Author: Bonnie Harris

10 Dec

Posted at 08:46h in IMC, Integrated Marketing by
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By now you should have a pretty good idea of the profile of your best customer, and your desired best customer.  If you're following along with this crash course you probably aren't the type of person who has a lot of time for market research or the budget to create a complex digital or traditional ad strategy. Don't worry.  There are only two things you need to know to create the strategies and tactics for your 2015 Marketing Plan (we start those next week, so relax). 1. Where do your customers get their information? 2. What kind of messages do they respond to? #2 is something that is an ongoing task for you and you'll be working on that throughout the year. Therefore, the last tidbit we need to gather is #1. All I want you to do right now is consider your 1) best and 2) desired best customer. If you can, try to numerically prioritize their information sources (in other words, do they use Facebook, Twitter, do they like to read print papers, etc.). If not, just put an X next to the three you think are their PRIMARY sources of information. To get a better handle on this, start with yourself and narrow it down to your top three. Then think of those two sets of customers (or one if you're already happy with your customer base) and do the same. 

05 Dec

Posted at 09:00h in IMC by
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For today, I'm giving you an easy task. How will you measure your progress? Looking back at Day 4, measuring Example A might be a monthly sales review. For Example B, perhaps you will review the number of new clients (or maybe even proposals you've generated?). Example C is even easier - just download your Google Analytics reports. Here are a couple good axioms for measurement:
  • If your transaction volume is low, measure things (like proposals) once a month or so that lead to sales.
  • If your transaction volume is high, you may need to measure weekly, or even daily.
Easy peasy! Stop saying this is too simple. When it's done well, marketing is simple, but effective. Guess what? You're one week closer to your 2015 marketing plan! Here's a roundup of what we covered in steps 1-5.

03 Dec

Posted at 09:57h in IMC, Integrated Marketing by
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stonehenge-509914_1280Now that you know your end goal for 2015 you need to quantify it. This means coming up with a goal number for your 2015 marketing plan. This might be hard for some people so here's a woo woo way to make it easier. (Stop wrinkling your nose and read on my friends. I led a team that built a $25 million dollar business in five years. You can't do that without a bit of woo woo. By the way, to all my former employees at Shamrock for whom this was probably an incredibly painful experience but you stuck with me, thanks and I'm sorry.) Back to our regularly scheduled programming. I want to remind you that setting goals is part of the personal philosophy by which you run your business. Some people may have had a hard year in 2014 and want to sandbag it for 2015. This is okay! Maybe you've had some setbacks and just staying even would be fantastic. Maybe you've redirected your brand or company and you know you'll sell less in 2015. This is okay too. On the flip side, if you're an aggressive personality, you might always choose stretch goals. Or perhaps you're a strong believer  that "thought transcends matter" and you think whatever you set out there you'll manifest. Now, if you've chosen a goal that contributes to your end goal, you'd better know what percentage turns into actual sales. If you don't know this, you might not want to use that goal as a contributing factor, as you don't know enough about it. Think on that. If you do know, then just do the math to quantify your goal. Once you understand how YOU PERSONALLY set goals, it's easy to come up with a number.