April, 2023

A solid part of the foundation for building success is planning. Without a concrete plan, any business essentially roams aimlessly. Needless to say that every company needs a business plan, as well as a grounded sales plan for it to operate adequately. We already discussed the importance of having a sales plan in another article. One more important plan to add to those two is the marketing plan. It’s a strategic document that outlines an organization’s marketing strategy. In today’s article, we’re going to talk about what a marketing plan is, why it’s so important to businesses, and how you can create yours by following five somewhat simple steps. As always, fetch your favorite drink, and let’s move forward.

What is a marketing plan?

In summary, a marketing plan is a comprehensive document that outlines an organization’s marketing objectives, tactics, budget, timeline, and measurement framework over a given period of time. The plan provides a clear roadmap for achieving business goals and helps ensure that the organization has the resources necessary to execute its marketing strategy effectively. The plan typically includes a review of the organization’s current marketing situation, market research, target audience identification, competitive analysis, and SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats) analysis. The plan also outlines the specific marketing strategies that will be used to achieve the desired objectives, such as advertising, content marketing, social media marketing, email marketing, events, etc.

Although sounding similar marketing plans and marketing strategies are two different things. Marketing plans can include various marketing strategies depending on the nature of the objective and the desired end results. For example, a company’s newly designed marketing plan created for launching a new product in its portfolio aims to introduce it to its existing customers and push it to new markets. Based on the marketing plan and additional research, the company’s marketing team decides to implement several marketing strategies: to utilize the existing newsletter and introduce the new products to existing customers; to contact influencers who will promote the product to their fanbase and further increase awareness to both old and potentially new customers; to use a door-to-door method, to present their product to new potential customers.

What are the benefits of having a marketing plan?

There are many benefits to having a marketing plan, including:

1. Clarity and focus: A marketing plan provides a clear and focused direction for your marketing efforts. It helps you identify your target audience, your unique selling proposition, and your marketing objectives. With a plan in place, you can prioritize your activities, avoid distractions, and stay on track.

2. Consistency: A marketing plan helps ensure that your messaging and branding are consistent across all channels and touchpoints. It ensures that you are communicating a clear and cohesive message to your target audience, which can help build trust and credibility.

3. Efficiency: A marketing plan helps you allocate your resources effectively. By prioritizing your activities and budget, you can ensure that you are focusing on the most impactful tactics and channels. This can help you get more done with less and improve your ROI.

4. Measurement: A marketing plan includes a measurement framework that allows you to track your progress and measure the success of your marketing efforts. By analyzing your results, you can identify what’s working and what’s not and make adjustments as needed.

5. Collaboration: A marketing plan can be a useful tool for collaborating with other teams and stakeholders within your organization. It can help ensure that everyone is aligned on your marketing objectives, messaging, and tactics, and can improve communication and collaboration.

How to create a marketing plan?

When broken down into steps any process turns from a frightening beast into a fluffy rabbit. This of course applies to creating a fully detailed marketing plan. Here are eight steps to help you write down an outstanding marketing plan:

1. Define your goals: The first step in creating any plan is to define specific goals. Examples of marketing goals might include increasing brand awareness, generating leads, increasing sales, or improving customer retention.

2. Identify your target audience: Who are you trying to reach with your marketing efforts? Define your target audience based on demographics, psychographics, and behavior. This will help you properly tailor your messaging and tactics.

3. Conduct a SWOT analysis: Analyze your organization’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. This will help you identify areas where you can leverage your strengths and opportunities, and address your weaknesses and threats.

4. Develop your marketing strategy: Based on your goals, target audience, and SWOT analysis, develop a marketing strategy that outlines how you will reach your objectives. Your strategy should include the channels, tactics, and messaging you will use to achieve your marketing goals.

5. Create a budget: Determine how much you are willing to spend on your marketing efforts. Distribute your budget based on the channels and tactics that will have the most impact on your target audience.

6. Develop a timeline: Create a timeline that outlines when each marketing activity will take place. This will help you stay organized and ensure that you are executing your marketing plan effectively.

7. Measure your results: Develop a measurement framework that outlines how you will measure the success of your marketing efforts. This might include various metrics like website traffic, social media engagement, lead generation, or sales.

8. Review and adjust: Review your marketing plan regularly to ensure that it is achieving your goals. Adjust it as needed based on your results and changes in your business or industry.

Closing lines

The marketing plan is an essential part of any business’s weaponry. It frames specific marketing goals which an organization wants to achieve, and depicts in detail how it will go about them. Measuring success is an important feature of a marketing plan. It helps businesses manage their efforts properly and adjust them if necessary, which increases overall efficiency and has a positive effect on ROI and drive business growth. There are multiple online templates that can help you to start working on your marketing plan and provide you with a solid starting point.

