Nicole McGarrell

Now that you have reviewed your marketing plan, it’s time to start your marketing journey! However, there are a couple of steps you need to consider before jumping into implementing marketing strategies. To help you confidently visualize your marketing journey and make it as turnkey as possible, check out our four easy steps below.

 

Step 1: Market Research

First stop, information download! Market research is what you do to gather information and better understand the community you’re serving. It helps you understand how successful you have been and your community’s wants, challenges, and needs. By completing the market research stage, you can be confident your programs, products, or services will appeal to your audience. You’re also able to gather any feedback on how to improve.

Examples of different types of market research methods are:

• Interviewing the people you serve.
• Sending surveys to the audience you want to attract.
• Researching on customer satisfaction.
• Reviewing campaign results.
• Researching your competitors to see how your marketing and offerings compare.

 

Step 2: Marketing Plan

Did I do that? Yes, you did! (But unlike Steve Urkel, you didn’t do it by mistake.) You’ve successfully gathered all the research you need to create your marketing plan.

A marketing plan will outline your strategies for a specific time period, such as the upcoming year, quarter, or month. It is best to have a one-year marketing plan overview, to have a birds-eye view of the campaigns you want to do, and then get into more detail on the monthly or quarterly tasks. Marketing plans usually include:

• Your organization’s marketing goals.
• Information on your current marketing position (see our post on Marketing Plan Reviews!)
• A list of marketing strategies.
• A list of things you need to do to complete each strategy.
• A budget for each marketing strategy.
• Marketing metrics to measure your success against

 

Once you know your goals, strategies, and budget requirements, you can be ready to confidently move on to the next stage.

 

Step 3: Marketing Details & Processes

PAUSE! Before you dive into implementing your marketing plan, there’s one more step – filling in the details for execution! Knowing what’s being done, who’s doing it, and when will make sure your implementation stage goes smoothly. Look at the components of your marketing plan strategies and:

• Find the right support to accomplish each strategy.
• Identify who will work on what tasks and communicate clearly to them what they need to do.
• Estimate the time it will take to accomplish each task.
• Create checklists for each task so you can track its progress.
• Set up project management and approval processes, so the person completing tasks can communicate their progress.

 

Step 4: Marketing Implementation

“Lights. Camera. Action!” Now it’s time to bring all your marketing strategies to life. The marketing implementation stage is when you put all your plans and preparations for execution into action. During the implementation stage, make sure to:

• Check in on progress regularly so you can see that everyone is completing their tasks on time and can offer support.
• Review the results of your marketing efforts.
• Be willing to adapt and make any adjustments to your marketing strategies, with expert help from Sunny Day Marketing, when needed.
• Communicate results to your team and celebrate any wins to keep everyone motivated and excited!

 

Questions? Contact Us! 

Sunny Day Marketing is here to help you with any and all marketing questions you have. Reach out to us to chat about strategies your organization can implement, ways to improve your marketing organization, and/or processes so you can seamlessly hit your goals. 

 

Schedule your Complimentary Assessment Call today, and let us help you through your marketing journey!

We know the work you do is good for society. So, it’s important your marketing is working just as well for you.

It’s the perfect time for a mid-year marketing plan review to help refresh your organization’s plans for the rest of the year. To help you shine brighter after a mid-year evaluation, here are 3 tips for completing an eye-opening marketing plan review. 

 

Why You Need a Mid-Year Marketing Plan Review

 

First off, why do you need a mid-year review? As you know the world is constantly changing. So, your social impact organization has to be able to adapt to these changes. By having a mid-year marketing plan review, you can make the necessary updates to refresh your efforts for the second half of the year. It allows you to:

• Review marketing results and make adjustments.
• See what you have accomplished. 
• See what you haven’t accomplished. 
• Review what’s working and what isn’t working. 

 

3 Tips for A Successful Mid-Year Review

 

Grab your favorite drink and get comfortable as you get ready to tackle your mid-year marketing plan review. With these three foundational tips, you are sure to succeed!

 

1. Revisit Your Organization and Marketing Goals

 

Your marketing plan is often mapped to your organizational goals. By reviewing your organizational goals, you can see how it impacts your marketing plan. So what questions do you ask yourself during this review? Here are a few to get you started:

• Are there any changes affecting your organization that mean you need to tweak or create new organizational goals?
• Are there any new key audiences you want to connect with or serve?
• Do you need to remove any marketing goals that are no longer relevant?
• Are there any new marketing goals you need to create?

 

2. Learn More From Your Analytics

 

Analytics is the information you gather from the marketing activities you carried out. Did you have goals to reach a certain number of followers on social media? How many visitors did you have to your website this year? It is important to compare your actual results vs. your intended results. 

 

Take some time to review this information so you can:

• Understand what marketing strategies worked or did not work.
• Decide what marketing activities to continue for the second half of the year.
• Decide if there are marketing activities you need to focus on to reach results you may have missed.

 

3. Look Closer At Your Top Audiences

Since who you serve guides the content you produce, it’s important to make sure your understanding of your audience is still accurate. Here are some quick questions to ask yourself:

• Has anything impacted your audience lately?
• Are they facing different challenges you can provide a solution to?
• Is there anything new your audience may be looking forward to?

 

Next, review the content you have produced for your audience, whether it’s on your website, at events, or on social media. For example,

• Are there particular types of posts your audience loves and interacts with the most? Let’s plan to create more of these!
• Do you have a subgroup of your audience you haven’t been creating content for? Plan to send them some more love!

 

Let Us Help You 

Remember, you don’t have to do this review on your own! Sunny Day Marketing is here to help. We can consult on strategies for your organization to implement in the second half of the year. We can also help improve your marketing organization and processes  so you can hit your intended goals in the most seamless manner. 

 

Schedule your Complimentary Assessment Call today, and let’s refresh for the rest of the year!