{"id":98,"date":"2013-12-04T06:10:53","date_gmt":"2013-12-04T06:10:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/copyexpressold\/?p=98"},"modified":"2021-08-24T03:47:23","modified_gmt":"2021-08-24T03:47:23","slug":"6-easy-steps-to-planning-your-marketing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.copyexpress.co.nz\/blog\/6-easy-steps-to-planning-your-marketing\/","title":{"rendered":"6 easy steps to planning your marketing"},"content":{"rendered":"

Recently I\u2019ve been dealing with a several customers who have wanted to have quick response with their marketing to an external event. In couple of those cases we could not do it. We were able to produce material to tie in to it, but not as timely as we would have like it to have been. The reason why we were not able to meet the time frame simply because it takes time to properly prepare marketing if you want it to be done right and to make the best use of your advertising dollar. So \u00a0how do you plan ahead for your marketing and have it able to respond to an event at a moments notice.<\/span><\/p>\n

Step 1 – Work out when you, and others, are busy and quiet<\/b><\/span><\/h3>\n

I\u2019ve talked about this in my article\u00a0365 Days of Marketing<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0When to Time your Flyer Promotion<\/a>\u00a0but in the nutshell you should set your main marketing \u2018cycle\u2019 to match the cycle of demand. Have your reminders about you and your business to go out when demand for your services is high and do the deals when the demand \u00a0is low to bring more people in. Then make a note of when your suppliers and support business are unavailable. This is more than just when places close down for Christmas and New Year. Every business will have periods of when they are not operating or have a low support times to manage their own\u00a0 business and you have to factor that into yours if you want to make sure you can get what need when you need it.<\/span><\/p>\n

Step 2 – Decide when your marketing will be most effective.<\/b><\/span><\/h3>\n

I\u2019ve already covered this in\u00a0When to Time your Flyer Promotion<\/a>. It is far better to have 5 promotions when you know you are going have maximum response, than to do 15 and have most of them misfire. Look at not only what has worked for you in the past but when it has worked for your competitors as well.<\/span><\/p>\n

Step 3 – Flesh out a forward-look calendar<\/b><\/span><\/h3>\n

Not only does your business have cycles, but our economy does too. \u00a0There are seasons, public holidays, special events and other seasonal activities that you can tie into. \u00a0In fact, research suggests that if you have a reason for a sale or promotion, it will do better than if you don\u2019t have a reason.<\/span><\/p>\n

Now sit down with a planner or calendar and look at your year. \u00a0Do you have too many promotional events close together? \u00a0Big spaces between events? \u00a0If you do a monthly newsletter (if not, why not?) do you have a special offer for each issue planned? \u00a0Flesh out the plan as far in advance as you can – you can always revise it later, but you\u2019ll be glad that you did.<\/p>\n

Step 4 – Build in lead times<\/b><\/span><\/h3>\n

Good design takes time. While using templates and boilerplate content will speed up the process, you want to review and fine tune each piece of marketing material before \u00a0it goes out based on the feedback about the previous ones. So give yourself time to do that. Physical production takes time too, the fancier the product, the more labour involved and the more time it will take to produce. Here at Copy Express we have the goal of having most standard work done in 2 business days or less, only adding extra time if there is more finishing involved. When we outsource it to specialists, that adds more time you have to allow for. If you want to do a mailbox or targeted marketing, factor in time for the packaging and distribution, as well as when the deliverers do their drop off.<\/span><\/p>\n

So start with the publication date and work backwards to create your production timeline. \u00a0Build in buffer time as well. \u00a0Don\u2019t forget to allow time for weekends, public holidays, review, and shipping. \u00a0Remember that not everyone will be able to adhere to your ideal schedule, so don\u2019t set it as the \u201cbest case scenario\u201d – be reasonable<\/p>\n

Step 5 – Have both targeted and generic material ready to go<\/b><\/span><\/h3>\n

Once you have planned your marketing schedule and set up your house brand, the creation of the marketing material is quite simple. On top of the normal targeted marketing to draw the people in when you want them, you should design a few generic marketing items that doesn\u2019t have a fixed window of opportunity. These can be printed and stored ready to go at a moments notice allowing you to quickly respond to your competition or to events that can boost your business.<\/span><\/p>\n

Step 6 – Review and get feedback from clients<\/b><\/span><\/h3>\n

The final step in this process is to review what has gone out and track the responses to it. Not just in sales numbers but talk to your customers and find what they liked and disliked about the marketing. With plenty of lead time and use of templates it will make it easy to update and make more responsive to your customers.<\/span><\/p>\n

There you go. Six easy steps to make your marketing planning easier. Still having problems in figuring out what will work for you, then book a time us at Copy Express so we can help you get the most of your marketing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Recently I\u2019ve been dealing with a several customers who have wanted to have quick response with their marketing to an external event. In couple of those cases we could not do it. We were able to produce material to tie in to it, but not as timely as we would have like it to have … Continue reading “6 easy steps to planning your marketing”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":668,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,27,33],"tags":[20,35,36],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.copyexpress.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.copyexpress.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.copyexpress.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.copyexpress.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.copyexpress.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=98"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.copyexpress.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1520,"href":"https:\/\/www.copyexpress.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98\/revisions\/1520"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.copyexpress.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/668"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.copyexpress.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=98"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.copyexpress.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=98"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.copyexpress.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=98"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}