pub355 how to write a 7 sentence marketing plan

[email protected] should follow me on twitter @boxcarmarketing

What Makes a Good 7-Sentence PlanPUB 355: April 1, 2011

by Monique Trottier

[email protected]: @boxcarmarketing

Sentence 1: PurposeBe specific, make sure to include the measurable goals (actual numbers)

Geist > Engagement (Arco Marketing)

Go on to detail goals and specific numbers:

Goal 1: Reach & Maintain Audience. Increase FB fans 2–4% a week, Twitter 2.5% a weekGoal 2: Get constituents to talk to each other: # RTs, comments, photo submissionsGoal 3: Increase subscribers overall by 5–10%; double digital edition from 1500–3000


Sentence 2: Will accomplish by...Make a clear connection to stated goals in #1. Summarize what you’re going to do to accomplish the goal, and what business objective the goal meets. Sentence #5 is an extension of #1 & 2 and provides more specific details. Repetition is ok.

Ardea > Lead Gen (Dynamite)

Goal #2: recruit new customers – 3 new customers to come into the store per week

(MT: Measure store traffic. Measure referral through promo activities.)

In order to recruit new customers, we will target them through several different channels.• Coupons to customers attending events if they “refer a friend”, i.e., bring a friend to the

next book club meeting or author reading. This will help promote both our brand as well as get a new person into the physical space of the store where we can interact with them and/or encourage impulse buying.

• Collaborating with other local shops (coffee shops for example) to offer incentives (coupons) to visit our store/theirs. This gives us the potential to reach a new audience.


Sentence 3: AudienceClearly identified audience groups and provided persona for each. I need/want statements relevant to goals, purpose, tactics.

Ardea > Engagement (Cellar Door)

Goal: The purpose of our marketing plan is to engage more deeply with Ardea customers in an online setting in order to increase brand visibility and exposure through social media. Our focus will be on increasing Ardea’s online audience and subscribers with the intention of applying different stages of customer engagement and building a list which can be used for future marketing opportunities.

Barbara, Community Planner

Basics: Late 40’s, female, and serves on the board of directors of the University of British Columbia (UBC) campus as a community planner. She is committed to building a sustainable and secure campus where students and families can live and study. She has worked for UBC for the past 20 years and her position requires her to develop short and long term plans for the revitalization of the community.

Barbara takes pleasure keeping up to date with modern day technologies and understands that the online world is rapidly expanding and pertaining a significant role. However she doesn’t exactly know how to use social media and only dabbles a little for quick information.

Professional and personal background:Barbara is from Vancouver and generally lives and works in the municipality of Point Grey. Barbara is quite creative, smart and looks for outlets that let her exercise these traits. She is interested in art, blogging, gardening, watching movies, sharing coffee with friends, and thinks one can never read enough books!


Sentence 3: Audience

Quote:“I understand the times are evolving into an online world, but I am old fashioned. I don’t stray far from my neighbourhood and I like to spend my money where people know my name and I am affiliated with a group. I don’t try to keep up with new media and since I never needed it before, I don’t see why I need it now.”

Technological background:For someone who works on many deadlines, Barbara does not care to spend her time or money using complicated technologies and hard to source websites. Barbara does not realize the easy way to keep track of bookmarking her favourite websites that are available on the Internet. Barbara just reads websites and blogs for quick information. She also uses an e-mail account and has a profile on Facebook. However, she is not very active on Facebook or any other social media sites and only uses it to view photos of her friends.

Barbara views the following websites for quick information:- cbc.ca - http://blogs.ubc.ca - kitsilano.ca - VancouverIsAwesome.com - cinemaclock.com


Sentence 3: AudienceGoals:- How do I know which books would interest me?- How does local news relate to your store?- I don’t know how to deal with confusing websites, tell me what I should know.

I need/I want:- I want a knowledgeable source- I want trustworthy recommendations for future books- I want the process to be easy and fast- I want to learn at my own convenience- I need to see the importance of how this applies to me- I want to be involved in my community- I want to see value in where I spend my money

(MT: Acts as a guide for content that will resonate, indicates promotions that build reputation and make a clear connection to the community. Checkpoint for whether activities suggested in #5 will be acted upon by this audience. Indicates what metrics should be considered and if goals in #1/2 are attainable.)