Most things need maintenance to thrive: a car, a marriage, and a company website. We can’t give an opinion on the first two because of legal reasons but we definitely can form a discussion around the latter. Depending on the product and industry, companies might have to do it more often or more seldom. However, a full website redesign should be approached with care because it is a complex process and can easily turn from a dream project into a horror scene, written by Stephen King. In today’s article, we’ll talk about the importance of a website redesign, how one is typically conducted, and the benefits it holds. As usual, go and grab that favorite drink of yours and let’s dive in.

Is redesigning your website a good idea?

Gone are the days when a business card solely represented your company. Although it’s nice from time to time to give/receive a beautifully crafted business card, print has almost become obsolete in today’s digital era. Today, a company’s website more or less acts as a “business card”. It’s the first thing potential clients or partners interact with and making a flying first impression is crucial. A positive interaction might lead to a new client and a successful sale whereas a negative one will definitely decimate the chances of the latter happening.

It’s safe to say that each one of us has had a terrifying encounter with a poorly designed website, and we can all agree that it’s not fun. A whopping 88% of online customers are less likely to jump back to a website, which gave them a bad experience. Also, 38% of users will likely close the tab if the design of the website is lackluster.

Freshening up your website is most certainly a good idea. The question of the matter is how can you tell if it’s time to redesign yours? A rule of thumb is to spruce things up every 2-3 years just because 3 digital years equate to an average human lifespan. However, answering a couple of questions can also give you a decent idea if a redesign is due:

1. Outdated design: To quote the late and great Mac Miller “It ain’t 2009 no more”. If you haven’t done any changes since then, maybe it’s time you do. Apart from being visually unappealing, a visually outdated website can also lead to decreased engagement and conversions.
2. Poor User Experience: We’ll talk more in-depth about this later. For now, we’ll just point out that If users are struggling to navigate the website or finding it difficult to access the information they need, it may be time for a redesign.
3. Not Mobile-Friendly: Even if we hate to admit it, we all are extremely dependent on our personal mobile devices. If a website is not optimized for mobile devices, it can negatively impact the user experience and search engine rankings. If yours isn’t – check the front door, a redesign is knocking.
4. Low Conversion Rates: If a website is not converting visitors into customers, a redesign might be a good idea. It can help to improve the user experience, address issues that may be hindering conversions, and ultimately lead to higher conversion rates.
5. Slow Load Times: If a website takes too long to load, it can lead to frustration and cause users to abandon the site, which is exactly the opposite result a business would want. A redesign can help with that and can have a positive impact on the user experience and search engine rankings

The typical steps involved in a website redesign.

As we mentioned earlier, a redesign aims to enhance a website’s usability, aesthetics, and overall performance. It’s a comprehensive process that involves a team of professionals working together to create an improved and effective website that aligns with the company’s goals and objectives. However, it can typically be broken down into several steps, which can significantly simplify it:

1. Assessment and planning: This involves an evaluation of the existing website’s strengths and weaknesses, a review of user feedback, and an analysis of user behavior metrics. Based on this, the website redesign team will plan the redesign, taking into account the site’s goals, target audience, and industry trends.
2. Define requirements and objectives: This stage involves outlining the goals, objectives, and requirements of the redesign project. This includes creating a detailed list of desired features, functionality, and design elements.
3. Content audit and strategy: The content audit and strategy phase involves analyzing the existing content, identifying what needs to be updated, added, or removed, and defining a content strategy that aligns with the site’s goals and objectives.
4. Information architecture and wireframing: In this phase, the redesign team creates a site map, defines the site’s structure and hierarchy, and develops wireframes or low-fidelity prototypes to visualize the new layout and functionality.
5. Visual design and branding: This step involves creating a visual design that aligns with the brand’s identity and conveys the intended message. The redesign team will develop a style guide, including typography, color palettes, and imagery to ensure a consistent look and feel across the site.
6. Development and testing: This phase involves building the website using the chosen content management system (CMS), programming languages, and other tools. Testing is performed to ensure that the site functions correctly.
7. Launch and post-launch support: Once the site is built and tested, it is launched. The redesign team will continue to monitor the site’s performance, make necessary updates, and provide ongoing maintenance and support.

How does a website redesign affect user experience (UX)?

