4 New Strategies For Your Marketing Plan this Year

Written By Dave Lavinsky
Arrow hitting a red target

An effective marketing plan is necessary to grow your business. Among other things, the right marketing plan details your target customers, your unique selling proposition (USP), and your pricing strategy.

And importantly, your marketing plan covers the “channels” you will use to get new customers (known as your “promotions strategy”). These channels include, among others:

  • Billboards
  • Blogs, Podcasts, etc.
  • Card Decks
  • Catalogs
  • Celebrity Endorsements
  • Classified Ads
  • Contests
  • Coupons
  • Direct Mail
  • Door Hangers
  • Email Marketing
  • Event Marketing
  • Flyers
  • Gift Certificates
  • Networking
  • Newsletters
  • Newspaper/Magazine/Journal ads
  • Online Marketing
  • Postcards
  • Press Releases/PR
  • Radio ads/TV ads/Infomercials
  • Seminars /Teleseminars / Webinars
  • Telemarketing
  • Trade Shows
  • Value-Paks
  • Voice Broadcasts
  • Word of Mouth / Viral Marketing
  • Yellow Pages

While most of these channels require advertising dollars, there are some additional strategies you can employ that are low or no cost. Four such strategies are detailed below.

1. Get To Know Your Competitors

Regardless of what you’re selling or the services you provide, you must know how your competitors are doing it. Why? Simple. Because you want to do it better-or at least not get left behind!

Visit their brick and mortar stores to see what they are doing differently this year. And/or take a real close look at their websites and blogs to see what they’re doing and the customers they’re serving.

Sneaky Tip:
When visiting a competitor’s blog, make sure to leave high-quality comments on a number of posts. By doing this, you can also mention your website directly or perhaps just indirectly through the Name and Website fields (they turn into a link when your comment is posted).

Once your comment is approved, everyone who sees your comment will be able to click on your link and visit your website.

2. Create Some YouTube Videos

I recently met with representatives from Google who presented some very interesting information to me. Including the fact that more and more consumers and businesses are relying on video in their decision-making process.

Specifically, more and more people are searching YouTube for videos when thinking about making a purchase. And they showed me specific research stating that “1 in 3 small businesses purchased a product or service as a result of watching the related video.”

Which means that you need to create videos.

Importantly, these videos can also bring you a flood of new customers.

Here’s an example. I created a video a few years ago entitled “How to Write an Executive Summary for a Business Plan.” On YouTube alone it’s now been viewed over 58,000 times.

Once again, I haven’t shared this video 58,000 times. Rather, people are finding it by searching Google, searching YouTube, social sharing, etc.

3. Use An Effective LOCAL Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Strategy

An effective search engine optimization strategy will get your website on a top position in the search results pages of all the major search engines, such as Google, Yahoo, and Bing.

While ranking at the top of the search engines on generic phrases (like “business plan”) is hard, ranking on these phrases locally is a lot easier.

Essentially, all you need to do is choose the keyword or phrase that best describes your business, add your city or area name, and use it in texts that you post on your website (e.g., Business Plan Development Chicago IL).

Your keyword or phrase should appear in the URL of your website and it has to show up in its meta description tag. For example, even though we don’t have an office in Chicago, IL, this page on the Growthink website ranks near the top of Google’s results for searches on “Business Plan Development Chicago IL”

4. Write Newsletters And Send Them To Your Contacts

Keeping in touch with your customers is critical if you want your business to blossom. Information is crucial nowadays. Therefore, make sure that you keep your customers informed with regard to your products and services.

Some businesses do it with a print newsletter, which is fine if the business you generate is worth the costs. But an email newsletter is a much less expensive and time-consuming way to start.

Invite people to subscribe by offering a small discount or freebie, if they are willing to provide their e-mail address. After that, any message you send them is free advertising!

This does not mean that you will have to send a weekly newsletter-they might not be that interested. Instead, write a newsletter with the sole purpose of informing your customers about new products you are adding to your current offer.

Make sure that you mention discounts and advantages. Send these newsletters weekly or monthly at first (but it is better to under promise and over deliver). This will show your customers that your business is serious and it will help create a long-lasting relationship with your clientele.

In conclusion, add these 4 strategies to your marketing plan, and start rapidly growing your business.

 

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