Sentence 4: NicheIf I was a journalist writing a story about the client / contest / promo, what info do you want me to include in my article? What is the story angle?

S.P.H.E.R.E. “so what”, “personality”, “ego”, “relevancy”, “effort”

So what?Why do your consumers care about the brand?What is interesting about this project? What makes you different from your competitors. Why do consumers pick you vs. another product/service?

PersonalityWhat are the adjectives that describe the brand. What are the adjectives that describe your consumers?Do you have a spokesperson? Are there fans/advocates for your brand?

EgoWhy do your consumers want to engage with you? What’s in it for them?

RelevancyThere is a relevancy between the audiences’ motivations and the brand? The project?

EffortDo not underestimate the amount of effort in creating an effective community. What effort do you need to put into this campaign in order to keep people long-term?


Sentence 4: Niche

Geist > Lead Generators

Goal: To get more kits into the classroom and increase awareness among CDN high school instructors that these kits are available. We will measure success by the number of FREE kits being requested by teachers. In return, we will collect their contact information including their address and email.

Characteristics of the audience

● High school teachers who are tired of their routine-based classes and are in a need to be inspired in terms of how they can create assignments that can excite their students. Due to the budget cuts in many schools around the globe teachers are limited with resources, and are in turn limited in what they can do creatively with their students.Why audiences care

● Audiences will gain respect for the brand and in turn, care about Geist because they will come to realize that we are there to help them.

● Considering that the material is free, teachers have nothing to lose. In exchange for magazines, our company will gain recognition and as a result, more people would explore what the company has to offer.


Sentence 4: NicheHow will Geist benefit Sarah (a persona identified in #3)?

Poetry section:

According to Sarah the poetry section is often use as a way to unleash student’s creative mind and increase students’ ability to understand poetry. For example, from issue 78 a poem name Tenement Song written by Gillian Jerome was given. In the beginning of English class, Sarah will put the poem on overhead and the whole class will read it over together. Next, students will be split into groups and brainstorm together to come up with the possible meaning and connotations of the poem. In the end, groups will exchange their ideas with the whole class and see what different interpretations they come up with. Sarah felt that by doing this, it not only makes the poetry more interesting it also creates a bond between students. Additionally, it educates students to respect one another’s creative work.

Connect the audience with Geist’s business identity/ how does Geist reflect their personalities and interest?

Geist reflects on its audience’s creative ability through their postcard contest while satisfying its consumer’s need for some “fun” through their crossword puzzles.

After looking at the FB group, we saw pictures of individuals who seem to have an “edge” to them. For example, participants wore t-shirts that says “Geist kicks ass”

* Audiences need to understand that our brand is one that is fun and interesting* Students will connect with the brand if they realize that the people associated with Geist are one’s that they would want to be around and relate to.


Sentence 4: NicheCompetitor Info• Include info on the types of promotions your competitors undertake and how/why your

campaign will stand out• Be clear in noting your competitive advantage• Identify your competitors Fan/Follower numbers so you have a baseline for your KPIs

Geist > Engagement (Arco)


Good Sample AnswerWhat is your niche?

My Mini Club is a Facebook Page and a website that offers an online community to welcome customers, enthusiasts, and fans of the Fuji Instax Mini camera. The theme of My Mini Club is “Make your moment special” which implies that when a person visits the website, they will feel the site is fun and memorable. It also implies that every time a person uses the camera, it captures that specific moment in time. My Mini Club offers an online community that encourages interaction from its staff members to its users through the website. The customer service staff is easily approachable for the users to answer questions, get stock updates, or to get help making a purchase decision of the products that they desire. My Mini Club’s products also have a lower price that is attractive to our target audience.

So what?• Prospective customers want to learn more about the Fuji Instax Mini• Access to information about the use of this camera is not readily available at any brick and

mortar places in North America and there is really limited content online. • My Mini Club offers good customer support and is easy going, friendly, and knowledgeable.

Why do people need to care about this camera? • Fuji Instax Mini is not widely available in North America. It is an alternative to a Polaroid.• This camera offers a different style of photo taking that the target audience is interested in

and fulfills a need in the market of the Lower Mainland for this type of photography.

