The Essential 2020 Marketing Plan

Congratulations, you’ve done it! You marketed your way through another year. You’ve learned some lessons, found your stride, and made some mistakes along the way. Guess what? It’s almost time to do it all over again! 2019 will be over in the blink of an eye – which means it’s time to get your marketing plan together for 2020 (if you haven’t already). Since you’re here, it’s safe to assume you need a little help. No judgement here – it’s hard to keep up with all of the new technologies and methodologies that are constantly being introduced to marketers. In the coming year, tactics that have been working for years may no longer work, or they work fine but would perform better when applied on a different channel.

Roger West has tapped into the matrix to collect the information needed to create a bulletproof marketing strategy - which will help you develop an even more formidable marketing plan.

Keep reading only if you’re interested in prioritizing your marketing goals, observing rising trends, and developing a marketing plan that’s attainable, actionable, and created to optimize your marketing efforts.

Your Pre-Plan Plan

You gotta walk before you can run.

You can’t build a successful marketing plan without first defining your marketing strategy. It may seem strange to focus on strategy in a blog about marketing plans, but it will all make sense in due time. The marketing strategy is the scaffolding of your plan, keeping it structurally sound and well-directed. Think of your strategy as the foundational block of a Jenga tower. One wrong move - and it could all come crumbling down.

Spend some time developing your strategy - your sales funnel will thank you for it. Start by writing a 2-3 sentence mission statement on what you want you strategy and plan to accomplish, then identify actionable, measurable goals that are directly related to business development. Your strategy should be well-developed, but still high-level and quantifiable.

Consider:

• Goal increase in ROI
• Goal decrease in Cost Per Acquisition (CPA)
• Goal post/touch frequency across all channels
• Lead generation channels
• Platforms
• Desired outcomes
• Buyer personas

If you’re having trouble grasping the concept of a marketing strategy - Roger West has got you covered. We’ve designed a marketing strategy template that all businesses can use as a road map to their master marketing plan. Download the template here, and get ready to start 2020 off on the right foot.

You create the strategy - your team will carry out the plan. Get goin’!

Don’t Psych Yourself Out

Drafting a marketing plan for the coming year is a lot like standing on the edge of a cliff and watching a storm develop on the horizon, knowing full well that you won’t be able to make it home before the weather takes a turn for the worse. You don’t know what’s ahead – you only know that you’re about to be thrown into the middle of it. Don’t get too worked up, though. You can do this. Be methodical in your marketing plan approach. Focus on tactics that work for you, and how they can be applied to an omnichannel marketing initiative. Trends are important, but they’re not everything. Rather than solely focusing on trends and past performance, consider all aspects of your efforts. These include:

• Multi-channel vs. Omnichannel – Multi-channel marketing has been around for a while and has been wholly embraced by most businesses. Multi-channel marketing drives businesses to maintain websites, blogs, Facebook, and Twitter to engage and connect with customers – but the experience is still punctuated by gaps or lags in messaging. Omnichannel marketing is a strategy that closes the gaps in customer experience with multi-channel marketing. Omnichannel integrates different modes of communication to consider a customer’s perspective in order to better develop customer experience and messaging.
• Personalization – Personalization offers unique customer experiences based on their specific preferences and profiles, and is proven to be much more effective than “one-size-fits-all” marketing. In fact, according to Hubspot, personalized calls-to-action result in a 42% higher conversion rate than calls-to-action that are the same for all visitors. If you’re wondering how to make the most of all the customer data you’ve been collecting, this is it.
• Compliance – Part of creating a great customer experience includes cultivating a consistent experience for all customers. If your website doesn’t meet ADA Accessibility Guidelines, then you’re excluding a large customer base in people with disabilities. Restaurants in particular have been witnessing an influx in ADA lawsuits for not being in compliance with these accessibility requirements – costing them hundreds of thousands each year.
• Prioritizing mobile – Google has initiated mobile-first indexing, which means they now rank your site in the search engines based on your mobile presence. Your mobile site has always been important, but now that more people search on mobile than desktop, it’s imperative to make mobile a top priority. A bad mobile experience can literally kill sales. In fact, according to a Google survey, when people have a negative brand experience on mobile, they are over 60% less likely to purchase from that brand in the future.
• Video marketing – Video marketing is not a trend – its popularity continues to skyrocket year after year. Shoppers who view video are 1.81X more likely to purchase than non-viewers, and 51.9% of marketers say video provides the best ROI of all marketing tactics. From animated explainer videos, brand videos, product/services videos to video ads on social media, if you haven’t started setting aside a portion of your marketing budget for video yet, you’re missing a huge opportunity.
• Native advertising – Native advertising blurs the lines between content and advertising. In fact, you’ve probably seen native ads and not realized they were ads. These non-disruptive ads appear to just be part of normal online content, unlike traditional banner ads or pop-ups which many people now block. A recent report from the Mobile Marketing Association showed that mobile native ads performed 10X better than mobile display ads, and that users spent 40% more time interacting with native ads than with traditional ads.
• Programmatic marketing – Programmatic media buying is on the rise. This is where ads of all kinds (display, social media, mobile, video, etc.) are placed using artificial intelligence and real-time bidding and are specifically targeted to your audience based on a data-driven strategy. Programmatic advertising can increase campaign effectiveness, while lowering customer acquisition costs. According to eMarketer, 85% of mobile digital display ads in the US will be programmatic by 2019.
• Geotargeting/Geofencing – Geotargeting markets to people instantly, based on their location, serving up targeted mobile content via an app, text, webpage or ad. Geofencing is a subset of this, where you market to people entering, exiting or within a specific perimeter. This tactic is most effective for businesses that have specific locations or stores and can be a great way to build loyalty and drive sales. Since 80% of Americans now have a smartphone and take it with them everywhere, this is a powerful way to reach them exactly when and where you want.

Safety First

And speaking of planning ahead, be sure to take measures to “disaster proof” your site. Does your site have an SSL certificate? Not only can it make your website more secure from hackers, it can also improve your ranking in search. Is your CMS up to date? Having the latest version and installing patches when required can also prevent problems before they happen. Finally, are your servers fully backed up and redundant? You may want to consider cloud-based hosting, so if the power goes out locally, your site doesn’t go down.

Forgetting Something?

Hey! Did you remember to download your 2020 marketing strategy template? If you want your marketing plan to carry you off into the sunset, you need to strategize first. Download the template. Use the template. Rejoice.

Download Template

There you have it. This 2020 marketing plan covers safety, accessibility, trends, strategy, and effective tactics. All that’s left to do is draft up the document and push it out to your huddled masses. Still confused, maybe a little scared? Roger West can help.