick business strategy wins for the next twelve months?

8. Are you synchronising your social media with your strategy marketing for better sales, support, time response or/and customer service?

9. Are you giving your business the strategic marketing vision and the tools to create awareness, visibility and profit?

10. Do you collect enough email subscribers or/and customer information in order to analyze, segment and sell more?

11. How do you go about understanding, prioritise and serving your customers needs?

12. Are you controlling and streamlining your internal department (s) or/and processes?

How to be highly competitive in business?

According to Michael Porter there is three generic strategies to establish a quick competitive advantage.

What is Competitive Advantage? Is the way one can “Create and Sustain Superior Performance” .

Business strategy competitive advantage

Differentiation – Achieved when developing products or services that provide superior value.
Cost leadership – is when you become the lowest cost vs competitor’s.
Focus – Go target a niche or specific industry segment, while ignoring all the rest.

You can pick two out of the three.

A business that attempts to cover/be all things will not perform well. Also, your people will be all over the place, ending up losing clarity of its own value proposition.

For example: a new ecommerce company

They would need to consider several aspects but above all it needs to map and articulate how it is going to add value up front. To attract the competitor’s audience but also how to differentiate themselves.

Whether their product is fancy or more expensive – it doesn’t matter, what’s important is to understand potential buyers, their needs, how and when, why… the will buy from you.

I would not compete on the price tag as it can be costly in the end, but rather on their product’s benefits, better qualities and explain why … through available channels.

Each of these choices will result in different strategic directions. To make these decisions, a business strategist must understand the context in which the brand operates.

They should ask questions such as: What are the factors that affect the business in short term? Which part should we prioritise first? etc.

This means – they need to first stop and go into a situational analysis mode. This must include the following four pillars:

Their environment
Their customers
The business
Their competitors.

Here are some hints and tools for conducting your company’s situational analysis.

Your business environment is the ( overall ) outside world in which the business operates. This can go from national or global economic situation (how well is the local industry performing these days?) to new opportunities in your industry.

Note that every business will sell to a specific market needing particular attention, based on the type of product or service it produces.

It all depends on the size of the business, but analysis of your business and its environment would need to consider the political, economic, social, technological, legal and environmental. Also called PESTLE.

If you’re selling locally, just focus on micro-marketing tactics (market insights, customer behavior and social media and (your) responsibility).
All these steps will of course influence a clear set of considerations and issues that are pertinent to the overall business marketing strategy.

Once you have a clear vue of what the business’ challenge is, you can move and define how your marketing strategy will help leverage the digital channels.

Be aware that digital marketing should not be considered as separate strategy from your core strategy – many people do this mistake.

Your business marketing strategy should be at all times iterating, listening and evolving.

The good news is that digital marketing builds on the principles of traditional marketing, but with a clear advantage, which is – see the opportunities and challenges almost real time. You can then adapt using analytics and other tools offered to you by the digital medium companies.

Control your business strategy

Gather all teams, (from marketing to sales ) and set a time to analyse the (keep it short and to the point) content published, sales, analytic conversions, social media data and front-line team struggles.

Decide (visualise the best performing parts) and communicate to all attendees, but also ensure employee representative (if you are over 50 employees) has a direct participation in the business strategy meeting.

Implement and emphasise the use of metrics as a strategic control tool. This will help gather vital data at different levels ensuring that the company is going in the right direction rather than be strict with many regulations.

This will stop your employee’s creativity.

Involve everyone from the front desk to the customer service helpline (if you have one) and make them aware that they are key people and you need them to help you update control processes.

Following the above, encourage your people to participate, caring about the business by offering/dropping ideas and solutions (Temp folder) that can make a difference.

Lead by example and demonstrate how improving business with management control tools can make work easier for everyone whilst boosting growth and confidence.

Conclusion:

You’ve may well have noticed that every created product or service begins with a plan that is discussed and approved by your people. Its initial journey begins with controlled steps or phases, tested throughout its life cycle until it takes form or shape.

A successful business has to have a documented and structured business planning with practical and organised steps in order to reach the business ultimate goal.

If you fail to apply strategic marketing and planning principles, then you’re a failing business with no chance to succeed. Also make good use of social media channels, as these quickly become the best option to promote any product or service.

If you need help to accelerate business growth – Our marketing services are designed to help you improve and increase customer value. Schedule a call or call us now – 01252 679885 for an informal chat.

Tools to use:

Create your customer journey (free) from scratch.

Image credit: courtesy of 89studio
Page updated: 13.01.19

Jun 22 2013

Why A Solid Strategic Planning Is Crucial?

Adopting a strong business strategy vision — Business strategy vision

Why a solid strategy planning is crucial for so many modern businesses?

Many businesses are struggling to adapt to to the current digital economy. But it shouldn’t be that way. Here we will explain why you should implement and revise your strategic plan.