Personality• My Mini Club is a welcoming site for people to see the feedback and questions • For the types of personalities that use this camera, they like to show their photos physically,

whether in their wallet, photo album, or a scrap book. They like to share their photos. Giving it to the person they want instantly instead of emailing the photo to them or printing it.


Good Sample AnswerHook • One of the main goals of My Mini Club is to attract people to go to their website or Facebook

page by pulling people onto our space and hooking them on to the content. • Some things that they do well in this aspect are the up to date content that they post on the

Facebook wall. They post attractive pictures or catchy subject lines from time to time to try to attract a new audience. For example, a recent post on their Facebook wall was “Guess how many packs of film there are”, with a picture of a “mountain” of film boxes.

Ego• There is motivations on why people go to My Mini Club and decide to make a purchase. The

audience wants to join the community that this site is creating. • They see their friends are using the camera, so they want to see what it is all about and see

why they are enjoying it or not. • Most people in North America are use to using a regular camera and smart phones. The

target audience wants something different and is unique. • My Mini Club can show them the advantages and functions of the camera. With enough

motivation, this can create an interest on interacting on the site and even an interest in a purchase decision.

Relevancy• There is a relevancy between the audiences’ motivations and what My Mini Club is asking

them to do. • For example, the staff can post a YouTube video on the wall about a tip that customers can

use the camera better to take better portrait shots in bad lighting. Not only does this offer a reason to hook someone to our content, but also be relevant to the audiences’ motivations because it can be something that they are looking for. My Mini Club can find out about what the audience is interested in and post relevant content on their Facebook Wall or discussions page or create new sections on the site.


Good Sample AnswerEffortMy Mini Club should not underestimate the amount of effort in creating an effective community. My Mini Club can continue to get people to talk more on the site and make the Facebook page grow as a community. Getting returning viewers and customers onto the site to contribute can create more of a community, as it creates more areas of interest. The more interest My Mini Club can get, the higher level of “word of mouth” would likely occur.

Benefits and competitive advantageMy Mini Club provides tip, tricks and new ideas from turning vintage style cameras, such as the Fuji Instax Mini, into modern day fun. Our friendliness and helpful tips provide a high level of customer satisfaction for all current owners of the camera,

Currently, there are very few suppliers in Canada that sell this similar product. My Mini Club’s pricing is below all the major big box retailers and small businesses that sell the similar products. We provide in-person service for all transactions and at all the convenient pick-up locations in the Lower Mainland. All taxes are included within the price listed on My Mini Club’s website and on the Facebook Page for easier accessibility.

One of the competitive advantages that My Mini Club has is their customer service and interaction on their Facebook page that creates an online community. They want to make the people feel welcomed to the site and if they like what they see, they can “like” their Facebook page and become a fan. The staff is easily approachable because they can be seen answering people’s questions very quickly. The users on the site like to post and share their thoughts, questions, and their photos that they have taken with the Fuji Instax Mini cameras.

Positioning statement for My Mini Club:For the young and instant camera loving people who wants to keep and share their instant moments. My Mini Club is a fun and welcoming Facebook page that provides a fun and interacting online community. Unlike main competitor sites like divainn.com or big box retailers selling similar cameras, My Mini Club provides customers with a place to come together and share their photos, tips, thoughts, and experiences.


Sentence 5: Strategy & ToolsMake a very clear connection between goals in #1, how you will accomplish #2, and tactics in #5. Tie it into #7 for KPIs. Redundancy is ok. Each sentence builds on the previous.

Ardea > online / offline (Glasses & Mustaches)


Sentence 6: Business Identity

Geist > Online / offline (Merkatiko6S)

Goal: Draw in a larger audience by hosting a Geist writing career conference at SFU. The objective will be to get the Geist brand out there and to urge talented student writers to look at becoming contributing members of the Canadian literature scene by submitting their work; if a connection can be drawn between Geist and a future career, then many young graduates or soon to be graduates will be drawn to what Geist offers.

#6: The brand personality of Geist Magazine, in general, is intelligent, fun, humorous, literary focused and educating with user-friendly writing. These are characteristics that you don't see very often in literary magazines, with each of the issue consisting of photography, comics, poetry, movie/books review and their “legendary” crossword puzzle.

