Name: The One Week Marketing Plan
Rating: 3.7 (59 reviews)
Author: Mark Satterfield

What’s in it for me? Set up and run your own marketing campaign in just one week.

Every entrepreneur knows that marketing can make the difference between success or failure. But it’s such a daunting task. Gurus, social media, advertising – it’s enough to get lost in.

But there’s another way to approach marketing. Just strip it down to its essentials, give people what they want and win more customers. That’s not so complicated, right?

Right. In fact, you can do it in just five days. These blinks will show you how.

After reading these blinks, you’ll know

how to use pay-per-click advertising to your advantage;
an easy way to find your niche; and
why direct mail isn’t dead yet.

Day 1: Define your niche market.

The first day of designing your business’s marketing plan should focus on finding your niche. While niche marketing may appear to limit your options, your specialization will pay off when you’re standing out from the competition.

Why’s finding a niche essential?

First of all, it provides visibility. To get new customers you first need to get their attention, and it can help to focus on an area of expertise. By building a niche you send a particular message to a particular target with particular needs. Put yourself in your customers’ shoes. For instance, imagine you’re a Silicon Valley all-star who, after selling your stock options, is desperately searching for a way to avoid getting reamed by the IRS. You wouldn’t choose a general advice book like “Ten Ways to Save Money on Your Taxes” but rather one that suits your specific needs, like “Ten Typical Mistakes You Can Make with Your Stock-option Profits”.

But that’s not the only reason a niche is helpful. A niche can also improve your business. Consider JDC Repair, a phone repair chain. They started servicing only Apple products and doubled their sales within a year. How?

The niche route they took made them more credible as Apple specialists. But not just that, their employees also worked faster as they only had to repair one product. In short, they became experts in their niche.

So a niche is helpful, but how do you find yours?

Your niche could be an industry – for instance, you might only target companies in a particular field. But it could also be a function, meaning your business targets a particular audience regardless of industry. For example, you might offer a course on public speaking for executives from all fields. In this case, public speaking training is your niche function, but there’s no limit to your audience.

Start finding your niche by asking yourself questions like: Are there any common industries or functions between my current customers? Do some customers spend more money with me than others? Are some easier to sell to? By following the answers to these questions you’ll find your niche!

Day 2: Convert customers by offering something for free.

On day 2 you should give something away. Why?

Because in a world dominated by low prices, offering a free gift will put you ahead of the competition. Start by deciding what to give away.

Build a website to deliver your free offer on day 3 and begin marketing on day 4.

So you’ve developed a free offer. Day 3 is about building a website that attracts visitors when they subscribe to your gift. In this way you can stay in touch with potential customers. Begin by building a page on your website that advertises your free offer and make sure it entices visitors to sign up by giving their contact information.

How?

Day 5: Increase your website traffic and start advertising.

Once your website is set up, spend day 5 adding advertising to your marketing system and winning new visitors and customers.

How? With pay-per-click, or PPC advertising. Here’s how it works:

Boost your marketing strategy with well-timed social media postings.

It’s clear that a few tweets about your business won’t bring customers pouring in. But you can use social media to attract potential clients, redirect them to your website and turn them into customers. Begin by creating social media profiles for your business. Google is again the best choice, via its social media platform Google+.

Why?

Strengthen your online presence through blogging.

Once you’ve got the basics of social media working you can expand to blogging. While the time required to write a blog may seem overwhelming, your investment can produce excellent results.

Why a blog?

Reach a wider audience through media coverage and direct mail.

Maybe social media and blogging aren’t enough for you. You want to get your free offer to even more people. You’ve got two options: either appeal to the masses or target a specific audience.

How?

Find a partner, build a joint venture and make a win–win situation for both of you.

So your marketing system is entirely in place and running smoothly. One last push will seal the deal: set up a joint venture, a cooperative effort between you and a partner designed to make money for you both. Your collaboration may even consist of an entirely new business that you build together. The key to getting started is finding the right partners.

How?