Easily Create A 4 Step Business Marketing Plan

Why You Need A Business Marketing Plan

Every business needs a business plan, unless, you're in business purely for the fun of it, and you don't need an income. I am sure you have heard the old axiom that to "fail to plan is to plan to fail." We all have. The reason those old sayings have such staying power is because they still hold true today. 

So let's get to it. Why do you need a marketing plan? The simple answer is to get you from where you are to where you would like to be. Your marketing plan is essentially a road map. Ignore the directions and it will take you much longer to get there, or, make a plan, read the signs, know where you are going, and arrive sooner. Of course, it isn't always about arriving sooner, sometimes we just want it to be easier.

What Your Business Marketing Plan Should Include

First:  Define what your goals are.

What does your business need, or, what will help to move it forward? Traffic to your website? More subscribers to your email list? More individual, or, larger sales of your products or services? Choose only a couple of main goals so that you aren't overwhelmed as you work your plan. Your 3-5 supporting objectives are what you need to do to achieve those goals. For example, create new lead magnets to get more subscribers. You want to be challenged by your goals yet be able to attain them. Be super specific when defining your goals, and their measurements. Create milestones for yourself, broken down into daily, or, weekly pieces. Not only do they feel easier to reach but, it increases the information you get from your measurements. Oh, and don't forget to pat yourself on the back as you reach each milestone. You deserve it. 

• Choose 2-3 main goals with no more than 3-5 supporting objectives
• Set attainable but challenging goals.
• Make your goals specific and measurable.
• Create goal milestones.  

Second: Tie your goals to your business's mission/ vision statement.

Your goals are easier to achieve if they are aligned with your business's mission/ vision statement. You know what your product is and why you sell it. So, you also need to know who your customers are, what they buy, and what their buying cycle is. 

• Know/ create your buyer's persona.
• Learn your buyers purchasing cycle.

Third: Define your distribution channels.

Your distribution channels are where your future or present customers/ clients can find you and where you can engage with them. Your website needs to be optimized for the best in user experience, mobile use, and speed. An email list allows you to get in your follower's inbox. A newsletter gets you in front of your people in a more personal way. Your main focus social media platforms should be where your ideal customer hangs out. If you have a brick and mortar store, then you can't afford to not have a web presence these days. Give your followers, customers, clients, people your best kick-butt content to keep them consistently coming back for more of what you have to offer. 

• Your optimized website.
• Your email/ newsletter.
• Your social media platforms.
• Your brick and mortar store.
• Kick-Butt content

Fourth: A summary of your plan with supporting documentation.

Listing your main goals and strategies helps you to see exactly what it is you want to accomplish. Create a spreadsheet, and record the stats for your business when you begin your goal strategy. At each milestone do the same so you know if you are on track or not. Make whatever adjustments are necessary along the way and make note of these changes. Whatever your measurement method, the objective is to know what works,  what doesn't, and how well.

• List your over-arching strategies.
• Establish a baseline of your present numbers.
• Define your measurement methods.
• Create a spreadsheet for tracking.

I hope you find this simplified marketing plan useful. If you do please share or like.

Keep in mind that most of these are broad categories and will fit any business with some tweaking. If you need help with your plan let me know. If you have additional ideas and want to share them, as always, I'm all ears.

  ~~ Joyce

NEWSLETTERS OR HOW TO USE YOUR EMAIL LIST

Good Reasons For You To Start An Email List

First and foremost your email list belongs to you and no one can take it from you. If this isn't a good enough reason for you then someone better let me know because I am at a loss to find a better one.

Second and hardly outdone by the first is the fact that this is your best method for keeping in contact with your people. While some people say the money is in the list, I subscribe to the money is in your relationship with your list.

You Need An Email List!

