As the Navy likes to say, “Fail to Plan, Plan to Fail.”

Plan Your Marketing Communications

If you want to maximize the effectiveness of your marketing dollars and time, then you have to plan. Period. Maybe I’m type A and like things to be orderly — but I do not think so.

Plan the course

Without a plan, you cannot easily tell what is and what is not working. I like to think of Marketing Plans and Business Strategy Plans as a an intended course the ship needs to sail. The only way to know if we are on course or not is to refer to where we are against where we said we were going to be.

How do your customers seek and find information?

I like to take a spreadsheet and create a matrix: what information and in what channel and for whom?

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What is it that you hope to achieve in each channel and how will you know you have succeeded?

• Target number of opens or click-thrus
• Targeted leads and/or companies (number, quality, and specific names)
• Target number of quotes, orders, and sales

The matrix can be however you like to think of your “To-Do’s”. Another way to do the matrix is by calendar year.

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