Geist encourages readers to summit their own work and share them on their magazine, hence creating an interactive environment between the reader and the publisher. Anyone interested in Geist is welcome to join this growing online community. In order to draw connection to Geist’s characteristic in our conference's context, we will define Geist based on two characteristics...


Sentence 7: Budget / KPIIdentify all costs, hours, and KPIs. Make sure the KPIs are directly related to your goals in #1. Ensure there is clear alignment between #1, 2, 5, & 7. Consider a grid that shows Goal > Actions (you want the customer to take) > Tactics (that you will employ) > KPIs (how you’ll measure success)

See again Ardea > Online / Offline (Glasses & Mustaches)


Understanding what to measureIn addition to the grid they provided in #5, they used #7 to talk about measurements by platform.

1. Facebook. Budgeted/Allocated Time: Facebook page maintenance will require about 3.5 hours over the course of a week (30min a day). During campaigns it will require an additional 0.5 hours per day for each day of the campaign (per question 5).

To increase traffic to Ardea Book’s discussion page, we will be creating an online book club. Success will be measured by seeing an increase in post by customers. Our initial baseline number is 25 posts per month.

Part of our marketing campaign will be to engage customers to participate online to develop the Ardea brand. Therefore, we will be increasing the number of photos and member-photo involvement on Ardea’s Facebook page. We will be adding 25 photos per month and, we aim to have 25% of these photos to include personal tags.

There are 2 things we like to measure:

Things that lead to sales

Sales

Monique Trottier@BoxcarMarketing

Sales


Geist subscriptions


SalesMonique Trottier

@BoxcarMarketing

Website Visitors

Twitter Followers

Facebook Fans RTs

Press Mentions

Email Opens

Customer Feedback


Sales

Acquisition Website Visitors, time on site

ActivationNumber of pageviews, repeat visits, subscription (email, blog), account sign-up (profile data), Fan/Follower

Retention Email Opens, Click-throughs, Repeat visits

ReferralPress Mention, RT,

Refers 1+visitors to the site; Refers 1+ visitors who activate


If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will get you there.

Misquote from Alice in Wonderland


A simple Contest

• Reach a new audience or reinforce our connection to an existing audience

Goal Lifecycle Marketing Tactic Customer Action Metrics

Reach a new audience

AcquireActivateRetain

ListenIntroduce

ResponseVisit to the site

SubscribeReturn

@ / RT / CommentVisitors

Subscriptions (email/RSS)Fan/Follower

Account sign-upReturn Visits

Reinforce our connection to

existing audience

RetainReferralRevenue

Talk Pitch

Thank

ResponseVisit the site

ActRefer

@ / RT / CommentRepeat visitsEmail opens

CTR / Goal FunnelMentionsReferrals

Referrals who convert

A simple campaign to build Reputation

• Use a blog to establish authority / expertise. • Focus on writing good content first and self-promotion second

Goal Metrics

Nth position in relation to competitors by a certain date

Pagerank + # inbound links from influential blogs

# bookmarks (Delicious)Google Position in Search Results

X% increase of traffic per month

Volume of organic traffic per month# inbound links from influential sites

# email subscribers or fan/followers who can be directed to the site

X$ per month attributable to referrals from blog

Segment and Funnel: Traffic that converts to sales

A really simple campaign to increase Engagement

• Be nice to customers who mention you on Twitter

Goal Metrics

Increase # positive conversations

# positive comments sent to customers per week w/in given timeframe

# of conversations that started from those comments

# additional activation points

A simple campaign to increase In-Store Sales

• Implement a promotion on social media. • Give participants a printable campaign voucher so you can track sales

Goal Metrics

Download voucherGoal Funnel: Impressions,

Form Completion; Downloads

$ monthly sales monthly sales

% increase in store traffic over pre-promo period monthly store traffic

Attract an audience in a particular area traffic from particular area

A simple campaign to increase Online Sales

• Use Twitter or Facebook to inform prospects about special promotions. • Exclusive, limited-customer/limited time offers.