Lately, everyone has been pushing the list building "you need an email list" message. I mentioned in my last blog post that I was one of those slow to accept that message. My guess is that some of my reasons are the same as they are for others. Beginning with hey, I have a list. Now! what am I supposed to do with it? Well, listen up and make no mistake about it, this is an extremely  important point. If you have managed to get people onto your list they must hear from you soon. Before they forget who you are, or what it was about you that they liked, or why they signed up for it in the first place. How do I know? Because I lost 5 or 6 people a couple months ago, before I sent out my first newsletter, and that really hurts when you only had 15 people signed up, to begin with.

So if you haven't begun your list yet, then consider what goals you want to accomplish with it, or what your business needs are. How about new clients lining up for your service based business? Maybe you want engagement of a more personal nature with your audience? Do you want to be able to send them exclusive coupons to upcoming sales for your product based business? People want to be on your VIP list and get the bargains before anyone else. It makes us feel special, and we all want that. Maybe you have designed a challenge for your people, or an offer of a free email course for them, either of which is a great lead-in to your paid digital products. Well, your email list makes all of these things possible, but only if you use it properly.

Newsletters Can Be Much More Personal Than Your Blog

The easiest way to use that email list is through the sending of a newsletter.  Your newsletter allows you to share more of your personality. It is here in small increments where you allow your followers to get to know you, give them a peek into your life, your world, and business. Here your voice shines through touching people, and where that know like trust process gets a major shot in the arm. Your newsletter is also a more informal place to ask your audience to share something of themselves with you. Having already mentioned your dog is named 1900, you can look forward to someone telling you about their oddly named pet, or why they raise guppies. The more authentic and real you are the more likely people are to respond, and those responses are gold. It's relationships you are building here, not rocket science.
 
Let's not forget what your goal is here. You need to help people with their problem. Whether it's a problem they know, and can't seem to get past, or one they aren't even aware of yet. They signed up for your newsletter because they believed you could be of help to them. I hear a lot of "people come for the info and they stay for you" floating around lately.  But a fluffy newsletter just doesn't cut it any longer. People have enough stuff filling up they're inboxes these days, and are much quicker to hit that unsubscribe button than they were a few short years ago. So you absolutely must offer exceptional value or they won't "stay for you" for very long.

What Kind Of Value Can You Share With Your Audience?

1. | Why, you can share the top umpteen posts you read last week in a curated newsletter. (I recommend no more than 5-8 posts so as not to overwhelm)
2. | How about a nugget or two of new information or a new method of doing an old something? (make it actionable)
3. | Maybe you want them to read your latest blog post. (especially good if it has a content upgrade)
4. | How about whipping up excitement for your upcoming webinar?
5. | Give them access to your latest content upgrades.
6. | And yes, you will be pitching your products sometimes.

It's imperative that you give your subscribers reasons to look forward to opening up your newsletter but make sure that the above suggestions fit your overall goals. An unopened newsletter is a missed opportunity, so remember to entertain, educate, and above all else be of benefit to them.

So May I Just Add A Little Something?

No one is in any doubt that social media is an awesome way for you to extend the reach of your brand, and you should absolutely be using social media for your business. With so many ways for you to share your message, one or more platforms, are bound to be a good fit for you. Unfortunately, in an effort to keep themselves current,relevant, and useful, the social media platforms can, and do, change their algorithms occasionally. This makes it impossible for you to depend on always reaching your fans in the same way next month, let alone next year. Not to mention, if you break one their rules you can be barred from that platform. Still, if you play nice, there is plenty of goodness to be had when you leverage the power of social media for your blog/ business.

Have a lovely first weekend of fall and know that I envy anyone living far enough North to notice a difference already. It's just plain hot here in South Florida.

If there is something you want to know please ask, or if there is something you want to tell I'm all ears.

  ~~ Joyce

HOW I NEARLY MISSED THE BOAT WHEN I STARTED MY BUSINESS

3 Things I Wish I Had Done At The Start

There were a couple of things I had done correctly from the beginning but now as I look back on my first year as an entrepreneur I see I missed the boat on what are possibly three of the most important things to do and why. 

