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August 9, 2021

5 Benefits of Having a Marketing Plan

Are you considering writing a marketing plan for your business? Maybe you’re wondering what is in a marketing plan or why they are even beneficial? Why are marketing plans needed for business? 

We hear this a lot. As a digital marketing agency, we have firsthand experience with how effective marketing plans can be for any size business. If you have a business, you need a marketing plan! 

On the other hand, it’s possible to have an ineffective marketing plan that does not help your business the way you thought it would. If you need some extra help with your marketing plan or maybe it needs to be revised, try out our Marketing Plan Mini-Course! It will help you understand what needs to be in your plan and possibly what needs to be taken out. 

If you still aren’t convinced that a marketing plan will help your business, let’s chat about the five benefits we have experienced with our own marketing plans, as well as plans that we have created for our clients.  

  1. Gives Understanding to Who You Are

Businesses are an extension of people. People need to figure out who they are throughout their lives. The same is true for businesses. We need to give a clear understanding of who that business is and where they are going. Which digital platforms will be used, what tone of voice will be perceived, what kind of pictures will be posted, which words are not permitted in all of it’s marketing? 

If the business doesn’t determine who it is, the audience will decide for them. Setting the standard takes time, but it’s worth it! 

  1. Helps You Understand Your Competitors

Studying your competitors sounds a little counterintuitive, but it’s actually exactly what you should be doing. You want to see what they are doing or not doing. What about their website and marketing do you like or dislike? Why? 

Looking over at your competitors is also expected, they know you’ll look at them! Figure out what makes you different. Why would someone buy from you and not them? If you can’t figure that out, maybe study them a little bit more and figure out what their weaknesses are. 

Sooner or later you’ll figure out where you shine and where they don’t. This doesn’t mean you’ll call them out on social media or to your customers (that’s a big NO!). 

All this does is help you understand your own brand a little better while situating yourself apart from your competition. Understanding your competitors’ gaps in their marketing is vital to the success of your marketing. 

  1. Identifies Your Audience and Ideal Customers

When you sit down to form your marketing plan, one of the most important parts is identifying who your audience is. Who buys your product or service? Once you have narrowed down three different categories of people who are a part of your audience, you’ll then take a deep dive into the characteristics of those individual people and get very specific. 

Narrowing down who you are speaking directly to gives the audience a clear directive as to who you want your customers to be and deters the people you don’t want! You want the right people reading your content and engaging with you, not the ones who won’t end up being your customers!

When the right people feel spoken to, that’s when they will start to trust your brand. 

  1. Sets a Clear Plan of Action

Without a plan, we typically only react to what is happening instead of completing intentional actions. 

When it comes to your marketing, you need to be intentional and know exactly what you and our team are going to do. If there is no plan, there is no plan to succeed. 

As our good friend, Benjamin Franklin, liked to say, “If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.”

And we agree with him! If you have felt like you’ve been spinning your wheels, doing all-the-things in the marketing world--it might be time to sit down and form a plan. 

A marketing plan is just like a guidebook, if there is ever a question about something related to your brand’s marketing, you simply refer back to the plan and find the answer. 

  1. Identify and assess metrics that are used to measure your marketing efforts

This one is always interesting to look at because we take a deep dive into our client’s current marketing efforts and evaluate how they are performing. Particularly when looking at SEO performance, we will list out how our clients are currently ranking on SEO or how their site is performing. This then allows us to create a plan of action that will explain how we plan to improve that performance or maintain it. 

We also take a look at social media analytics which tells us if the current social media strategy has been effective or not. This gives us an insightful overview of what needs to be done or changed in order to increase exposure of branding. 

By including this in the marketing plan, it gives a point of reference you can look back on when reevaluating your marketing plan in the future and will give you the opportunity to compare your growth in certain areas. 

Conclusion

Marketing plans have so many benefits, but these five are definitely among the most beneficial! We hope you’ve made the decision to create a marketing plan for your business, or maybe revamp the one you already have. 

Good things take time and creating a thorough and effective plan will indeed take some time. If you think you need some extra guidance on what exactly to put in your marketing plan, how to organize it, and helpful tips--the Marketing Plan Mini-Course is something you’ll definitely want to take a look at. Plus--get this--it’s completely free! 

So, get after it. We’re excited for you.

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