I like to think of the Internet as an immense and endless motorway (bear with me), with multiple exits (links) off to different towns, shopping and entertainment venues, that you or your client can access without leaving the comfort of their own home. And lets face it, far more appealing than being stuck in a traffic jam (if you’ve ever been on the M25 you’ll know exactly what I mean).

“Image courtesy of Photokanok / FreeDigitalPhotos.net”

Business strategy or model, the chicken and egg question..

A digital strategy must come from the business model itself and not the other way around.

In this next section I will sum up how EasyJet have survived and become one amongst the top leading low budget airlines. Branding themselves as Europe’s “efficient low-cost airline” and how this practice has been key in their business success .

EasyJet Business Strategy Key Point

In December 1997, Stelios was facing the following dilemma: Should Easyjet invest and create a website for direct bookings or continue to take calls? – This was suggested by their advertising agency. At the time, Haji-Ioannou’s reply was –“The Internet is for nerds, it will never make money for my business” Later on, the marketing department got the approval and went for the digital trial period. The idea was to use Internet as the main booking platform, where flights were priced cheaper than booking over the traditional phone system. In parallel they start promoting it through online platform advertising.

The digital strategy really paid off as within the first year they made over 50% of bookings via their website alone. Six years later, the online bookings reached 98%. Not bad at all. So, the question here is: should we experiment new tactics and embrace the digital era? Well, you only have to see for yourself.

EasyJet also made a great number of strategic decisions in it’s business model including: flying directly to main airports, low ticket prices, smaller Airbus aircrafts, quick turnaround times, no class system seating on the planes, speedy boarding. But have a closer look at the results:

Main airports throughout Europe = Low airport fees

Created first Internet booking system April 1998 = Fast sales

Enhanced digital services = Via Facebook and Twitter

Low ticket prices strategy = Increase volume of clients

No travel agents = No middle man costs

Standard class seating on every flight = All passengers are equal

Speed boarding = Priority seat access (fee)

No free meals or drinks = Revenue opportunity

This example shows you how you can learn, adapt and contribute to this fast paced e-economy at low cost. They had to move quick as a result of the deregulation of the aviation industry reforms in Europe in 1997.

Important note: We are not talking or focusing on EasyJet’s 2012 customer service criticism. If you want to read more.

Can your business switch to digital and follow this example?

The gradual change from the traditional business model concept has led to continued success for businesses large and small. This could be the difference between your business making it or failing during these austere financial times.

Ask yourself these eight quick questions:

Can you answer in less than ten seconds exactly what your business does?
Where do you see your growth coming from in the next two-three years?
How will you finance your future growth?
What problems/options will you face?
What constraints will you have and who will your competitors be?
Why will potential customers buy from you?
What direct threats is your business facing?
Is digital planning relevant in this fast changing world?

The above are just a small selection of questions that you may or may not be able to answer.

Conclusion:

A recent study revealed that 76% of businesses are missing this essential part – control and measuring potential threats to their business on the long term. Of course, it all depends on the size and culture of your business. Planning may not seem relevant to you as a small business, but I can assure you that those who have achieved success, have done so because they have a clear, well defined On and Off-line strategy. Businesses that don’t follow the digital road will struggle and may well see their doors closing sooner or later.

An intelligent business will analyse competitor’s and sometimes borrow ideas from other industries, in order to gather insight and develop fresh tactics to their advantage.

Going back to EasyJet analogy – they borrow its business model from United States carrier Southwest Airlines*. They have re-adapted the model for the European market through further cost-cutting measures as not selling connecting flights or providing complimentary snacks on board and advertise their offer on social media.

*[Extracted from Wikipedia]

Now we have reached the point where every company should have a clear set of goals and objectives in order to achieve maximum success.

I want you to download our 2013 Strategy Guide Essentials and complete the 9 items on this list and start implement them in the next few days. Once you have done it, drop a comment on this post sharing your experience.

For more information on how to improve your business strategy, call 01252679885 for an informal chat. Our consultants have proven expertise in online repositioning and boosting operational strategic growth.

Update date : 23.04.16

Apr 22 2013

Will Social Media Campaigns Improve Business Revenue?

Social Media campaigns to boost profit — Social Media Campaigns

Social media campaigns to help grow your business revenue

[Updated Dec. 2019]

My belief is that revenue generated from social media alone will increase dramatically in the next two – three years. (I first wrote this in 2013) … six years later, I can say I wasn’t far or wrong really. Without being pretentious this was pretty obvious!

Later on, you’ll be able to check some crazy stats from our friends at Hootsuite. Keep reading.

Let me show you how Social media can help you boost your business revenue. Yes, its happening every minute of the day.

The social media strategy path to promote and increase business revenue

Here is a quick but effective overview on how you can organise yourself to grow your business. Start by:

Mapping your your fans, audience
Consult your audience’s mapping journey
Discover which topics they’re talking about
Check which platforms they’re using/asking questions
Create /offer outstanding content to answer their questions
Get them involved with creative topics
Engage (no selling) and share tips, freebies or any meaningful stuff
Be consistent, positive and neutral when needed
Be yourself
Keep it simple- stupid (K.i.s.s)
Find right times to talk, share
Don’t be shy use social media to increase brand awareness ( 4-6 + times a day)
…

Are you ready to shake up things a bit and boost your brand image? Good.