Goal Metrics

Increase monthly sales / subscriptions monthly sales attributable directly to SMM

Increase % value from new customersSegment & Funnel: new customers

attributable directly to campaign

Increase conversions from Twitter traffic

Segment & Funnel: monthly revenue generated from customers from Twitter

Retain X% of new customers Repeat customers from that groupUnsubscribe rates

Social Media Measurements


Platform Ratio of Posts to X Peak ConversionContent

Resonance

Email OpensDay

Time of Day

OpensCTR

Unsubscribes

Twitter RTsDay

Time of Day

RTs@

Recos

Facebook InteractionsDay

Time of Day

LikeShare

Comment


Preparing Draft 3Ardea > Lead Generation

#1 & 2: It’s ok how you’ve combined these because you have specific, measurable goals and you identify the business reason behind these goals.

#7 provides strong background information.

#5 is a good list of the tools, but there needs to be a clearer connection between the tool choice and how it’s used to meet the goals identified in #1 and 2.

To improve #5, create a grid as discussed that pulls in information from #1, 2 and 7:Goals > Actions > Tactics > KPIs

Goal = bullet points of goals identified in #1 and #2Actions = actions you want the customer to take to meet your goalsTactics = bullet points of activities that you will employ to motivate your audience to take the desired actionKPIs = how you’ll measure if your tactics are resulting in the desired actions that mean you are meeting your goals

# 3 Audience: Review personas to make a connection between their motivations and your marketing activities. Add the I need/I want statements for each persona and make sure those motivations reflect the tactics you undertake in #5.

#4 Niche: To refine your SPHERE section, imagine you are writing a press release about one of your marketing activities, perhaps the promotion of an in-store event. Write the headline and summary, like our in-class exercise. This will help you refine the true media “hooks” and the “so what”—why people should care.

#6 Identity: The competitor info here is good. Just consider how Ardea compares. See the Competitive Advantage section of the Sample for My Mini Club.


Preparing Draft 3Ardea > Engagement

#1. Good info and summary of what you’ll measure. Just make sure you are taking into account what your client is already doing. If they have a FB page already, what exactly are you building that is different than what they have.

#2. Good descriptive content in 1, 2, 5 and 7. But you would benefit from creating a grid that outlines Goals > Actions > Tactics > KPIs. (Not a replacement for the existing content, just a way to provide a single view on what you’re suggesting.)


#3. Great persona work. To take it to an A+ make the connection to what the audience wants/needs and how you’ll establish Ardea as that knowledgeable, reputable, community-minded, trusted source for book info.

#5. Good ideas here and samples of how you would execute these tactics. The grid will help align the goals > actions > tactics > KPIs in a single view. Ensure your metrics are consistent throughout each section.

Do some follow up research on FB Discussions and how to make that successful if it’s one of your tactics. Same with the video newsletter. Both are good ideas but are hard to execute. If you had some case studies or examples of successful implementation on other sites, then it would reinforce the credibility of these tactics.


Preparing Draft 3Ardea > Online / Offline

#1 & 2. Great ideas all around. Your #5, which is broken down by platform, is actually closer to what you want for 1 and 2. You are creating a different view of that same info but grouping it instead by overall business goal. To refine your answer, it’s just a matter of shuffling around the information. #5 and #7 are working well together because they are broken down by platform. Just re-jig #1 and 2.

For #1 and 2, create a view that is Overall Goal > Desired Customer Actions > Your Marketing Tactics > KPIs.

One approach is to merge what you define in #2 as a Result with what you identify in #1 as a goal. You could start with the grids in #2 and put in specific metrics, i.e., increase visits to the website by X%. Then make the Results column your Goal column. Sort your goals into groups of things that are Sales-related goals (things specific to $) and goals related to Awareness, Engagement and Reputation (soft goals, which influence sales, but have a non-financial impact).

(In your # 2 grid Strategy = what you want to do. Actions = why you want to do it. Results = what you expect.)

Next step, in order to better describe your business objectives (why you want to do something), refine the grid so that:

Goal = Bullet point of overall business goal/result. i.e., Increase traffic to the website by X%Actions = What we want the customers to do: i.e., visit the website, visit the store, sign up for email news, come to Meet the staff. Tactics = A combo of your current Strategy+Action columns. How you’re going to get customers to take the above actions. i.e., create staff profiles and establish a relationship between staff & customers through online engagement and in- person “Meet the Staff” event. KPIs = All the things you can measure related to the desired customer actions, which are also aligned with your goals.


