1000s of businesses such as yours have discovered how to stop guessing when it comes to marketing online by getting SME.Consulting’s custom 90-day online marketing plan HERE.  If you’re still evaluating your options though, this guide outlines essential elements that should be included in an effective online marketing plan.

First thing’s first.  Regardless of how it is structured, the plan should be straightforward and easy to understand!  It should provide a clear overall direction for all your online marketing efforts.

Preparing to Write

If you have made your mind up to create your plan yourself instead of hiring someone to, then before you begin, at the very least, you will need to pull together the following information:

• Your existing client demographic (estimated demand, purchase motivation etc.)
• Your market size, target markets and your market penetration to date.
• Your marketing objectives (reasons for creating a plan – increase brand awareness, sales etc.)
• Your latest financial reports.
• A list of your local and global competitors and a list of distribution channels.

Market Situation

To begin, create a Market situation section, which should contain thorough research and an analysis of your competitors, target market and your business challenges.  Make sure to provide a clear description of the state of the marketplace.  This can be done through primary research by analyzing or surveying your existing clients or through secondary research by gathering exhaustive statistics and information, publicly available, about your market.  *We know, these tasks can be daunting, that’s why we make it easier for you*.

Below is an example of what an introduction to your marketing situation section can read as:

Vekin and Associates is an accounting firm founded in 1991. We provide reliable tax services to individuals, startup businesses and existing businesses with under $500,000 in annual sales.  We also provide bookkeeping and payroll support services via our online platform (website).  Our market area is Miami, New York and Colorado. For startup businesses, our clients range between $75,000 and $200,000.  We get most of our orders from restaurants, stores, gas stations and courier services.  Our competition is a group of 8 firms.  Based on online exposure and estimated market penetration, we believe we rank third in the group of our competitors.  We have our strongest position in the restaurant sector.

Writing the marketing situation section will help you pull all relevant information about your business and market together and can help justify your current approach, the need for a new marketing strategy or the need to rebrand or diversify.

Threats and Opportunities

The Threats and opportunities section is an extension of the market situation and focuses on the implications of the market.

• What online marketing trends, tools and platforms favor your business and which ones are against your business?
• Is there any competitive trend that works to the benefit of your business?
• Is the demographic of your existing clients in favor or against?
• What online activities have yielded results in the last 90 days?

There are many places you can go to get information on the trends of your market.  For instance, you can talk to business reporters or professional associations that you belong to.  The following is an example of how the mix of online and offline threats and opportunities of Vekin and Associates firm can look like.

Threats

The firm faces various identifiable threats in the upcoming year such as:

1. Our website UI (front and back end interface ‘user experience’) needs to be upgraded. Since the cost to upgrade is very high, we will need to work with the existing version for a period of 9 months although the experience will be a disadvantage to some of our clients.
2. Two of our clients are facing difficult prospects. We will need to replace this business this year.
3. Our major competitor has capitalized on a new lucrative online marketing platform.
   Opportunities
4. Changes in the tax and advertising laws have made it easier to promote our brand on a much larger scale in our geographic target market.
5. We have been requested to participate in various educational venues in the upcoming year. This will provide our business with great exposure as well present online video marketing opportunities through recording or live streaming.
6. The economy continues to be stronger and we believe that our clients will continue to flourish in the growth cycle.

Marketing objectives

In the marketing objectives section, you are challenged to draw a clear picture of the future of your business. What are the specific marketing objectives you want to achieve? Your marketing objectives should be based on a narrative description of what you are planning to accomplish backed by numbers that will provide you with a concrete guidance. For instance, you can say that you want to increase growth by 5% in 90 days solely from implementing specific new online marketing techniques on a set budget, which is easy to understand and verifiable.

Goal For It

How do you go about setting a quantifiable goal?  Well, the best starting point is a review of your past sales, your business growth and the size (worth) of the typical customer that came exclusively through online marketing.   You then compare that to the level of your current ONLINE marketing efforts.  Did you attempt exhaustive strategies and throw enough resources to get those clients?  If you didn’t try as much as you now know you could have but you got even a handful of clients through online marketing, then you should be excited of what can come!

• SME.Consulting, through our 90-Day Online Marketing Plan and Content Mapping, can take what you have done successfully so far and show you how to amplify it to the next level! *

Always make a reasonable projection of what you will be able to accomplish towards your new marketing objectives by considering everything we mentioned above.

