Student entrepreneurs need a great marketing strategy to stand out in the competitive business environment, which requires patience, effort, innovation, and industry expertise. It doesn’t cost much money and requires skills just as you will write a business proposal or an essay. This is a simple guide with comprehensive tools, knowledge, and skills for writing a viable marketing plan.
Your business plan serves as a road map for developing a potent strategy that catapults your fledgling company to new heights. It also distinguishes your firm from rivals operating in the same market.
Whether you are a seasoned entrepreneur or a new college student, building your brand remains a perpetual process. This is a simple guide with comprehensive tools, knowledge, and skills for writing a good marketing plan.
Why Your Startup Needs A Marketing Plan
A marketing plan helps businesses navigate the complexities of their markets while forging a path to prosperity and growth. It acts as a blueprint that separates a business from its competitors, and it clearly defines the strategy to achieve different goals.
A marketing plan can help turn business goals into reality by providing direction, deadlines, and actionable tactics. This article provides a step-by-step guide on how to write a viable marketing plan for your student startup.
There is a lot of rivalry these days, regardless of your sector. You require a method of standing out from the throng. You must establish your brand and demonstrate your capabilities to potential customers. This is why you need to learn the arts and science of writing a viable marketing plan for your startup, especially if you are a student.
Specifically, a viable marketing plans allow your company to:
- increase brand recognition
- increase customer engagement
- build trust and authenticity
- encouraging earned media
- provide assistance with sales
- Align marketing goals with business goals
- Stay focused on what’s important
- Make better decisions
Types of Marketing Plan
Just as there are several types of marketing strategies, there are numerous types of marketing plans. Some of them include:
- Quarterly or Annual Marketing Plan: Quarterly and annual marketing plans create smaller, more detailed plans for all the marketing activities that will happen in the next quarter or year.
- Social media marketing plans: This plan includes campaign information, repurposing guidelines across social media channels and who’s in the social media team.
- content marketing plan: outlines all the content pillars for the brand and what content types need to be created for each pillar.
- Influencer marketing plans: concentrate on outlining all steps to implement an influencer strategy.
- market development plans: focus on business objectives like developing distribution channels and increasing brand awareness.
- Product development plans: outline the activities dealing with marketing new products to existing customers.
Steps to Craft Your Viable Marketing Plan
- Formulate Goals
- Identify Target Market and Build Brand Awareness
- Define you target customer
- Present your marketing strategy
- Set KPIs
- Set Your Budget
- Adjust Plan Accordingly
- Drive customer interest
- Build Relationships to Promote Customer Retention
Now, let briefly look into each of these steps…
1. Formulate Goals
The same way that it is virtually difficult to start a road journey without knowing where you are going, you must first identify your marketing and business goals. Establish your marketing and business goals in order to connect with leads or prospects and convince them to become clients.
The most important details in a marketing plan are to specify what you aim to achieve and use actual numbers instead of vague statements. For example, if your goal is to increase website traffic, mention the exact target so you can track to see if you achieved it or not.
In addition, marketing goals should be SMART goals, which are Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-Bound. The target is defined as a percentage and a deadline can be added to make it time-bound.
We recommend using a SWOT analysis that includes the following:
- Strength
- Weakness
- Opportunities
- Threats
SWOT is a handy acronym to help you keep track of the areas you need to identify when building your new marketing plan. Start writing down your short list of goals while making them measurable and feasible. Remember that marketing goals should be directly linked to the startup’s objectives, so keep to that.
2. Identify the Market and Competition
Identifying the target marketing is a critical component of a marketing plan for a startup. You should have a clear understanding of the market you are going into and the existing market competition.
What can you possibly achieve without identifying whom you are selling to? No matter how great of a marketing plan, product, or service you have, customers are crucial to the success of your small business.
You must define your target customer so you can structure your marketing strategy to meet their needs. But how can you determine your target audience?