From attracting and retaining visitors to driving conversions, and achieving its marketing and business objectives a freshly designed website comes with numerous benefits. We’ll solely focus on user experience, for its enormous driving force behind successful customer interactions. А website redesign can help to create a more user-friendly site, leading to better engagement, longer site visits, and increased conversions. By addressing common pain points and improving the overall experience, a website redesign can help businesses achieve their goals and improve their online presence. Here are some ways a website redesign can affect UX:

1. Improved Navigation: A website redesign can improve the site’s navigation, making it easier for users to find what they are looking for. This can include simplifying the menu structure, adding clear call-to-action buttons, and making it easier to search for content.
2. Enhanced Visual Design: A redesign can refresh the site’s visual design, making it more appealing and engaging for users. This can include improving the site’s layout, using more visual elements like images and videos, updating the color scheme, and adding various interactions.
3. Increased Responsiveness: A website redesign can improve the site’s responsiveness across different devices, such as smartphones, tablets, and desktops. This can ensure that users have a consistent and optimized experience, regardless of the device they are using.
4. Faster Load Times: A redesign can improve the site’s load times, which is critical for user experience. Slow load times often lead them to abandon the site. A redesign can address issues like large file sizes, unoptimized images, and bloated code to improve load times.
5. Streamlined Checkout Process: For e-commerce sites, a redesign can improve the checkout process, making it more streamlined and efficient. This can include simplifying the checkout form, adding multiple payment options, and providing clear information on shipping and returns.

Closing lines

A website redesign is the process of improving or revamping a website’s design and functionality to enhance its usability, aesthetics, and overall performance. It can be critical to a company’s online success and is something that businesses should consider investing in. A full redesign takes a lot of resources but sometimes small tweaks and nudges can also do the trick. Before committing to a redesign, make sure carefully evaluated the current website’s status and adjust it according to the new demands. 

How a company views itself and how its viewed by its customers often are two very different things. Most businesses are certain that the interaction between them and their customers is immaculate but if they conduct a quick and simple survey it might turn out that there are some problematic areas that customers aren’t very fond of. A better and more detailed approach to observe how a customer interacts with a business is to create a customer journey map. In today’s article, we’ll find out what exactly a customer journey map is, why businesses should care about it, and how an organization can create one. As per usual, prepare and pick up your preferred drink of choice, and let’s plow ahead, shall we?

What is a customer journey map?

A customer journey map is a visual representation of how customers experience a specific product or service, from initial awareness to post-purchase follow-up. It serves as a great tool to better understand a customer’s journey, identify pain points where the customer experience is lacking and find ways how to alleviate them.

Gaining insights into how customers interact with a brand is a powerful way to increase customer satisfaction and increase customer retention. Minimizing bad customer experiences directly correlates with brand loyalty. 33% of customers will consider switching brands after just one poor experience, however increasing customer retention rates by just 5% can increase profits by 25%-95%. If you want to learn more about why customer retention is so important, you can check out our article.

The customer journey map typically includes various touchpoints or interactions the customer has with the product or service, such as visiting the website, talking to customer support, or receiving marketing emails. It can also include emotional or psychological aspects of the customer’s experience, such as their expectations, feelings, and attitudes at each stage of the journey.

Why are customer journey maps important?

We already mentioned a few benefits of creating and analyzing customer journey maps. If you still aren’t convinced of the potential journey maps bring to the table, here are a few more:

Putting yourself in their shoes: By carefully mapping out each touchpoint of the customer journey, companies can become more aware of how customers interact with their product or service. This can help identify areas where the customer may be experiencing friction or frustration, allowing businesses to make improvements that lead to a better overall experience.

A North star: Customer journey maps can also serve as an internal compass for teams that are directly responsible for the performance and quality of the product or service. By having an accurate representation of how people actually interact with the brand, employees can align better and be more productive and efficient.

When in doubt, innovate: When done right, journey maps can also act as a mirror in a way. If businesses take a closer look they can immediately see the problematic areas and have no choice but to address them. Sometimes the existing product or service just doesn’t cut it and the only way out is to innovate — add new features, create new channels for your customers to interact with your business, invest in new technological solutions, etc.

Measuring success: Customer journey maps can be used as a tool to measure the success of customer experience initiatives over time. By tracking changes in the customer journey, businesses can assess the impact of their efforts.

How to create a customer journey map

It’s worth mentioning that there is no “correct” way to create a customer journey map, and the process may vary depending on your location, business, industry, and customer base. However, the above steps provide a general framework that can be customized to meet more specific needs. Here are seven general steps to create a customer journey map:

1. Define your customer personas: Identify the different types of customers your business has, their needs, preferences, and behaviors.
2. Map out the stages of the customer journey: This usually includes Awareness, Consideration, Purchase, and Post-Purchase stages. Depending on your business, there may be additional stages, such as Loyalty or Advocacy.
3. List the touchpoints: Identify all the touchpoints or interactions customers have with your business throughout each stage of the customer journey. This can include things like visiting the website, reading reviews, talking to customer support, receiving emails or ads, and more.
4. Gather data: Collect data and feedback from customers, employees, and stakeholders to understand the customer experience at each touchpoint.
5. Plot the customer journey: Create a visual representation of the customer journey that shows the touchpoints, emotions, and pain points at each stage.
6. Analyze and optimize: Review the customer journey map to identify areas where the customer experience can be improved. Prioritize the most critical touchpoints and pain points, and develop a plan to optimize them.
7. Share and iterate: Share the customer journey map with relevant stakeholders and continuously iterate based on new data and feedback.