Marketing Strategies

The fourth section of your online marketing plan should dive right into the strategies.  We will let you get creative in figuring out which methods will be effective for your specific brand and product.  We will however, tell you that it it’s important to implement new online marketing strategies by treating them as a piece of ‘software’ and then letting them go on auto-pilot while you monitor the results.  Obviously, you would still need to manually continue executing them but, with an effective system in place, results will start to become predictable and repeatable.  The strategies that provide the highest ROI are the ones that you should scale and invest more into.

Have a fresh focus of getting one new online marketing strategy or growth hack off the ground every few weeks.  That’s why a 90-day online marketing plan is the best type of plan to create.   It is filled up with many ‘growth hacking’ strategies that can be implemented in timed, bite-sized chunks that your whole team can easily follow.  Long term online marketing goals are harder to achieve and can bring confusion and stress among staff members.

Budget and Control

Whether done right or poorly, online marketing activities always cost money or time and sometimes both.  There are great tools for automating some online marketing processes (think Google Ads/SEO and a Squeeze Page).

Tracking Effectiveness

Besides the ‘vanity’ metrics that you will monitor such as “likes” and “followers’, some of the more significant indicators of success are increases in:

• Overall site traffic in unique visitors
• Number of traffic sources
• Mobile traffic
• Click Through Rate (CTR)
• Conversion Rate
• Cost Per Lead
• Bounce Rate
• Average Page Views
• Average Time on pages
• Rate of Return Visitors

and ultimately,

• Cost to Acquire a Customer (marketing and advertising costs divided by new paying customers)

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Read the next article in SME.Consulting’s small business education series:

The Hard Truth for Businesses without a Digital Marketing Strategy by Chrispen Pasipanodya –https://sme.consulting/blog/the-hard-truth-for-businesses-without-a-digital-marketing-strategy/

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Written by Chrispen Pasipanodya

Senior Consultant at SME.Consulting

The post An Anatomy of a Successful Online Marketing Plan [Detailed Read] appeared first on SME.Consulting.

Even on a tight budget, you should still hire a professional digital marketing firm to – AT THE VERY LEAST – create a short-term (preferably, 90 day) custom online marketing plan for you.

The following are proven steps to take, leading up to hiring a proven expert, such as SME.Consulting, to develop an effective online marketing strategy on a tight budget. 

If you do not manage your press releases properly, it is unlikely that they will ever reach your target audience, which is a waste of a golden opportunity to expand your reach. Not to mention, a big waste of money. Below, we will discuss when you should write a press release, how to best leverage it, and give general tips on best practices.

Before you contact a marketing firm, please ensure to:

• Clearly define your target market – Regardless of what you’re selling, it’s important to clearly define your target personas and customer segments.  Who will buy your products?  What are their age groups?  Why should they buy the products?  What will they gain?
• Understand what problems you can solve – To clearly define your target market, you will need to understand the specific problems that your business can effectively solve.
• Think intimately about your target market – Nowadays different customer types can access nearly anything at their convenience.  The web has proven to be unique and fantastic at delivering services and products that cut out challenges that existed in acquiring them before.  That is why you should consider segmenting your target market based on how they consume your product.  E.g., women, men, age group and specific geographical locations.
• Set goals – What do you want to gain from executing a strategy?  Do you want to increase revenue or brand awareness?  Maybe you have multiple goals.  You should keep track of what your goals are so that you will be able to measure your success.  After reaching your initial goals, you should set new goals (scale) and your business will continue to improve.  
• Set a budget – Now that you have set S.M.A.R.T goals and you have clearly defined your target market, you should plan your marketing budget accordingly.  One of the best things with online marketing is the fact that you can succeed even when you are on a tight budget.  The KEY is to have a plan that is written with cost-effective, customized short-term strategies that can be measured and scaled.  SME.Consulting’s 90-day plans are great value for the small investment required.  With that said, sticking with free, generic strategies is not the best online marketing strategy for your business.  Professionally written custom plans will get you the best results.
• Brand your business – Set your business apart from the competition.  Thousands of companies are already likely selling variations of your products and services on the web.  In this case, you should try to make your brand unforgettable.  If there are related companies with a similar name to yours, it’s best to consider changing your business name to avoid confusion.  There must be a look to tie your company and marketing materials together.  This may include in your color schemes, images, illustrations, infographics and other materials that reflect the personality.

