This piece was written in celebration of National Small Business Week Effective marketing, like anything else that is dynamic, has a life cycle. In broad terms, it is made up of three stages: 1- Creating a strategic plan A cycle is a multistage process that repeats itself, and for marketing, the cycle starts with creating a plan, and ends with measurement. The strategic plan allows one to devise tactics, and the measurement stage provides intelligence that informs one about the success or failure of those tactics. Armed with the information gleaned from the measurement stage, one may modify the strategic plan, which starts the cycle all over again. A strategic plan is a living, breathing document, so one is never really done creating a plan! I can’t say that I really blame them because of the following reasons: 1- The barrier to entry for using social media is very low. All you have to do is create a profile and start posting. So, they jump in with two feet! 2- They are constantly being told that marketing via social media is free and easy. 3- They have a “friend” who uses social media and claims that scheduling posts through Buffer is the solution to their frustrations. 4- They hear success stories from other brands or business owners without realizing the huge amount of work required to find success. Some are even not realizing that there is a multi-step cycle to marketing! How can one get unstuck from the middle? The solution to getting unstuck from the middle and ending overwhelm and frustration with social media is to go through and complete all of the steps in the marketing life cycle: Take the time to create a strategic plan. This requires you to clearly define the following: Take the time to implement the strategy which is: Take the time to regularly keep track of: If going through the marketing cycle sounds like a lot of work, it’s probably because it is! I never said effective marketing was going to be easy, only that it would help one get unstuck and get results. ___________________________________________________________________ Follow Sherry on Twitter: @snouraini
2- Implementation
3- Measurement
So, what does this have to do with being stuck in the middle? Allow me to elaborate. I have been working with many small business owners and non-profits who come to me because they are frustrated and overwhelmed with social media. They spend hours scheduling status updates and writing blog posts, and spend tons of money on social ads, but they get very little value for their investment. One thing I have noticed to be common among the members of this population is that they are stuck in the middle of the marketing life cycle. They get stuck because they don’t start with a strategic plan and are not sure how to measure success.
1. Your Mission and Vision
2. Your business goals and SMART objectives
3. Your resources
4. Your personality and voice
5. Your target market
6. Your target market’s communities (where do they hangout)
7. Your tactics and metrics
8. Your tools
1. Informed by your strategic plan
2. Centers around engagement rather than scheduling content
1. The metrics defined in your strategic plan
2. Whether your tactics are getting you closer to your business goals
Sherry Nouraini is Founder and President of Captive Touch, a social media education and coaching company. Sherry is also a professor of Marketing via New Media at UCSD Extension, and serves on the Board of Timberwolves Foundation as Director of Social Media. Sherry is also an adjunct professor of biology at San Diego City College, where she uses the power of social media to enhance student engagement and instill in her students a love for science. Through these efforts, Sherry aims to teach consultants, organizations and individuals the art and science of communicating via social media in a way that is engaging, empowering, measurable and based on sound strategy.
[May 4-8], which highlights the impact of outstanding entrepreneurs and small business owners around the country and recognizes their accomplishments and contributions.