Building An Email list. 

I totally didn't understand that having an email list is a more reliable way to get in front of people than through social media. As far as list building went, this was something I thought would happen as a result of the sales you made. I had assumed you would correspond with your customers to offer them further products and discounts thereby turning them into someone who would want your newsletter and/ or be on your mailing list.

Not so. You must proactively build your email list if you want to get more than one or two people on it each month.  Because who really needs another newsletter cluttering up their inbox? So you must  give them a good reason to part with their email address and remember the right opt-in freebie is a much better incentive than any amount of asking them if they want to sign up. I found that to follow this up with short and sweet newsletters that have no more than one or two easy to accomplish takeaways or nuggets of information can really help to grow your list.

Audience, Customer, Follower Engagement

While engagement seems equally as  important as building your email list, true engagement is much more difficult to come by. People generally do not engage with us as regularly as we would want. Think about it. How often to do you respond to a post be it on someone's blog or on one of the social media platforms? Me either. Would you call it regularly? No, why? Well, I have the answer or answers because it is a two parter. We are busy. Simple right? And it takes some time to consider a proper response that goes beyond "great post, or I agree". Mostly, what you read doesn't necessarily apply to you at the time. Either you are past its message in your business timeline or you haven't arrived there yet.
 
Still, engagement is very important, this is where you get your raving fans. This is where you know that your audience, customers, followers get you and like you.  So while there is no guarantee of a response to your posts when you ask for comments, you can help your chances by asking for answers to well thought out questions. And you absolutely must respond to the comments you get. So don't forget to spread a little of that engagement around, it can't hurt. 

Getting More Done In Less Time

This absolutely seems to be the bane of everyone's existence. We all want to get more done in less time. Me, I am a list maker, always have been. And it works, but, my list never ends and I have felt as if I am constantly chasing my tail. Somehow I believed as a new business owner that if I worked 10 hours a day 6 days a week I could keep up.

Luckily for me in the last few months, several people have been singing the praises of batching or grouping. If you are not familiar with batching, in simple terms it is nothing more than doing multiples of the same task in blocks of time. You benefit not only from being able to concentrate but by not having your time chopped up. At first, this method seemed to make the most sense with small or quickly done tasks because they are the ones that chop up your time the most. But it didn't take me long to see that even bigger projects are just series of smaller tasks strung together, and so would benefit just as much from being batched.  After batching some of my work now for a couple of months I can say that things seem less hectic lately. So I guess it's time to get on board with the rest. The best part is, I still get to make up my lists, only now when I complete 3 things it truly is a day's worth of work.

Please leave me a comment and let me know what you wish you had known at the beginning of your business journey or maybe something you think I should know for the upcoming year.

Have a lovely week

  ~~Joyce

6 REASONS YOU SHOULD BE BLOGGING FOR YOUR BUSINESS

These days it is imperative for your business to have a blog. It's no longer enough for you to put up a website with either a products page or work with me page. People want to know why they should buy your product or work with you rather than Susie Q. Your about page might tell them all of your skills and abilities, but honestly, there are many people with those same sets of skills. Your blog, written in your voice, is going to sound exceptional to those people who like and follow you.  And, since people purchase from their heart and emotions frequently, that liking holds great value to us who are small business owners.

Blogging Allows You To Connect With Your Audience Through Feedback  

When you write informative, interesting, and thought-provoking posts don't forget to ask a question or two of your reader. Not just any questions but those you genuinely would like to receive answers for. These answers while helping to forge that bond with your audience, will be information available for your use in a future post or project. Remember you want to build a relationship, so don't forget to thank your readers and respond back to their comments. These comments may be used as an  additional way for you to find or refine your niche if you haven't already done so.  

