As with everything in your business, a plan is essential to ensure the effective marketing of your brand.
Trying to market your business without a schedule in place will cost you time and money in the long run. That’s why one of the initial steps we take for your business is to create your unique marketing schedule for the year, as well as allowing for any reactive marketing that will be necessary along the way. Here’s why...
“A goal without a plan is just a wish.”
Most businesses can see a pattern as to when they will get new clients, and when their sales will generate the most revenue. For example, a travel company will find they have a peak booking period in the winter, when clients are dreaming of sunnier climes; a conveyancer will often find a rise in enquiries in the new year as homeowners look for a fresh start; and wedding photographers have their main season over the warmer summer months.
This is all activity that can be planned for, that we at Cornerstone Your Business know is going to happen and can schedule your marketing for accordingly.
By putting everything into a schedule, and knowing approximately how long each process will take, your marketing will soon start reaping the rewards as your clients, and potential clients, receive your marketing material at the most timely moment to engage with you.
We also make sure every element of your marketing is scheduled, so each medium is
working together and complementing one another. This ensures you’re not bombarding existing clients or allowing prospects to forget about you. As we’ve looked at in earlier blogs, you’ll need to work your schedule around your Customer Buying Journey and Target Market to maximise its effectiveness, as well as looking at trend forecasts and known events.
A marketing schedule is essential to your business, but of particular importance if you do a lot of print marketing; as the process of discussion, content, design, proofing, printing and mailing can be a lengthy one, and you don’t want to miss a key booking period by starting it too late.
“The best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry.”
But if this year of Covid-19 restrictions and ever-changing regulations has taught us anything, it’s that some things you simply can’t plan for!
Reactive marketing is for exactly that; the things we can’t foresee, but that marketing can react to in a bid to support your business. For example, a change to the guidance for hospitality businesses due to Coronavirus, which requires an e-newsletter to their database of customers to make them aware of the 10pm closure change, or the need for pre-booking.
However, reactive marketing needn’t be just for negative things that happen to your business. A great example of this was the restaurants that turned the negative of a new
lockdown into a positive by offering takeaway, and doing a targeted Facebook ad campaign to get the word out in your locality.
Or it could be a way your business could link to a topic everyone is talking about and get in
on the hype: such as a blog on your website about how your business has pledged to reduce its impact on the environment in the wake of Sir David Attenborough’s Extinction: The Facts.
Reactive marketing is particularly well suited to social media channels and press releases, as both can be created and sent out with haste to make sure your business doesn’t miss the moment.
For the marketing activity we know is required, we will work with you to form a schedule, detailing what marketing will be put out and when. We can then also create templates for you, so that for reactive marketing you can drop in the key information and respond with haste.
In conclusion, the key to success is to have a schedule, as well as a plan for how to adapt to unknowns. To book a discovery call to see how Cornerstone Your Business’ Outsourced Marketing Manager Jessica can set your business on the path to success call: 07929 905229.