With the above considered, you will be ready to contact a digital marketing firm, such as SME.Consulting.  Be prepared with as much info on your business as possible.  You will likely have to answer as many of the following questions as possible to determine how they will customize your plan:

1. What general online marketing have you been doing and which areas, if any, have yielded some success?
2. What online marketing tools, software or platforms, if any, do you currently utilize?
3. Do you have a blog, write content consistently and share it throughout social networks? *Provide Social Network urls*
4. Do you have a sales team and what is their best lead source/focus area?
5. What do you think your competitive advantage/USP is?
6. What percentage of your current leads do you generate online?
7. Have you defined your target market or persona types in terms of their geography, demography & psychograhy?
8. How would you define your actual existing customers?
9. Do you do any SEO?
10. Do you publish a newsletter, have an email chain, do any e-mail Marketing or any sort of drip marketing?
11. Do you currently have any standalone landing pages or sales funnels for your service, that you direct traffic to?
12. What is your primary product/service of focus?

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Read the next article in SME.Consulting’s small business education series:

The Hard Truth for Businesses without a Digital Marketing Strategy by Chrispen Pasipanodya –https://sme.consulting/the-hard-truth-for-businesses-without-a-digital-marketing-strategy/

Get a leap over the competition with an affordable, winning digital marketing plan that leads to more customers and increased revenue.   Speak with a Marketing Specialist.  Get in touch with SME.Consulting’s marketing team via phone, email or our contact form.

Written by Chrispen Pasipanodya

Senior Consultant at SME.Consulting

The post [Declassified] Successful Online Marketing on a TIGHT budget appeared first on SME.Consulting.

Think you have nothing to lose if you’re not executing a digital marketing strategy for your business? You’re wrong!

Let’s see.  Different digital platforms, where your potential clients are abundantly found, are expanding like never before!   Shouldn’t you take advantage and become prominent on those platforms?

 71% of small businesses do not have a digital marketing strategy but 80% of customers begin their research online (profoundry.co survey 2015).  Would you agree that there is an enormous opportunity there?   Your business’s majority target audience is almost certainly online.  Shouldn’t you tap into this consumer base?  The answer to these questions for any business looking to grow its bottom line, should be a resounding ‘yes!’.  What that means is that most companies must understand that having an online presence, besides just having a product page, is now a prerequisite.

A company trying to fill this gap between consumers and companies that are exposing themselves to them is Toronto, Canada-based SME.Consulting.  SME.Consulting has developed one of the most popular customized online marketing plans with strategies created to boost small and medium-size businesses online.  SME.Consulting’s 90-Day Online Marketing Strategy and Content Mapping Plan is a client-preferred plan designed to keep your business effective on all digital platforms.  The operative word being, ‘effective’. 

SME.Consulting focuses exclusively on creating (and executing) digital marketing strategies in 90-day blocks which can be executed in bite-sized chunks and have the advantage of allowing clear, attainable goals that everyone in your company can aim for or track.   This personalized approach will allow your brand to become effectively positioned on all the digital platforms that your target audience is found.

Comprehensive plans, such as SME.Consulting’s, can lead to higher revenues for your business by creating strategies that;

1. directly capture the most QUALIFIED leads among your online audience.
2. indirectly by increasing your general brand visibility and positive brand awareness.

Testimonials and reviews by SME.Consulting’s clients show that most of them consider the plan a cost-effective opportunity that allowed them to maximize their online potential!

How SME.Consulting CREATES your custom 90-Day Online Marketing Strategy and Content Mapping Plan

Creating the 90-Day Online Marketing Strategy and Content Mapping Plan will be based on:

1. A thorough analysis of your company profile, operational efficiency, marketing channels, industry and your current positioning.
2. Compiling your customer profile; Demographics / Psychographics and a Competitor Analysis.
3. A detailed Map linking your Key Offerings, Online Priorities, Business Objectives and your Customer’s Goals.
4. Detailed high ROI Campaign Blocks to run for the 90 days.
5. A step-by-step guide on how to create your Social Media and Content Calendar weekly using suggested content and the Campaign Blocks from point 4.

And more.