Blogging Helps To Build Your Email List  

A great blog post that resonates with your readers is a sure-fire way to get them to come back for more. You can remind your readers that if they have enjoyed this particular post that they should sign up to receive alerts for new posts. If this isn't something you offer, then ask them to sign up for your newsletter, or your email list. At the very least, you should have a sign-up form in your footer or sidebar to make it easy for them to subscribe.

Blogging Helps You To Become Known As An Expert In Your Niche  

Through your blog, your extremely informative blog, you are going to gain a reputation for being knowledgeable. So give that knowledge away. Make sure that your posts are helpful and actionable if you want to enhance your expert status. When people see you as an expert they are going to want to know what it is that makes you such expert. Share that information with them over time. Why over time? Because what you know today is only a portion of what you will have learned, and can then share next month or next year.  

Blogging Improves Your Site's SEO  

Now this is super awesome in my opinion. If you have done your work correctly on your blog post, that same delightful content that has caught your readers eye and engaged them has also improved your SEO. A catchy title with your keyword or keywords in it and sub-headings that further reinforce them are gold. You must be sure that the body of your post has the information as promised in your title. The failure to do this not only disappoints your reader but will drop your SEO ranking.  

Blogging Increases Your Traffic  

This is simple. Your blog gives people a reason to visit your site apart from what you sell, and to spend more time there if they like what they see. Maybe they might even tell their friends. If you  make it easy for them. So place like and share buttons on your blog post page. Also, you are going to promote your newest blog post on your various social media platforms, after all, you want plenty of eyes on it.   

Blogging Strengthens Your Brand  

Again, if you have done your work correctly, this same delightful content is going to tie in with your brand. This is oh so  important so as not to confuse your audience. Your blog posts need to sound as if they belong to your business. People should be able to readily see the connection between the products and/or services that your business offers and the written content of your posts.  

I want to leave you with two questions. Do you have a blog for your business? Have you seen the benefits of having that blog? While I am interested in the answers to these questions, I am also interested in any other comments you care to make.

  ~~Joyce

NOT USING EVERNOTE, WHY AREN'T YOU

My Evernote is the save to, share to, go to, add to, scan to, and search for, of my Blog, Business, and personal life.  I know some of you who already use Evernote might be miffed over the recent changes. Most of us are not good with change, to begin with. So I wanted to weigh in with some great reasons why I use Evernote, and why I chose to up-level my account from the Free plan to the paid Premium plan.

Let's Start With The ABC's

At it's most basic, Evernote is a glorified notebook that does so much more than just hold notes. But we start with notes. They hold files, text , images, and audio. Notebooks hold as many notes as you want and give you a way to categorize your notes. Stacks hold notebooks together and you can add as many notebooks to a stack as you want. Tags allow you to better define your notes. 

How easy it will be for you to use Evernote is directly related to how well you organize your system.  Since our brains all work differently the organization of your Evernote will be what works best for you and not the next person.

Begin With A System

I recommend that you set up 4 or 5 notebooks before you begin saving anything. My first ones were Blog, Business, Projects, and To-Do. Choose titles in line with your type of work, they can be renamed later, and any notes within them can always be moved to other notebooks later. When you sign up your account comes with a couple of notebooks already named , one of which is a default, and if you set nothing up, into which all your notes will be saved. The consideration given early on to how you intend to use your system will pay off the more you use it.

While notes can only reside in one notebook, they can have as many tags as you want to describe them. Tags, although they are not necessary, can help with searching.

Evernote Pricing

The Basic plan is 100% free, you get 60MB per month, and can sync across 2 devices.

The Plus plan is $34.99/year, you get 1GB per month, and can sync across all devices.

The Premium plan is $69.99/year, you get 10GB per month, and can sync across all devices.