Preparing Draft 3#3. Most of your tactics are for a local audience so I’d more the persona work on tourist to an appendix

#5. Some samples of how you’d execute these tactics would move you to an A+. Blogger outreach list: Vancouver bloggers who could be pitched to write about Ardea. See tips in separate email.

Think about the other location-based tools that have been presented in class. Google Places is a great example, but don’t forget the others. Actually getting them listed in all relevant directories (Foursquare, Yelp, etc.) would be cost-effective, a great example of online-offline for local businesses, in particular for meeting the goal of getting people into the store.


Preparing Draft 3Geist > Lead Gen

Overall great ideas. You need to group information into their relevant sections though.

Can you reshuffle the content and let me view again? Take into consideration the feedback for the other groups and what content should be in each section.

I’d like to see a clear grid like we’ve talked about with the other groups showing

Goals > Actions > Tactics > KPIs


Great insights into the persona and how the kits will benefit each persona.

#7. If you can get the measurements for success outlined in 1, 2, and 5, then we can come back to your cost breakdowns related to the tactics you want to use. I’m not clearly understanding your calculations.


Preparing Draft 3

Geist > Engagement

#1. Fill in a couple of the blanks. If you mention a website, include the URL and the traffic numbers (inbound links, twitter followers, etc.) that demonstrate relevance.

#2, 4 and 5. Where noted, provide some samples of how you’d execute your tactics. Sample tweets, press release headline/summary,

#3. Make a connection between persona’s motivations and how you’ll get them aligned to do what you want them to do (desired customer actions that mean success)

#4. Competitor Numbers would be handy to include in the doc. See example MyMiniClub example and think about how Geist stands out from these competitors. Or mention what promo activities these competitors engage in that Geist could adapt. Basically just answer how Geist can stand out from the competition better.

#5 & 7. Would love to see a grid Goals > Actions > Tactics > KPIs as discussed with other groups.

#6. Very good


Preparing Draft 3Geist > Online / Offline

#1. Great ideas and reasoning. Remember 1, 2, 5 and 7 work together. Provide a grid view that helps clearly outline your Goals > Actions > Tactics > KPIs.

Goal = bullet points of goals identified in #1 and #2. Make sure you have specific #s.Actions = actions you want the customer to take to meet your goalsTactics = bullet points of activities that you will employ to motivate your audience to take the desired actionKPIs = how you’ll measure if your tactics are resulting in the desired actions that mean you are meeting your goals

#2. Great descriptive content that shows you understand the business justification for what you’re proposing. Again, you just want to synthesize that info into a bulleted/grid format with some specific metrics.

#3. Good job with personas. Just make the connection between the I need/I want and how the conference meets those needs. See the MyMiniClub Ego example.

#4. Provide a sample of how you’d execute your tactics. Write the event description for Eventbrite or a press release Headline/Summary announcing the event. Provide 5 tweets.


Preparing Draft 3#5. Same issue as previous groups. You have the right grid format, but need to refine the content in the grid.

Next step, in order to better describe your business objectives (why you want to do something), refine the grid so that:

Goal = Bullet point of overall goal/result. i.e., Sell-out event (500 ppl paying $10)Actions = What we want the customers to do: i.e., visit event page, sign up for the event, share with others Tactics = A combo of your other columns. How you’re going to get customers to take the above actions. i.e., advertise event on FBKPIs = All the things you can measure related to the desired customer actions, which are also aligned with your goals. # attendees, # pageviews of event, # RTs/ Shares of event info#7. Good descriptive text. Make sure all your costs are listed. The #5 grid will help outline the KPIs.

[email protected] should follow me on twitter @boxcarmarketing

Next Week: In-Class Test• Meet in Room 1325• I’ll explain the exercise• Who’s bringing a laptop?• What resources can you use during the test?• How to prepare• Draft 3 due April 15

pub355 how to write a 7 sentence marketing plan

Business

fuji instax

online offline

desired customer

mini club

online world

social media

facebook page

desired actionkpis