Introduction:

You can find a simple and effective marketing plan template tailored for beginners to kickstart your marketing efforts.

How Do You Write a Simple Marketing Plan?

There are three main things you need to create a Successful Marketing plan. I call it the three tenants of Marketing

1. Audience: Who is your ideal customer

2. Voice: How do you speak to your ideal audience

3. Plan: What channels, goals, and KPI's are needed to be seen by your ideal customer

If you’re new to marketing a small business and feeling overwhelmed, don’t worry! Crafting a simple marketing plan for a small business as a beginner doesn’t have to be daunting. With these steps in mind, you’ll be well on your way to developing a solid marketing plan that sets you up for success.

Understanding Your Target Audience

Understanding your target market is one of the most critical pieces of any marketing plan. Without it, you will be wasting time and money—period. I'm sorry. I wish I could tell you differently, but that would not be in your best interest.

Congratulations if you have researched properly and found your ideal target market! You are ahead of many other businesses. If you have not, then it’s not too late. Let’s make it your top priority. 

First, you must do market research. If you are a B2B (business-to-business) company, I always suggest starting by asking yourself what industry or industries currently buy from you. Then, ask yourself what title the person who places the order has. These questions will spark a string of other questions as you dive deeper into research. If you are a B2C (business-to-consumer) company, I always start by asking what age and gender my current clients are. 

Regardless of whether you are a B2B or B2C, you will also want to ask yourself, what customers do I wish I had? You can start going down this path to find any new customers you can target. 

 Doing this will help you tailor your marketing messages to resonate with your target audience.

Find the Voice of Your Company

Knowing who you are talking to is one thing, but what do you say? Do you know the hardest question to answer in business? It's "What does your company do?" Yep. We all get hung up on this. It takes time to answer this in the most clear way with the least number of words possible.

To answer that question, you must complete the exercise to understand how your features and benefits solve the problems of your ideal clients and address their buying decisions.

Ask yourself:

1. What drives your ideal customer to seek out a product or service like yours?

2. What causes your ideal customer to choose one product over another?

3. What does your product or service do?

4. Why do these features matter?

5. How do your features and benefits make your ideal customer feel?

Once you answer these questions, you can then see how many of your features and benefits solve your ideal customer's problem.

Hint: The features and benefits that solve multiple problems are usually your differentiators.

Whew! That was fun! But now let's put it in a sentence that you can say over and over each time someone asks you, "What does your business do?"

Let's fill in the blanks.

___Ideal Customer____'s struggle with/to ______Top 1-3 problems________. I (or my company) provides/offers ___the features and benefits that solve the problems in the last sentence_______ helping ____Ideal Customer___ to _____top value you provide______.

Then, put it in your own words so it is easy to remember.

For example:

Small business owners struggle to keep up with the ever-changing marketing landscape and understand where to market their businesses. I provide a step-by-step framework that shows them who to talk to, what to say, and how to get in front of them.

Choosing the Right Marketing Channels

Data-driven marketing decisions are essential to ensure you show up where your target audience hangs out. In your research, you should have uncovered where your target audience hangs out for fun and business. These include the social media sites they frequent, their search for products and solutions, associations and publications they lean on for information, and much more. 

When choosing your marketing channels, prioritize quality over quantity. Instead of spreading yourself too thin across multiple channels, focus on a few that align with your target audience and goals. This will allow you to allocate your resources effectively and maximize your reach.

Setting Clear Goals and Objectives

Before diving into your marketing activities, setting clear goals and objectives is important. These goals will guide your marketing efforts and help you measure your success. Start by defining what you want to achieve through your marketing plan. It could be increasing brand awareness, generating leads, driving website traffic, or boosting sales.

Now, take it a step further and define a specific goal for each marketing channel you will be using. For instance, some social media will be at the very top of the funnel, with the goal of brand awareness, whereas a blog might have a goal of driving them to a sales page.

Be sure to make your goals specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART). This will make tracking your progress easier and determine if your marketing strategies are working effectively. Remember to break down your goals into smaller, actionable, easily measured, and monitored objectives.

Measuring and Analyzing Results

Finally, you will need to measure and analyze the results of your marketing efforts to determine their effectiveness and make data-driven decisions. Each channel goal will need key performance indicators (KPIs), such as increasing website traffic by 10%, increasing add-to-cart conversion rates by 3%, gaining 1000 social media followers, or increasing customer referrals by 20%.