Closing lines

Although creating customer journey maps may seem complicated at first, they’re actually quite simple once you break the process down into manageable steps. They can vary widely, but all maps share common steps. They are a useful tool for businesses to better understand the customer experience, identify pain points, and make enhancements to better meet customer needs and expectations. The better a company’s ability to automate the processes of tracking and analyzing customer behavior, the more efficient and effective its customer journey mapping process will be.

Planning is important in every aspect of life but it’s essential when it comes to business matters. A solid business plan can determine how successful a business venture is, however a solid sales plan can secure the necessary income for a company to maintain its operations and to possibly expand them in the future. In today’s article, we’re going to leave the complexities and intricacies of a business plan and we’ll expand on the latter. As always, fetch your preferred refreshment of choice, and let’s plow ahead, shall we?

What is a sales plan?

In the intro, we also briefly mentioned business plans. To clear any possible misunderstandings we want to set a clear dividing line between a business plan and a sales plan. A business plan is a more comprehensive document that includes the overall strategy of how a business operates, the company’s mission and vision, market analysis, product or service offerings, marketing, and sales strategies, financial projections, and management structure.

A sales plan on the other hand focuses specifically on sales-related goals and strategies of a business. It is an accurate strategic outline of a sales objective and generally includes details about target customers, sales channels, sales activities, and sales metrics.

The main purpose of a sales plan is to help an organization or a single individual to achieve their sales goals in the most efficient and effective way possible, by providing a clear framework for all sales activities. Sales plans also assist with:

• Precisely distributing resources
• Setting clear goals and expectations for team members
• Sales forecasting
• A better understanding of risks and opportunities
• Measure your sales team’s progress

Why are sales plans important?

A solid sales plan can help an organization deal with unexpected events and acts as a benchmark for where your company is and where you want it to go. Overall, it is a powerful tool for any business or individual looking to achieve specific sales goals. It helps to define a clear roadmap, align sales efforts with business goals and provide a means of tracking progress.

Here are several reasons why sales plans are important:

1. Increase efficiency: By having a step-by-step guide on how to achieve certain sales goals a business ensures that the process of achieving them will be less chaotic.
2. Improve communication: When a team has specific roles assigned and is given a certain goal to aim for in a defined period of time they are likely to be more aligned and effective in communication.
3. Foresee obstacles: When laying out a sales plan businesses can better identify challenges and potential obstacles which can arise later in the executing phase, and prepare properly.
4. Set up for improvement: Having predefined goals helps with measuring performance. Sales plans provide a means of measuring progress and businesses can make adjustments when moving toward sales targets to ensure success.
5. Aligns sales efforts: By outlining specific sales goals a sales plan ensures that everyone on the sales team shares a common objective and is focused on achieving it.

How to create a sales plan

There isn’t a one-size-fits-all template for creating a sales plan. Every business is more or less unique and has to answer to different demands. There are numerous templates floating around the internet, most of them free, which can make the process of creating a sales plan a bit less daunting. When it comes to creating the plan, there aren’t specific rules which companies or individuals must follow. However, there are several steps that can act as guidelines in order to make it easier. Remember that a sales plan is a living document, so it’s important to review and update it regularly to reflect changes in the market, competition, or your business.

1. Set clear sales goals: The first and probably most important step. These goals should be specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART). For example, the company has to increase sales by 5% in the next three months.
2. Identify the target market: Pinpoint the needs and pains of the business’s ideal customer and use him as a reference.
3. Analyze the competition: Conduct thorough research on competitors and make sure that the product/service discerns enough from them so that it can become more enticing.
4. Define a unique sales proposition (USP): This is what basically sets apart the business’s product/service and should come naturally after analyzing the competition. The USP is generally exploited in order to further distinguish a business from its competitors and to increase sales.
5. Develop a sales strategy: This step describes in detail the tactics and specific ways with which the business will achieve its sales goals.
6. Create an action plan: The action plan should outline the specific steps the business will take to implement its sales strategy. It can include creating a sales pipeline, setting sales targets for your team, creating a sales forecast, etc.
7. Allocate resources: Determine the resources you will need to implement your sales plan, including personnel, technology, and marketing materials. Consider your budget and how much you can afford to spend.
8. Set metrics and track progress: Last but not least, set metrics to measure the progress towards your sales goals and track it regularly. This will allow you to adjust your strategy as needed and ensure you are on track.

Final remarks

Planning is vital for any business, especially when dealing with sales targets. While any business can set bold sales goals, creating a sales plan outlines how your team will achieve them. It will help establish baselines for accountability and identify optimal strategies, tactics, and the tools needed to make your team as efficient as possible. When there is a clear plan of action, a business can know how to proceed in order to obtain its goals.