The Business plan is $120/year/per person 

Things You Can Do With Evernote

Save anything that you can upload. Photos, Files, PDFs

Share notes and/or notebooks with others

Scan files to your notebooks, scan and digitise business cards

Search within files, images, and notes

Forward emails into Evernote

Add passcode lock on mobile apps

 A Peek Into How I Use Evernote

I began using the free plan 6 months ago to make and save my to do lists. Soon after I found it to be the perfect medium to compose my blog posts with its auto-save feature. Once I move the post to my website and publish it with its photos and links, I then upload the finished product to my Completed Posts notebook. Now if my website is lost or hacked I have a backup. (I learned this the hard way with the loss of my posts on my previous website). I also have my website pages uploaded to my Site Setup notebook for the same reason. Of course, I use the Web Clipper to save whole articles or just screen shots from the web. I began a journal and while I can't draw worth beans, I can add photos of my day as a reminder.  

Now let me tell you why with the new changes I didn't ditch my Evernote. First off I had 3 connected devices so I would have had to scale back to 2 to continue with the free plan. But this was not going to be a problem for me as I was ready to drop one from my active devices anyway. Instead, I chose to go with the Premium plan because in the last 6 months as I had expanded the uses of my account there were some features I wanted. The ability to access my notebooks off-line being at the top of that list, followed by the ability to browse the history of my notes, and lastly to be able to forward emails into my account.

Now there are so many things you can do with Evernote and I have only scratched the surface here. Afte all, I am still learning myself. But I'd like to know if you're not using Evernote what's stopping you?

Leave me a comment if you agree or disagree or just want to chat and don't forget to share with your friends.

~~Joyce

Independence Day Musings

Each year I like to take personal stock as we Americans celebrate our Independence day. Our forefathers didn't just declare that they were free. They put a plan together, in writing, and then fought to achieve that right. Freedom is never free, but always bought at a cost to someone. So I like to think that they would be happy knowing that we can spend the day with family and friends enjoying picnics, games, and an evening of fireworks. These would have been pleasures they themselves might have enjoyed.

As I take stock it is wonderful to note that we can live practically anywhere we like. Those forefathers of ours had itchy feet that brought them to a distant shore to settle. Not always content, they moved on and resettled again and again. I am all for that as northern transplant who moved to South Florida.

The value of a good education was as important to the early settlers as it for us. In 1636 Harvard University was established and John Adams both a Founding Father and the second President was a graduate of law in 1758. 

Many of those founding fathers did not following the career paths chosen by their fathers. They had more choices. Which has lead me to believe they would appreciate the variety of choices we have to "pursue our happiness".

So on this 240th anniversary of our country's birth I want to wish everyone a Happy and Safe Independence Day

  ~~Joyce

How You Can Create A Daily Routine That Works

I am such a big fan of having to do lists and a calendar for my work, and my personal life. Like a friend told me not long ago "if it ain't on the list, it don't get done". Yes, this might be how we get big shit done, but it does nothing for the everyday minutia of our lives. Seriously, it's our routines that make those things quicker and easier to manage and without 'em your life and list becomes a hot mess.

Does Your Routine Work For You

Honestly, I could never accomplish a thing in my working day if it were not for the daily routines I have in place to speed me along. They are the If This Than That of my life. The trigger of one thing or habit that leads to the next and the next. You know what I mean. The unthinking, frequently auto pilot portion of our lives.

For example, you wake in the morning roll out of bed and turn the coffee pot on, or brush your teeth, or wake the kids, or let the dogs out. Whatever they are, these habits, are likely the beginning of your day, every day. And these habits strung together become our daily routines.

Now the best routines work for us and not the other way around and that is powerful. So they need to be purposeful as much as possible yet with an understanding that its need and necessity that forms them. For many people, the 9-5 workaday world is what provides the need of their routines. Change your job and it is likely you will be changing your routine.

Change A Habit And Change Your Routine

But that doesn't mean we are mere robots who are slaves to our routine, no way. Our brains are facile enough that we can have a different routine ever day and it will keep us on track. In fact, we all make subtle changes as the seasons change and barely notice it. We are able to add or subtract from a routine and hardly miss a beat.