In over 20 pages of invaluable insights SME.Consulting will provide you with research results, key findings and recommended strategies that will provide the highest ROI for your specific situation.  Having your custom plan is critical in highlighting the value you provide at the highest level to your target audience online.  What the plan will highlight are your:

1. Operational efficiency
2. What sets your company apart
3. Pricing Strategy
4. Product leadership
5. Customer intimacy
6. Your market’s ‘life cycle stage’ and how it affects your marketing
7. Your market’s typical buying process
8. The challenges your market faces
9. Common problems your market is looking to solve and how you can take advantage
10. How and where your market prefers to purchase
11. Main known channels of marketing your industry

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Read the next article in SME.Consulting’s small business education series:

An Anatomy of a Successful Online Marketing Plan [Detailed Read] by Chrispen Pasipanodya – https://sme.consulting/anatomy-of-successful-online-marketing-plans/

Different digital platforms are expanding like never before and we encourage you to take advantage of them immediately.  SME.Consulting’s 90-Day Online Marketing Strategy and Content Mapping Plan is designed to keep your business effective on all the digital platforms thus allowing you to tap into your consumer base. We will help you to maximize your online potential! Contact us today and tell us about your business.  We would love to bring our tried-and-trusted service to your marketing world!

The post The Hard Truth For Businesses Without A Digital Marketing Strategy appeared first on SME.Consulting.

Achieving that authentic personal touch should include the following considerations:

A good effective marketing plan focuses on the best available direct and indirect opportunities to increase sales and rise above the competition.  

A good marketing plan is created around the following key elements:

Well defined targets

Who are you trying to reach?  Identification of your potential clients is a key element in any marketing plan.  Identifying your potential clients’ needs through market reports and market research and finally addressing their needs more successfully compared to your competitors should be a key element in your marketing plan.

Realistic goals

Setting realistic goals for your business is a key element of effective online marketing strategy.  You can easily set realistic goals by stating what you need to accomplish.  The main goal of developing an online marketing plan is to increase profits and gain clients.  Another goal in your marketing plan should be the ability to provide consistent and quality service and differentiation.

Honest Analysis

A solid marketing plan should include a solid analysis (company snapshot) which is simply a breakdown of the weaknesses, strengths, threats and opportunities of your current market positioning.  If your business is already recognized within a specific market’s online crowd, that’s a strength.  Lack of business recognition, as measured by online exposure, is a weakness.

Consistent marketing message

Throughout the digital marketing plan, the aim of the individual strategies should be to promote your intended image and should be clear and inviting.  It should place you in a position to stand apart from your competitors by communicating a specific consistent marketing message.  Each and every marketing message should be about the specific benefits that your business products or services will offer.

Performing various activities

After creating a sound marketing plan, you should determine the specific marketing activities that will ensure that your potential clients will know about the products and services that you are offering. You can achieve this through various ways such as online advertising and point of sale strategy.

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Different digital platforms are expanding like never before and we encourage you to take advantage of them immediately.  SME.Consulting’s 90-Day Online Marketing Strategy and Content Mapping Plan is designed to keep your business effective on all the digital platforms thus allowing you to tap into your consumer base. We will help you to maximize your online potential!

The post Quick Read: What to Look For In An Effective Marketing Plan appeared first on SME.Consulting.

Not many have succeeded because the trends keep changing – ALL the time! So, unless you have the budget and manpower to chase every shiny nugget, it may be more productive to keep your digital marketing strategy consistent for a set short period of time. Don’t waste time draining resources and following every un-tried-and-untrusted trend that pops up daily.

If you want consumers to clearly understand your message, trust you and choose you over your competitors, you must give them time to know you through consistent delivery of the message. We all know how difficult it is to stick to a long term marketing strategy in today’s business environment. That is the reason why we created our trademark 90-Day Online Marketing Strategy and Content Mapping Plan.

Although we agree that companies must have long term online goals, we also strongly believe that the strategies to meet those goals must be deployed in bite-sized chunks instead of attempting longer-term strategies.

It is well-documented that longer term strategies can easily be rendered useless or obsolete by internet trends and fads.

Consumers’ online behavior has greatly changed with web 2.0. What that means for small and medium-sized businesses is that having an online presence of more than just a product page, is a prerequisite. Similarly maintaining a good reputation online, although an ongoing challenge, is a necessity. Having a global business was a tough ask a decade or two back, but now, anyone can have a business that does transactions globally. That means the customer segments are wider and without an effect digital plan, it would be impossible to fully expose the business to them. To achieve this level of exposure takes consistent and constant efforts through an effective online strategy like our 90-Day Online Marketing Strategy and Content Mapping Plan.

Consumer access on digital platforms is expanding like never before and we encourage you to take advantage of them immediately. Our 90-Day Online Marketing Strategy and Content Mapping Plan is designed to keep your business effective on all the digital platforms that your demographic consumes through, thus allowing you to tap into your consumer base. Do yourself a favour and consider a shorter-term strategy to maximize your online potential!

The post Why Short-Term Growth Hacks Make Effective Online Marketing Strategies appeared first on SME.Consulting.