How to create a small business marketing plan

We all know how important marketing is when it comes to growing your business. In order to be successful with your marketing strategy, however, you need to start with a well-thought-out and defined plan. 

This can be a challenging task if you’ve never done it before. If you’re feeling overwhelmed and not sure where to start, this article will teach you how to create a marketing plan for your small business. 

1. Set measurable goals

What are you hoping to accomplish with your marketing strategy? Do you want to raise brand awareness, acquire new customers, and/or increase your sales? By setting clear goals you can determine which tactics are going to be most effective in your business. 

To start, think about areas of your business that you would like to focus on. For example, do you want to raise brand awareness? If so, social media marketing should be your focus along with consistent content on your site. Or maybe you want to increase traffic organically. Then you will need to focus on SEO, ensuring that your site is optimized with content that targets key words. 

2. Decide what you're able to invest

You know the phrase, “You have to spend money, to make money.” That’s partially true. You shouldn’t break the bank but investing in some form of outreach is important even for small business. It’s suggested to only spend 5% of your overall revenue on marketing efforts. 

If your budget is more significant you can look into things like paid ads on social or Google. Paid ads are a great way to see immediate ROI but often they are relatively more expensive, especially because it’s best to hire someone to help you build an effective campaign. 

If your budget is lower, as most small business budgets are, think outside of the box. Here are a fee ideas:

• Optimize your site- Targeting the correct keywords ensures that Google will begin to notice your site and hopefully you’ll start ranking and gain organic traffic. This will likely require hiring a writer and/or SEO strategist, but is less costly than paid. 

• Join communities- Marketing your business is more than just traditional advertising. Get involved with sites like Heymama, Entreprensta League, Dreamers and Doer, and/or The Upside. These are all female led platforms meant to help small businesses build. 

• Use your social- Make a plan for yourself and begin posting regularly. You should be spending a percentage of each day not only posting on Instagram, Facebook, and Linkedin, but also engaging with people there. 

3. Assess the competition

Checking out what other sleep consultants are doing to market their business can be a great way to get ideas and see what is working for a business selling similar products and services. 

Take a look at other companies' websites, their social media pages and their overall content. Do they have CTA’s on their website encouraging their visitors to take some kind of action? Do they put services on sale? How often are they posting? What is their engagement like? 

Note: Pay attention to their following, you do not want to waste your time reviewing something that might not be working.  

4. Determine your unique sales proposition 

A unique sales proposition, or USP, is something about your business that makes it stand out from other sleep consulting companies. Now that you’ve checked out your competition, think about how you will differentiate yourself and your business. 

Ask yourself: 

• What do you do better than your competitors? 

• How are you better suited to help your clients? 

• What makes you stand out? 

Be sure to support your claims with evidence, and don’t be afraid to list out how many families you’ve helped. Testimonials from someone else can be a gold mine. 

5. Develop an action plan that prioritizes tasks

Marketing your business requires consistent monitoring and assessment. Having an action plan that you can revisit can be helpful to make sure you are staying on track. For every marketing tactic, be sure to include your timeline, your goal and desired result in your action plan. 

Things like Social Media and SEO will take some time to see growth, but if you are not seeing results from a paid campaign, you need to figure out why!

Marketing your business is undoubtedly worth the time and effort that it takes to put a marketing strategy together. There are different directions you can take and the first step is creating a marketing plan that can help maximize your time and efforts. 

If you are looking for additional support with your marketing strategy, we can help! Our 1:1 coaching and mentorship program guides you through the details of marketing and establishing a successful marketing plan. We get it, we’ve been there.