Basics, Outlines and a Marketing Plan

I had a conversation today about simple marketing skills. I guess studying communications in college and working in PR for almost 4 years---marketing comes to me naturally. It's what I love doing and it's what I like to do. For others, it's not as easy and I forget that.

As my interest in technology continues to grow, and my world collides with startups at different events, I'm always interested in hearing what there marketing plans are. If they have any. While I understand that product comes first before any type of marketing plan for them, I think that at some point before the final product you'll need to start thinking about how you're going to promote it. Then once your final product is done, you're all set to go and you can have a full launch. Some startups do it. They blog, they post anti-stealth---it's great. But many don't and they need to push out the news that the company is ready to go at a later time. Why wait? Why not start the buzz that something is coming? (Yes---be careful. Too much "just you wait and see" can be negative and cause for backlash if the product doesn't come out as planned. If you're almost there though, go for it. Talk it up!)

So, back to my conversation I had today with someone who works at a company that I would consider a startup. They've been around a bit, but they're still new. They don't really have a marketing plan and are looking to drive traffic to their site (like many online companies) The question came up--How do I write a basic marketing plan? While this may sound like a big task to some, you can simplify it. I tried doing this today. Hopefully my advice worked.

Without giving away all of my secrets and ideas (have to keep some in my back pocket!) here's what I told her as an easy way to start a basic marketing plan.

1. Audience: Who are you trying to reach? If you can't answer this question, there is no way to move forward. Segment your audience into tiers. From most important audience to less, figure out where they are, what they're reading, what they're doing online and off. How do you find this information? It's not easy but a simple blog search of keywords on Technorati, checking out top blogs on AllTop and some trending topic searches in major publications and market research reports from media journals like Pew are good places to start
2. Phase it out. Once you have your audience figured out, or at least segmented, map out a timeline. Phase One for pre-buzz, Phase Two for post buzz and building out how you're going to reach out, Phase Three for follow up. While the phases are very broad, use them as placeholders to fill in with details based on your product.
   
3. Be ready for change. Marketing plans are great when you make them, but if you're not willing to be flexible with it---be prepared for some trouble. The market will change. Be on top of the latest trends and adapt to what people are interested in. Two years ago, PR peeps were not thinking of sending YouTube videos created by their client as part of a pitch. Now? We LOVE them. Keep your plan flexible without breaking away from the audience and main objective and you'll be golden.

Yes, as many things are---this is vague and basic. I can provide a more detailed approach, but for now and based off the conversation I had today--let's start with this and go from there. It's a start and I'm happy to continue discussing this topic. Have other tips to add? Post in the comments.