For the last few months I’ve been writing in these blogs about the best marketing tools you can use for your business. I’ve covered a range of different marketing activities that work really well for us here at Appletree and that work for our clients too. However, there is one thing that you still need, no matter which marketing tools you use. Without it, much of the marketing you do won’t actually work.

What is this missing element? Whatever marketing you do for your business – whether that’s networking, social media or, public speaking – nothing will work properly for you, unless you have a plan. Too many people launch into doing all sorts of marketing, because they think (or hope) that it might work. But they don’t stop to think first about what they want to achieve, who their ideal clients are or what sort of marketing might work best to attract those ideal clients. Let me explain with a story.

How does Planning work for our clients?

I wrote in another blog about how I offered some free marketing support to the Oxfordshire Animal Sanctuary. You can read the background story here. One of the challenges faced by the marketing team at the Sanctuary was coming up with ways to keep their supporters interested. Between us we worked out 12 monthly campaigns for the whole of 2016 – something their marketing could focus on each month. We started by looking at some of the key events that they hold during the year – a fundraising dinner in the spring, an open day in the summer, the Oxford half marathon in October and Christmas shopping in December. Then we filled in the gaps, to make sure we had something to work on for every other month. Next, we worked back from each key event, to plan the marketing that was needed, to make sure that each event or campaign got the right coverage.

For example, the January campaign is called Muddy Mutts, where people are being encouraged to send in photos of their muddy dogs – something very common at that time of year! Anyone can take part via Twitter and the Facebook page. A prize will be given to the muddiest mutt and the whole campaign will be used to encourage people to think about giving a dog from the Sanctuary a home. Since the competition starts in January, we wrote about it in the December newsletter. A new webpage was created in November, to which the newsletter could link. A whole range of social media updates were also prepared and photos of muddy mutts were collected, to get the campaign going. It’s not just a case of starting a campaign on 1 January and hoping that it works; it’s about planning ahead.

Look at your diary for 2016 and start making some plans for what you want to achieve throughout the year. Then start filling in the gaps, to make sure you give yourself plenty of time to get the best results from your marketing.

Planning in Practice

The 3^rd edition of my first book, Magnetic Marketing, is now available! It’s been updated and added to and will teach you the nine stage Marketing Planning process that I’ve used successfully with hundreds of small business. Order your copy here.

If you’d rather work through a Marketing Planning process with a group of other people, I’m running workshop where we’ll be doing that, on 22 January 2016. This 90 minute workshop is being run by the Swindon CIPD group (Chartered Institute of Personnel & Development.) If you’d like to attend, get in touch and I’ll send you the booking details.