Small to medium sized businesses should use social media plan and promotional tactics several times a day. With their people leading the way and embracing the digital age, they cannot fail.

Here is why.

If your company has the budget, you might want to employ someone who specialises in digital communications, and who can champion social media and ultimately get your brand name out there.

How can social media really boost business revenue?

First decide in which way you’ll use the social channels for. The key is based on preparation, planning and daily key terms (promotional, awareness…).

You need to dedicate half to an hour of your time, have a clear and SMART communications strategy and a solid social media plan all managed by your and/or your marketing people. However, sorry to say that, but its not all done yet. You’re half way there.

Start with a basic strategic model and improve it as you go along. Get new ideas from:

Your main competitor’s (check their feeds)
Read their press releases
Blogs
Surveys
Check keywords at Google Trends
Scan the Web for interesting new content – set-up Google alerts.

Get to know what is happening out there by browsing some facts and figures.
Do they make you think differently ? What are you waiting for then?

Create an effective social media strategy (under one l hour)

1) Define the purpose of your social media campaign (from marketing /content plan)

2) Define your campaign’s ultimate mission ( visit or revise it and get approval)

3) Set action plan for Q1, Q2 … ( set short but realistic targets)

4) Create your own metrics (dashboards, KPI’s…)

5) Increase brand awareness – (approach in Instagram, Fb, Twitter…)

6) Control your metrics (Analytics, social media data..)

Next, if you’re a medium sized company you can determine:

Which department/campaigns you’ll prioritise. Then check what’s working and not working, create your SWOT to monitor the ongoing process and measure it – there’s no point in using social media if you’re not prepared to measure it’s success – while revising it – in order to update or build that into a new plan.

Customer mapping and/or buying funnel:

Whatever services/products you are providing, you’ll have to offer a great value.

This can be something that is relevant to them, solve a problem or educate them. You’ll have to really engage with your customers, ask them what they think about your brand by sending quick surveys, so you can learn and improve from it.

What role can your business offer/play in short to medium term? List and share it.

The answer lays within your goals, e.g: improve customer service satisfaction; offer new web self-service, etc. You’ll have to constantly follow and adapt to new trends, keep measuring and align it with your business goals as you go along..

As promised, here are some hot stats for you to validate how powerful social media networks are.

A recent study from Hootsuite tells us that people are spending more time on Instagram and buy more things after reading reviews on these social networking sites.

When promoting your brand make sure you are crystal clear about what you are saying, sharing etc. [check your social media campaign topics]

Do not or ever mislead the prospecting customer

Do not promote like this pub owner did (on Pinterest) – I was searching for Thai food restaurants and this come up.

They advertise ” The Fox Inn #tangley #andover #hampshire amazing #thai #food #pub. … Explore Thai Restaurant, Andover Hampshire and more” See it here:

What do you see in the picture below?

I know, the heading shows city and place selling Thai food, right, and when you click the link – you get a nice looking empty pub with tables and chairs!

Humm.

What is he/she advertising for? Is this a show-room? Or a normall pub? We don’t know..

I am afraid I can’t say its Thai. I can’t see a menu with Thai specials in it. And as far as I am concerned, the image is selling everything but pub food.

They have not, it is not planned, from content to images, therefore misleading. I am guessing they’ve probably lost a few reservations, conversions and bookings on the process. I was ready to book, but I didn’t because it is not very Thai food orientated, just a empty pub show room, really.

Conclusion:

We now know that people of all ages and backgrounds are rapidly engaging through social media, this is happening far quicker than originally predicted, so if you are behaving like our example above you’re waisting money and time.

Marketing and social media managers and/or businesses owners must optimise campaign content more than ever in order to find out if it went viral and not the other way around.

As with anything in marketing, a complete understanding of your target audience, is an absolutely essential starting point.

Your social media department should function like any other key business unit, you must get your ideas into a operational strategic plan, share it with your staff, making a clear scenario for each category you want to promote; then validate phases and implement it with clear KPi’s.

Consider scheduling your weekly campaigns around relevant time zone and/or day times, hashtags and when your audience is more likely to be talking about the topic or an event. Follow these as a basic rule to make your campaign more relevant to your audience, and they will be more likely to engage with and share your content.

Remember, test it for two to three months with social media management tools, so that you get detailed analyses of your campaign (s), the impact generated through online conversation, percentage converted, online comments, reach, shares, etc. and see what’s working for you. Start all over again.

I hope this post can allay any doubts you may have about how social media can is the priority tool within any modern business to help boost its revenue. Share and leave comments.

Social media tools and more information:

Download our Free social-media-checklist-2015-16
Download & use Social Media tactical plan

Post updated 28/12/2019