Identifying The Pain & Laying The Foundation

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How-to Write a Strategic Marketing Plan that Yields ROI • Part 2 of 9

Pain provides context

What do you want out of the plan?  Often when people begin looking into writing a marketing plan, it’s either because they’re starting something new or have an existing brand that isn’t performing as well as they would like.  The following are some common pains we’ve encountered.

Common Pains

  • Not getting enough clients or leads
  • Starting in a new place and need to gain exposure again but don’t know how
  • Want the public to stop viewing them negatively
  • Want public awareness around their cause
  • Your organization has hit a plateau and needs to improve marketing
  • Don’t have any marketing strategies, mostly doing what others are doing
  • Competitors have updated marketing materials (website, social, etc) that makes yours look outdated and irrelevant
  • Need to break into new market segments

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Macro Environmental Analysis

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How-to Write a Strategic Marketing Plan that Yields ROI • Part 4 of 9

The bigger macro trends that impact your company on a grander scale

A lot of the analysis spends time looking inwards at your company – instead of the bigger macro trends that impact your company on a grander scale. Macro trends have the ability to take down even the largest multi-billion organizations including McDonalds, Blockbuster Video and national newspaper chains. Each of these organizations reacted as the trend was well underway, instead of planning ahead. Attempts to adjust with the times were done too late. And worst of all, these organizations may have been able to prevent the huge losses they incurred.

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Competitor Analysis & Value Proposition

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How-to Write a Strategic Marketing Plan that Yields ROI • Part 5 of 9

This part of the marketing plan is focused on gathering information. There is no such thing as too much information since it’s hard to tell what will reveal your key message or value proposition.

In this chapter, we’ll explore two sections: Competitor Analysis and Value Proposition.

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Key Message

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How-to Write a Strategic Marketing Plan that Yields ROI • Part 6 of 9

Before you begin to develop your key message, make sure you’ve finished your Situational Analysis. You should have chosen the target that you’ll be focusing on and have a clear understanding of what value prop you’ll be going with. Visit customer analysis and competitor analysis chapters for more information

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Annual Goals

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How-to Write a Strategic Marketing Plan that Yields ROI • Part 7 of 9

Annual goals are often confused with concepting. Annual goals are the goals, objectives and deliverables for the year – they shape the backbone of a great concept. This is when all the analysis you’ve done will help you to make educated decisions on where your marketing efforts should be focused in the next year. Keep the macro analysis in mind, it will show lessons learned and key things to avoid or trend s you can leverage.

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Concepting & Choosing Tactics

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How-to Write a Strategic Marketing Plan that Yields ROI • Part 8 of 9

What is concepting?

Concepting is what everyone likes to do – coming up with the ideas to promote your organization. You’ll find everyone and their dog has ideas. However, what differentiates a good idea and a bad one is when an idea is backed up by strategy, purpose and supported with focused execution. This is why it’s important to do the concepting after all the research is done, followed by ensuring your concept fulfills all the goals you’ve laid out.

Approach to Concepting

A lot of the time, people jump into creating a concept way too early in the process. So, it’s important to evaluate the needs based on your annual goals (see previous blog).  If you’ve decided you need a concept or campaign to help achieve your goals, this is the part of the process where you’ll establish it.

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Measuring & Tracking Success

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How-to Write a Strategic Marketing Plan that Yields ROI • Part 9 of 9

Accountability

Measurements are one of the key pillars of a good marketing plan. It removes personal biases and provides a very clear indication of whether or not you’re succeeding. Measurements are the most unbiased, tangible way to ensure that you’re aligned with your goals. This holds the marketing team accountable so that they’re not caught up in vanity metrics.

Vanity Metrics

Vanity metrics are metrics that sound great but don’t contribute to achieving your end goal. Individuals with vested interest in the campaign get easily caught up in vanity metrics. That is why it’s important to indicate the key goals before diving into the campaign. Goals for this campaign may be a vanity metric in another campaign, it depends on the annual goals.

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57 Handy Stats for Non-Profit Marketers for 2016

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I’ve thrown together 57 handy stats for non-profit marketers to provide some fresh insight into donations, charitable giving, fundraising and non-profit marketing strategies for 2016! Take a gander, enjoy!

These stats will cover:

  1. The major  trends in donations, charitable giving and fundraising (See stats 1 – 8)
  2. A good day and time to promote your donations, charitable giving and fundraising (See stats 9 – 13)
  3. Payment method usage  (See stats 14 – 21)
  4. Donations, charitable giving and fundraising broken down by generations, such as, Baby Boomers and Gen Xers (See stats 22 – 35)
  5. Promotional strategies for non-profit marketing (See stats 36 – 57)

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40 Amazing Higher ED Marketing Stats for 2016

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I’ve put together 40 amazing Higher Education Marketing stats from 2014 and 2015 since it’s so hard to find these stats online. I hope this helps you out, higher education marketers, enjoy!

These stats cover:

  1. How Students Choose a University or College
  2. Higher Education Marketing Strategies Being Used Today
  3. Web-Site Content
  4. Mobile Device Usage
  5. Social Media Device Usage

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