Mark AdamsCreating a killer marketing plan doesn’t have to cost a lot of money. All that is required is your time, effort and creativity. These ideas will get you started.
Why break the bank for your marketing needs when you can brainstorm your way to a killer marketing plan? The best marketing ideas are simple and inexpensive, but they don’t come out of the blue. They require an out-of-the-box, innovative thought process. Always remember that building your brand is a perpetual process, so get into the right mindset from day one.
What’s Wrong With Traditional Marketing Plans?
Traditional marketing plans no longer work as a whole. The advertising industry is a cutthroat one driven by competitive incentives. Marketing plans are especially the victim of this phenomenon.
Today’s marketing plans, no matter how great, do not satisfy or satisfy all stakeholders. In the end, everyone loses. If your company cannot make sales because your marketing is not effective, then shame on you. Don’t be ashamed; don’t be apologetic. Be proactive in the pursuit of one big goal: money.
Plan the marketing of your company by consumer needs. No longer should your marketing plans be about short-term crisis management.
What to Do Instead?
Stop seeing your marketing as a cost centre. Instead, view it as an investment in your future — an extension of your product. Of course, you do not do this in a haphazard fashion or even a half-hearted way. Far from it: You have to base your marketing ideas on an ongoing, long-term plan. This means that you have to truly understand your target demographic and what it will take to capture their attention.
This requires quite a bit of market research. Once you have your data, you can begin the process of formulating a marketing plan. The decision process and timelines in your marketing plan are as important to the actual implementation of that plan as are the actual marketing tactics.
Focus on Building the Big Picture
It is exceptionally important that you focus on the big picture. Once you have the big picture, you can develop short-term and mid-term goals embedded within the plan. Your initial focus should be on making the consumer experience stand out. This requires you to understand the differences between the different middlemen in your value chain. The objectives you set must be measurable.
It might take a little while to get used to this new concept of marketing, but you will soon begin to see the results from this change of thought process. Your marketing plans will run smoothly.
A Killer Marketing Plan for All Startup Companies
Quit thinking of marketing as an expense. Think of it as an investment in a brand that your company will always have.
Are you a startup company? Then you should get your hands on a marketing toolkit. This kit includes actionable ideas that you can use to capture market share. However, this does not mean that you should pick every item in this kit at random. The marketing kit says what it means — pink and blue pens indicated the two most effective marketing tactics. However, you must get the silver and gold pens out of the box at some point and commit them to memory. The more you practice, the better you will be at using these tools.
This is where word-of-mouth marketing plays a huge role. If customers talk about your company, its products and services, they might expand your customer base. Don’t expect your business to grow overnight. Instead, you should begin by creating an awesome customer experience.
Let’s look at each of the five “tools” in the marketing toolkit in greater detail:
Pitch your product to influencers (e.g., journalists, publishers, bloggers).
This is probably the most important component of your marketing to do. No matter how cheap you think you can make your product, you cannot compete with the price offered by the competition if you do not tell your story. Using word-of-mouth marketing, let the influencers know about you.
You cannot afford to cut this step out. The last thing you want is to kill these people’s buzz. These people are your customers’ makeup and style artists and your customers’ best friends. Both apply to potential customers in the real world.
Use video.
The real world is all about visuals. There is simply no way around it. In fact, you can can use videos to get your message across much more efficiently than using any other medium of marketing.
Launch a successful crowdfunding campaign.
Kickstarter’s “The Form” has changed the crowdfunding industry forever. Your goal should be to try to get 5% of the entire market share of people who love your product. If VCs won’t fund you, you can always try to raise funds from the crowdfunding community.
Additionally, there are other ways how to start a crowdfunding website. Depending on the complexity of the needs, building a crowdfunding platform from scratch, according to Sloboda Studio, can cost around $80,350.
License the rights and sell the product with amazing packaging.
Some products are not meant to be sold right away. They are meant to be sold on prime time television or to high rollers. They eventually need an agent.
For these products, make sure that they are crafted well, then break them out into a showroom that is miles ahead of your competitors’.
Focus on the experience.
If your customers don’t talk about your products, your products are not good. And if they are not good enough, they will disappear.
Think Big
If you have a big, ambitious vision of establishing your brand globally, then you should consider building a central design studio or marketing office. These are places that you can think of as a movie studio, where you can spend time creating the world-class experience you want your brand to have. It’s not a bad idea to charge rent to use the space on a weekly basis. This is how you can implement your big ideas.
The time has come for you to implement these steps. Once you get your hands on a marketing toolkit, go at it with a little gusto.
Think small today. Fixed-rate loans may not seem like a great idea today. However, you can build next-generation value-added business products on them. The more you develop these products, the more you stand to benefit.
What is the saying? He who hesitates is lost. You can be lost the first time, but not forever. Keep your eyes on the prize.
The Best Marketing Ideas Formula
A little bit of knowledge concerning the best marketing ideas formula can help turn your business into a success.
The Best Marketing Ideas Formula
Step One: Determine Your Channels for Information
The most effective way to do this is by using a content management system. For any type of business, you need a content management system. Social networks are extremely effective.
Content marketing is a big part of the best marketing ideas formula. Content marketing is a powerful way to get more leads for your business.
Step Two: Take Advantage of Social Media
Social media is consistently one of the most effective tools for increasing your business.
It is extremely important to improve your promotional materials or marketing materials on social media. This is an opportunity for you to focus on all aspects of your business. In order to do this, you need a social media management tool.
Step Three: Boost Your Web Presence
Your website is a critical tool for maintaining your brand. Good content is very important.
As a website, you can measure your site traffic. Your website traffic can be measured simply by using an analytics tool. You can use this to track your leads that you are generating. You then can analyze the information to increase your sales and sales figures.
Step Four: Create a Newsletter Program
This is a logical way for you to increase your website traffic by sending your e-newsletter to your potential customers and subscribers.
How much do these send? It’s something that you can calculate from the information that you get from the analytics tool.
Free Marketing Ideas
One of the ways to increase your business is to create a free marketing ideas. Keep in mind, though, that free tools have limitations. You need to identify the limitations of the tool.
For example, a free blogging or opinion generating tool often has limitations on the number of posts or comments that you can put on the blog. This limitation can actually be helpful, however. It will help you to make a business decision.
If you are doing something free, you have to be really careful about the limitations. It can be a tool that will help you to reach your goals, or it can be a tool that will doom you.
Step Five: Develop a Marketing Strategy
To do this, it’s crucial that you understand your customer base. How can you imagine a successful business without knowing who is going to be your customer?
You can only use this knowledge to create a successful marketing strategy.
Step Six: Ask Your Customers
Your customers, especially social media customers, can be a great source for you to research. You can ask your subscribers, customers, and social media audience for feedback.
You can ask them where you can improve, what you can do to attract new customers, and what you can do to improve your images. By asking your customers, you can provide everything you need to know to create a successful marketing strategy.
Step Seven: Utilize Your Competitors
If you want to stay on top and stay competitive, you can reuse your competitors’ marketing ideas. You can take the best ideas from your competitors and put them to use on your business.
This is a great way to find out how you can target your audience, what your competitors are selling, what customers should buy, and how to create marketing support.
Step Eight: Utilize Existing Products
If you see that your competitors are successful by using an existing product, then you can try to take advantage of this at your business.
You can sell something similar using your own products in a different way. You might have to change the existing product a little. By doing it, you have then taken advantage of your competitor’s product.