So this is huge. Slip in that new habit you want to accomplish, like exercise that you have been either resistant or even lazy about doing. It may be difficult at first because it isn't part of your routine yet. Schedule it for 21-28 days which is what it takes to form a new habit and whatever you choose becomes part of your now, new routine.

Sure, you had to set yourself a reminder for the last 3 weeks that you wanted to exercise in the evening. But what makes it stick is that you chose Monday Tuesday, and Thursday after you walk your dog. Now your walk with Spot is the trigger for the addition of that habit into your routine. When you arrive home you're ready for your work out, and if you and Spot did more than just stroll maybe you don't need the warm up time before you begin.

So Why Am I So Charged Up About Routines

It is the auto pilot part. If you have no routine or a poor one, you constantly backtrack your steps or think what do I need to do now. When you have good routines in place for the mundane but necessary, you don't think about them. Your brain is free as a bird in flight while your hands and feet go about the tasks at hand. This can be some extra your time. Maybe you have ideas to brainstorm or a new audio book you have been meaning to find time for. Whatever you want that time for, claim it by making your routines work for you.

I want to challenge you to alter or streamline some part of your routine and make it work better for you.

If you liked this post please share it with your Buds.

  ~~Joyce  

Do Not Manage Your Time, Manage Your List

Managing Your List Not Your Time

Are you working 10 hour days 7 days a week at your business? Do you feel as if you never catch up, worse yet, do you fall even further behind? If you are always exhausted it could be your time management system is letting you down. I worked that way for 6 months. Everyone kept telling me how I should manage my time, only it didn't  work for me. I had a calendar whose hours were filled with tasks I couldn't complete. Leaving me feeling frustrated and a failure. After some thought, I have chosen to use the list and calendar making method that has worked so well for me in my personal life. This allows me to  rinse and repeat my tasks yearly and seasonally.  I believe when you manage your list, your time falls into place. 

Yearly Quarterly Monthly Weekly Daily

Your yearly business calendar should include the "why" of what you do. These are the big picture things that drive it forward. Although your daily to-do list isn't going to reflect this in a direct manner, the way that you execute your list will. If you haven't thought of your "why" then consider these very basic reasons.

• A good set of core values will guide you and your business on the right path as you deal with people.
• Your vision for the future of your business is what will keep you excited about creating new projects and looking forward to each new day.
• Excellent client/customer service where you listen to their needs/ wants will keep consumers coming back for more of what you have to offer.
• Clearly defined financial goals that are specific, achievable, measurable, and flexible let you know how you are doing and where changes need to be made.

Your quarterly editorial calendar is where you will outline your larger content projects. So your list of a few days ahead might read dental appointment 10 AM, pick up dry cleaning and fill in the quarterly calendar.  At this point, it might be nothing more than the phrase blog post every Tuesday or email every Friday that you write down. Here too is where you will write in product launch for June 30, and module creation slots for various days in the previous 8-10 weeks. You will also likely have a webinar penciled in for June 29 or 30. AD campaigns are also something  you want to consider in advance. When you plan in advance like this you are better able to create themed content.   

Your monthly calendar is where that central idea or theme that you're going for should be finalized. Here your list days ahead might say May 3,  blog post How To train Your Dog To Fetch, May 10, The Proper Way To Bathe Your Dog May 17, Recipes For Home Made Dog Treats. All of your projects, campaigns, and ideas should support one another.

Your weekly calendar is a place for fine tuning your process. So that on say May 2, your list has research training tips, take photos of your dog, and write your blog post.
 
So your daily list should not have 27 things on it. Seriously, 3-5 important items that directly promote your goals for the day and by extension the week, the month, and the quarter. These listed items need to be completed tasks and/or pieces of your larger projects.

"The key is not to prioritize what's on your schedule, but to schedule your priorities"
  Steven Covey 

I hope you find this useful and I welcome all comments.

  ~~ Joyce