How to Set Goals, Define Your Audience, and Crush Your Competition
Welcome back to our blog series – Creating Your Online Marketing Plan!
In our last post, I gave you a quick crash course in online marketing and explained why it’s vital for small online businesses. Now, it’s time to dive into the nitty-gritty of developing an effective online marketing strategy: the first 3 steps in creating your marketing plan.
If you’re feeling a bit overwhelmed by the prospect of creating a marketing plan, don’t worry – I’ve got you!
In this post, we’ll walk you through the key steps you need to take to create a solid online marketing plan that meets your business goals and reaches your target dream audience.
We will go step-by-step and each step is an important part of your overall plan so no skipping!
Also, take your time as you move through the plan, each piece matters to your overall strategy.
Step 1: Set SMART Goals
The first step in creating a marketing plan is to set goals that are specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART).
This means defining what you want you want your marketing to do for your business is clearly defined and the benchmarks are clearly set.
For example, if your goal is to increase your website traffic, a SMART goal might be: “Increase website traffic by 20% within the next six months through a combination of SEO, social media marketing, and content marketing.”
You’re saying what you want to happen, a measurable amount, a defined amount of time and specific tactics to get there.
Step 2: Define Your Target Audience
Ok, your goals are set, now it’s time to define your target dream audience.
I like to reverse engineer this a bit and start with the people you DON’T want to target. Who would you immediately exclude from your dream client list?
THEN…
- Who are the people you’re trying to reach with your marketing strategy?
- What are their needs?
- What are their desires?
- Where are their pain points? How do you fix those pain points?
- What are their interests? How do they live their daily life?
As you are thinking this through, imagine how what you do, or what you offer, would impact them in a positive way.
Visualize them implementing your product or service, who are they before you and who are they after you?
To help define your target dream audience, you can also conduct market research and create client personas. This might involve surveying your existing customers, analyzing your competitors’ customer base, or using tools like Google Analytics to track website traffic and user behavior.
Another helpful tool is simply paying attention to the conversations going on in your industry. How can you add to this conversation in a unique and specifically ‘you’ type of way? This will start to define your USP (unique selling proposition), more on this later.
Step 3: Get to Know Your Competitors
(*Does the term ‘competitive analysis’ give you the business willies? Yea, it used to freak me out too, but that’s ok, its simpler than you think)
A competitive analysis is simply a peek at some of the marketing, messaging and audience conversation of other businesses in your industry.
The purpose of this analysis is to get a better idea of your USP – unique selling proposition. Your USP is the thing that makes you stand out among your competitors, what makes your thing yours. You’ll be using your USP as part of your marketing plan so now is the time to really hone in on what that is.
A competitive analysis might involve researching your competitors’ marketing strategies, analyzing their social media presence, or reading through their online reviews and feedback.
- What are people talking about?
- What questions are being asked repeatedly?
- What are people gravitating towards and what’s turning people off?
Now, I have to say this – do not use competitive analysis to simply copy what others are doing. Use it to INFORM the way you are going to market your business. Allow yourself to be inspired by what others are doing but no stealing!
So now that you’ve set SMART goals, defined your target dream audience and conducted a competitive analysis, it’s time to put together a comprehensive marketing strategy that meets your business goals and aligns with your brand values.
But wait – before we get into that, want to hear a marketing joke?
What is a pirate’s favorite type of marketing content?
A webinarrrrr!
(Ha! Ok, you giggled a little)
In the next post, we’ll decide which marketing channel is the right fit for you and your business. Not all channels are created equal and you don’t have to be on all of them at once.
Until the next post, here are a few key takeaways to keep in mind…
- Creating a marketing plan is all about setting SMART goals, defining your target dream audience, and doing some competitive analysis.
- Conducting market research and creating audience personas can help you better understand your customers’ needs, desires, challenges and pain points.
- Conducting a competitive analysis can help you identify your unique selling proposition and differentiate your business from your competitors.
Next post coming your way soon!
