Carefully structured marketing can ensure appropriate budget allocation.
In business, a great product or service is nothing if the right customers do not know about it. With marketing communication, your company can raise awareness and build a brand identity that is designed to position your product in the market. As you develop a plan to promote your business, use a structure that will endure over time, ensuring thoroughness and forward thinking.
Marketing Plan
At the top level of an effective marketing communication program is a marketing plan. A marketing plan outlines your business goals and lays out the ways marketing can support the goals. The plan contains the results of your market research and audience analysis and acts as a guiding document for both short- and long-term activities. For the most streamlined plan, it is important to review and edit on a regular basis in reaction to market shifts and consumer needs.
Overall Strategies
The overall strategies in a marketing plan are designed to support your company's strategic goals. If you want to expand your business, for example, one strategy might be to build awareness in new audience sectors. Other common marketing strategies are introducing customers to new features, building the strength of your brand or increasing name recognition among a certain audience group. Any given strategic objective might have one or more strategies under it, depending on the time line and scope.
Campaigns and Individual Actions
Campaigns and individual actions support each of your marketing strategies. Some strategies might have multiple campaigns attached to them over a set period of time; others will have only one. If your business has defined a strategy to let existing customers know about a new product offering, you might use in-store advertising, an email campaign and a brochure mailer. By using a marketing plan, you can organize the size of each effort and campaign based on the availability of funds, staff workload and client work flow.
Calls to Action
At the end of the marketing communication process are the calls to action, which give the customer directions and opportunities to engage with your company. A powerful call to action can be the difference between a great campaign and a failure; it must be convincing, easy to follow and put the cap on your marketing message. Calls to action include adding an email link for more information and statements in marketing copy that encourage customers to contact you to take advantage of a promotion or value proposition.
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