Marketing plan 2020 for small businesses - how to grow your business?

2020 is already in a full swing and many small businesses are still struggling to put their marketing plan in 2020 together. The Marketigation team assembled this easy framework for you to get your 2020 marketing plan going and to grow your business.

Re-visit your mission, vision and marketing mix

Formulate a mission and a vision statement for your company in a written format. If you already have one, re-visit it to ensure it’s up to date and serves the current needs of your business. If you have a marketing plan from last year, go back to it and evaluate how well you did. Furthermore, if you don’t have a plan, give it more thought and start putting down key points for instance in a simple bullet point format.

Frame your marketing mix by writing down details about your product, price, promotion and placement. Most importantly, give the marketing mix process a bit more time and thought. When you’re happy with it, gather feedback from your employees, stakeholders & peers and perfect it until your marketing mix is absolutely bullet proof. This will help you to start your marketing plan for 2020.

Don’t know how to formulate a mission, vision or marketing mix. Read Marketing plan for a small business – how to start it? in the Marketigation blog.

Marketing plan for 2020 key channels

Is your brand identity strong enough?

Think about your company and/or brand names, as well as your logo. Additionally, see how well they support your business and marketing plan and goals. If the match isn’t close to 100%, consider making changes now that it’s still not too late. Hence, remember to use your company/brand name all together with your logo everywhere to build brand recognition.

Analyse your customers for a marketing plan

Based on your target market, research your (potential) customers as much as possible. Also, create a target persona for your company. If you already have a strong existing client base, consider conducting a customer (satisfaction) survey. Furthermore, list the most important metrics to track in your systems, on your website and in social media. Above all, generate meaningful reports out of this data, set ambitious but motivating targets with your staff and follow these metrics on an ongoing basis.

Does your website serve a purpose?

Assess your website and give a grade for the overall

look and feel – does your website look professional and does it convey your overall marketing message?
content – do you have enough unique, highly relevant content for your users?
quality and use of graphics – is there an optimal amount of graphics on your website? Are the graphics clear as well as professional and do they convey the right message about your business?
website structure – is your website easy and clear to navigate and can you quickly find the information you’re looking for?
user-friendliness – is it easy and seamless for users to navigate your website or use any functionality? Furthermore, would your grandma be able to navigate your website?

Additionally, see how much traffic you get to your website on a weekly or monthly basis. Likewise, do you know what the conversion rate for your website is and how much new business do you get out of it. Most noteworthy, consider if this is enough for you or might there be an opportunity to improve?

Make an action plan to improve your website. Hence, utilise the resources and knowledge you have available in your organisation and consider hiring a specialist to get results even faster. When the planned actions have been performed, assess your website even more once again to ensure there has been progress.

Is marketing a key focus for you in 2020?

Want to boost your marketing, but not sure how to get started? Got a marketing plan, but wanna see more performance? Contact us to book a free consulting session to get you going with your marketing in 2020.

Use social media to engage with your audience

Research different social media platforms and their audience profiles and user mindset. Firstly, select the most potential channel to get started with. Secondly, set up your social media account and create a basic content strategy to post high quality content that your audience will find beneficial. Thirdly, plan strategies to get more likes (fans) onto your company Fan Page.

If you’re already present in some social media platforms, assess your company profile, imagery, general information and the frequency and overall quality of your post content. Furthermore, do some competitor research and see what they are posting. Is your content at least as good as your competitors’? Above all, are you getting enough reach and engagement from your posts? Add necessary action items to your list to improve.

Consider complementing your social strategy with paid ads. However, remember to plan and execute your campaigns extremely carefully and well not to burn money for no return.

Interested in doing more social media? Get a free social media checklist for your company in the Marketigation blog.

Create a marketing plan for 2020

Now that you’ve covered some key aspects of marketing planning, it’s time to execute on the most important action items. Based on your notes so far about your marketing mix and marketing strategies, select the most important action items. These are the items that are critical to your business and that will bring the biggest overall impact.

Your items need to be realistic, achievable and concrete. Try to avoid too high level or clichéish items that you won’t be able to execute. Since your action item list might be already long at this stage, pick the most critical items that you think would make the most difference for your business. Furthermore, list the action items in the order of importance (business impact), as well as planned timelines and who is/are responsible to execute them.

Marketing plan 2020 is an ongoing process

Put all short to mid-term action items (from 1 to 12 months) into a table, from the most important to the least important. After that, place all mid to long-term action items (12 months onward) into a separate table, from the most important to the least important.

Remember to involve all key people and stakeholders in your organisation in your business and marketing planning. You can lead the process and do the most critical steps by yourself. But remember, you need your employees and business partners buy into and commit to your plan to make it happen.

From now on, remember to keep your business plan handy and remind yourself of it on an ongoing basis. When you follow these steps, you’ll notice your business will run a lot smoother and you’re more likely to achieve the most desirable business outcomes.