When you are writing out your business plan, many say that the biggest area they struggle in is the marketing plan. Where do you start and how can business owners use a marketing plan for their advantage? ⁠In our most recent YouTube video, we go over the top 5 tips of an effective marketing strategy for small business owners and entrepreneurs.[embed]https://youtu.be/BmFrV6rqv9g[/embed]

Tip 1: Organize your ideas with a Sticky Note brain dump

A sticky note brain dump allows you to collect your thoughts and group them based on a similar subject, category, and topic. First, think about what your brand means to you and write down a single word that describes your brand on a new sticky note. What you will notice is that the words will have similar meanings to describe your brand. From here, you can really identify your brand descriptive words and describe why these words resonated with your business.

Tip 2: Create 3 Client Avatars

Aside from demographics of age, gender and education level, client avatars dig deep into the psychographics of your ideal client. This can include things like where they shop, where they like to go to the gym, what extracurricular activities they are involved in, and sometimes, even what their favorite colour would be. When thinking about your client avatars, think about their behaviors rather than who they are specifically. Do they like to shop online, or do they like to confirm things on the phone? Knowing how they interact and how they communicate will allow yourself to understand how you should market towards your ideal client in an authentic and sustainable way.

Tip 3: Create 3 Marketing Goals

While there are sales goals and revenue goals for a business, a lack of marketing goals can limit the success in the long run. For the year, pick three main marketing goals and identify the metrics you will use to identify your Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s). That way, when it comes to the execution of your marketing you know exactly how you will measure success and ensure you are moving forward in your marketing efforts.

Tip 4: Apply the 5 Question Rule

The top 2 questions business owners should be asking when it comes to their marketing strategy is “Why” and “How”. Asking “why” 5 times will allow you to understand the true why of the reason you are doing a specific marketing tactic. This way, you can identify which actions are worth your time and effort, and which actions are not. Asking “how” 5 times will create a tangible strategy that you can stick too, avoiding any hiccups down the road with the strategy.

Tip 5: Establish dates to revisit your marketing strategy

Re-visiting your strategy on a monthly and quarterly basis will make sure you are reviewing your analytics and seeing if your marketing efforts are moving you forward in your business objectives. It is important to remember that marketing is heavily based on market research, so reviewing your analytics frequently will help you make smart decisions based on insights.If these tips resonated with you, definitely reach out, we would love to hear your thoughts. As always, feel free to reach out to if you have any additional questions!