Where to begin
Twitter, Facebook, website, bogs, enewsletter, media – there are so many marketing tools available that deciding where to focus your efforts can be overwhelming, which is why you need a plan.
Starting with a blank sheet, we need to get back to basics.
Write down the purpose of your organisation and your overall goal. Then, identify how your marketing activity will get you closer to your goal, for example:
Setting down your communications objectives serves as a useful reminder that can prevent you from getting distracted and losing sight of purpose.
The next stage is to identify with whom you wish to communicate. For example, do you want to attract a particular age group, target a geographical area, reach people in a certain income bracket or communicate with individuals who have a specific interest.
Having worked out your target audience, make a note of what you want to say to them – your key messages. You will likely have one overarching message that should appear in all your communication and 2-3 sub messages that are specific to individual target audiences.
By now, you will know:
Armed with this information you can draw up a plan detailing what you are going to do to deliver your message to your target audiences and when you are going to do it.
Think about how you will evaluate the activity. How will you know if your efforts were successful, what did you learn, what will you do differently and better next time?
Make sure your plan is realistic and achievable for the time you have to spare.
It is much better to communicate a little and often than in short, intense bursts.
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