You can achieve this by defining the value proposition, listing the unique benefits of your product, conducting a competitor analysis, analyzing the current market situation, studying the competition, and looking into the company’s strengths and weaknesses.
3. Define Your Target Customer and Build Brand Awareness
It is important to identify the target audience and target market to create more informed and tailored marketing strategies. The target customer for every business is different, but the goal is to increase customer awareness.
You may also have more than one kind of customer. For example, a clothing store could be making products for both teens and older women at the same time. After you have identified your target audience, the next important thing is to build brand awareness. Learn to brand your business here.
4. State Your Marketing Strategy
Your marketing plan cannot be complete if you fail to state categorically the strategies you hope to employ to achieve the set goals.
Write down marketing strategies and tactics to execute, including what to do, how to do it, and channels to use.
5. Set KPIs
KPIs are quantifiable metrics that measure the overall success of marketing efforts. They track their marketing goals’ progress while identifying improvement areas and measuring the marketing activities related to a startup’s success.
KPIs should be specific and measurable, such as gaining 1,000 new followers or an average email click-through rate (CTR). As the business grows, it may want to reevaluate which KPIs and metrics make the most sense. To know if a marketing campaign is a success, start recording baseline metrics right away so that you will have something to compare future growth or decline against.
6. Set Your Budget
It is important to set out a budget to cover the incurred costs of creating marketing. This includes assessing your current financial situation and determining how much money you can realistically dedicate to it. Once you have determined how much money you have for marketing, you need to divide it up based on which strategies are most valuable to your business.
For example, if your target market is a younger demographic that only interacts with your product on social media, you may want to allot a significant chunk of your budget to your social media campaigns. If your blog is your most powerful marketing tool, you may want to dedicate more resources to hiring expert writers.
7. Adjust Plan Accordingly
Startups must remain agile and responsive to their target market’s needs by regularly monitoring their marketing performance.
This includes reviewing KPIs and objectives, using marketing data to identify what works, staying abreast of trends and customer needs, and adjusting tactics to include new opening markets and opportunities.
Now that you’ve cast a wide net, it’s time to narrow the funnel. At this stage, your consumer is aware of your brand, so it’s time to drive their interest toward a specific product or a service.
One way of doing this is to tell them stories about how your products differ from the competitors’. Tell them how your products can solve a problem or fill a void. One thing that will always remain true is that stories sell and that they build brand awareness.
8. Drive Customer Interest
Now that you’ve cast a wide net, it’s time to narrow the funnel. At this stage, your consumer is aware of your brand, so it’s time to drive their interest toward a specific product or a service.
One way of doing this is to tell them stories about how your products differ from the competitors’. Tell them how your products can solve a problem or fill a void. One thing that will always remain true is that stories sell and that they build brand awareness.
Additionally, you should emphasize how your products can meet customer needs and improve something in their life.
Recommended: How to Set The Best Price for Your Products
9. Build Relationships to Promote Customer Retention
The final step of the full-funnel approach is to foster relationships with potential clients to improve customer retention. Personalizing marketing efforts is a unique strategy for increasing customer retention.
To promote consumer retention, keep them engaged with your brand by offering incentives through email marketing and other platforms, as well as telling stories that make sense for your brand and connecting with your customer.
Finally, maintain a strong customer service department so that when it’s time for a repeat purchase, they have another smooth experience.
Bottom Line
In conclusion, the long-term success of a student startup depends on crafting a viable marketing plan. First, lay the foundation of your marketing approach by combining your goals, target market, KPIs, budget, and customer relationships. Then, recall that your marketing plan is a live document adjusted based on market events.
You’ve got the tools to create a viable marketing plan. Stick to the five steps, and you can make it happen.
- Formulate Goals
- Identify Target Market and Build Brand Awareness
- Define you target customer
- Present your marketing strategy
- Set KPIs
- Set Your Budget
- Adjust Plan Accordingly
- Drive customer interest
- Build Relationships to Promote Customer Retention
