Now that you’ve solicited ideas from your co-workers and you’ve evaluated your 2009 marketing efforts,
it’s time to roll this data into a Web marketing plan for 2010. Follow
this basic plan for setting up a credible plan before moving into the
new year.
Establish Objectives
To be effective, your Web marketing plan should tie into measurable,
realistic and time-based business objectives. For instance, let’s say
you want to increase the number of readers to your blog because you’ve
noticed that once people find your blog, they stick around and perform
other actions on your website.Instead of using the vague phrase “Increase number of visitors to
the blog,†state your objective this way: “Increase the number of
visitors to the blog who download our e-book by 10% for Q1.†You can
then base your marketing tactics on this objective. These tactics could
include:
• Posting comments on other blogs (to drive traffic to your blog)
• Developing a PPC campaign to promote your e-book
• Posting links to your blog posts on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn
• Publicizing your blog posts in your e-newsletter
Develop a Web Marketing Plan Format
You can format your Web marketing plan in whichever way
makes most sense to you and your team. At a minimum, fire up Excel or a
spreadsheet in Google Docs and start by listing your objectives,
tactics, and timelines, and any associated costs for each tactic. You
can use a table format with columns for:(a) objectives
(b) tactics
(c) budgeted costs
(d) actual costs
(e) results, and
(f) status.
Or, you can list each month in a linear format and then bullet your
marketing tactics as a list of “to-dos†for each month. If you’re
using Google Docs, make sure each stakeholder has been invited to the
spreadsheet so it becomes a living, accessible roadmap — and
transparent accountability measure — for how it is you and your team
achieve stated objectives throughout 2010.Divide Web marketing tactics or “to-dos†into categories like:
• Social Media (including Twitter campaigns, and video or podcast publishing)
• Website (including your blog and landing pages)
• Search Marketing (including SEO, local search initiatives and PPC campaigns)
• Display Advertising (for Web publications, ad networks, social networks, and the like)
• Email Marketing (including your newsletter and promotional emails)
Set Up Accountability Measures
Whether you’re accountable to no one, a single boss or a
whole team, it’s critical you set up regular mechanisms for evaluating
your progress against stated goals throughout the year. I also advise
that you include deadlines for all of your marketing initiatives – big
and small. As we all know, marketing projects tend to get shifted to
the back burner due to the every day challenges of running a growing
business. The biggest issue for all those running Web marketing
campaigns, however, is the tendency to “set it and forget itâ€. The Web
is a constantly shifting, ever-changing beast, and marketing on the Web
requires your regular attention.
For instance, if you want to revamp your PPC campaign,
set a deadline for that. If you want your PPC campaign to deliver
increases in traffic, traffic quality or conversions, set your goals
and the dates by which you’d like to see incremental progress toward
those goals. (Be sure to use the tools available to you in the Yield
Web Marketing Suite if this happens to be one of your objectives.)
Depending on the types and number of goals you set for yourself or
team, you may want to check in daily, or weekly, or monthly, or
quarterly. In no case, however, should you put off evaluating your
progress any longer than quarterly; it’s hard to remain accountable for
an objective when you check in on your status once or twice a year!
Plan for Big Events
If you’re developing a new product or service, you’ll
want to incorporate deadlines for developing the corresponding
marketing collateral, PR, advertising, tradeshow materials, and online
content for blogs, landing pages, website pages (which will help with
SEO), and PPC campaigns. If you participate in events like tradeshows,
make sure those are called out in your plan so you have all the
elements in place to take full advantage of your participation.
Set your deadline for tradeshows or when you anticipate
the new product or service being available, then work backward. If your
event or product is set to go on July 1, you really need to begin
developing the marketing and PR materials around it in January. (Trust
me: too many companies make the mistake of thinking about marketing an
event or product until the last minute – when it’s often too late.)
Make sure you have some goals associated with an event or the launch of
a new product or service. Are there product brand awareness
objectives? Or lead generation goals? How about sales objectives?
Set reasonable, achievable, but nevertheless “stretch†objectives for
your events andnew initiative and then regularly measure your progress
against those objectives.
In Summary
Develop a plan for making gains in 2010.
Remember: don’t file your plan away and forget about it. Be invested in it.
Once you have your written plan in place, refer to it
often to ensure you’re on track. It also helps to meet with your team
shortly after each quarter ends to see where you stand with projects;
if objectives are being met; and, any challenges you’re facing. You can
then make course corrections and/or revise deadlines — but only after
you understand why such corrections are necessary.
Keeping your team in the loop helps keep them
accountable and allows them to provide customer feedback or insights
you might not have had when you first developed your plan.
We hope you’ll make improving your Web marketing campaigns part of your business objectives for 2010. Happy Holidays and Happy New Year!
