The perfect resource for beginner to advanced digital marketers

Business for start up

1. Your road to success
BUSINESS START-UP
& ENTREPRENEURSHIP
2017

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Element 5 –Creating a digital marketing plan for a small business
Learning outcome 8 –Develop a creative digital marketing plan for a small
business
This presentation is provided by ABE for tutors to use to facilitate classroom
learning, in conjunction with the session plans and activities supplied. Please
involve your students actively in your sessions, using the ideas provided here -
plus some of your own.
ABE LEVEL 3 AWARD IN DIGITAL MARKETING
ESSENTIALS FOR SMALL BUSINESSES

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THE DIGITAL MARKETING PLAN
8. Develop a digital marketing plan for a small business (Weighting 35%)
Learning Outcomes:
8.1Summarise the background and analytical steps to developing a digital marketing plan
•Setting effective objectives and consider acquisition, customer retention and customer loyalty
•Provide the market context for the digital marketing plan i.e. an outline of the market in which the business operates
•Understanding the target market and their behaviour online
•Setting the budget
8.2Recommend messaging, digital tools and scheduling within a digital marketing plan
•Designing an appropriate message
•Developing an appropriate mix of digital and online tools capable of achieving the objectives
•Develop a schedule of activities for implementation
8.3Recommend methods of measuring the effectiveness of the digital marketing plan
•Monitoring performance
•Methods of measuring success
•Use of analytics

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A DIGITAL MARKETING
PLAN FOR A SMALL
BUSINESS

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Background and analysis
If you don’t record what you want to do before you start, how are you able
to know what works, what’s a good use of your time and what will make
your business a success?
A plan will help you make sure:
•Everything is in place from the start
•Time is not wasted in repetition or doing the things that don’t contribute to your goals
•Predictions are realistic, objectives are set and methodology established

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What are your aims in terms of digital
marketing?
An effective objective will be:
•Clear
•Focused
•Quantified
Setting your objectives

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Defining your objectives
•People seeing your social content, blogs, videos, digital PR
Reach
•People clicking on or interacting with your online activity
Engagement
•People following you on social media
Acquisition
•People responding to a call to action such as signing up to a
mailing list or newsletterConversion
•People purchasing your products or service or revenue earned from
online purchasesSales
•Repeat customers
Retention
•Customers who share your product or service with friends, or
positively review youLoyalty

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Defining your market
To give your digital marketing plan focus, you need to define the market
in which your business sits
This can be as simple as one sentence that covers:
•what you sell or what service you offer
•to who
•in which space

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•Be specific: having too broad of a market
means you cannot be focused
•Look at how your competitors describe
themselves on their website and on social
media for inspiration
•Think of this as your elevator pitch: the one
liner you use to tell people what your
business is about
Tips for defining your market

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Who are your target customers?
Factors
to
consider
Age, gender,
marital
status,
location
Types of
jobs they do
Interests,
likes and
affiliations
Social
platforms
they use
Content they
consume: TV,
newspapers,
websites
Shopping,
booking and
spending
habits
Politics and
beliefs

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Assigning a budget
Some online activities are free, e.g. PR and blogs, whilst others will have to be paid for
Assigning a budget for your plan allows you to allocate money and plan
your spending.
What do you need to pay for?
•Manpower –your time, and anyone else you need to pay for.
•Advertising –social media adverts, banner adverts, search adverts.
•Design –buying photos, hiring a photographer and designer to create on-demand
images.
•Tools and platforms membership –depending on which tools you choose.

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Defining your budget
Your budget should fall between these two metrics:
How much money
you have
How much money is
reasonable to achieve
your objectives

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MESSAGING, DITIGAL
TOOLS AND SCHEDULING
WITHIN A DIGITAL
MARKETING PLAN

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Designing appropriate messaging
Messaging informs all the communications in your digital marketing –whether that’s
written, in images, or in video and audio content.
Digital marketing messaging is how you talk about your business online
Your messaging must do three things simultaneously:
•represent you, your business and your brand
•appeal to your target customers
•connect to your marketing objectives

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The key components of messaging are the:
•digital marketing tone of voice: the words
and language used
•central marketing message: the message
that links directly to digital marketing
objectives.
Creating your message

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Establishing a digital marketing tone of voice
Your digital tone of voice will inform:
•how you phrase your social media posts in words and images
•how you write your emails
•your longer-form content: written, audio, video
•the written content on your website
•the words you use on digital sales platforms

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Think about your tone of voice
Do you use
exclamation
marks?
Do you use
complicated
words?
Do you quote
statistics and
numbers or
phrases?
Do you use
emojis, or
popular
acronyms like
‘lol’?
Do you use
adverbs or other
descriptions?
Do you refer to
the business as
‘I’ or ‘we’ or ‘it’?

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Establishing your central marketing message
A central marketing message describes what you offer, to who, and what
makes you special.
A central marketing message is used:
•in an ‘about me’ section on social media or digital sales platforms
•in cover photos on social media
•in long-form content, to give a hook to the audience
•as part of a call-to-action, which drives sales
•in email messaging to remind subscribers what the business does
•prominently on a website

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What makes a strong central marketing message?
Simple and clear
Online attention is
limited, so make the
most of it
Message must help
people easily
understand what you
are selling
Represents the
brand uniquely
Message must
represent what you
offer specifically
It should align with
your digital marketing
tone of voice
Helps meet
business objectives
There must be a
clear relationship
between your
central marketing
message and the
goals your business
hopes to achieve

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Steps to creating a strong marketing message
Research Brainstorm Refine Test

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Implementing a digital marketing plan
Tool Example
Audiovisual content YouTube, Vimeo, Soundcloud, iTunes
Blogs/website/online store Wordpress, Tumblr, Squarespace, Wix
Online sales platform eBay, Etsy, Amazon, PayPal
Social media Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, Pinterest, LinkedIn
Email Mailchimp, YouSentIt, Gmail (or a combination)
Implementing a digital marking plan is likely to involve a combination of
online and digital tools. The tools you choose need to be appropriate for
your niche or your local area.

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The online sales funnel
1 –Identify and
introduce
2 –Capture
and engage
3 –Campaign
and sell

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Creating a schedule
It is broken down into monthly, weekly and daily tasks depending on your objectives, the
market your business is in, and your target market’s online behaviour.
A schedule helps you manage the activities of an online business.
Scheduling your digital marketing activities means:
•you can plan your time efficiently
•you have ready-made to-do lists to help you stay organised

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A content plan
A content plan helps you schedule all the content you need to create and
publish, so that it is created on time and sufficient to meet your
objectives.
Content type Suggested Frequency
Long-form content 1–2 per week
Social media 10–20 per week
Design As required
Email 1 per week, or on a campaign basis
Adverts 1 set per week
Digital PR and influencer 1–3 per month
Social proof (testimonials or referrals): 1–3 per month

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MEASURING THE
EFFECTIVENESS OF A
DIGITAL MARKETING
PLAN

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Measuring effectiveness
Tracking progress from the start enables you to monitor the effectiveness of your digital
marketing attempts, and focus more time and attention on those which are bringing you
closer to your objectives.
Once you’ve set your objectives and created a plan, you need to keep
track of how close you’re getting to your goals.

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Monitoring performance
Test Learn Adapt
The key principle of monitoring digital
marketing
A simple spreadsheet in Google Sheet or Excel can be used to record monthly progress
towards meeting your digital marketing objectives.
For example: If your objectives relate to follower growth, include a column to record the
monthly increase in followers on each social media platform.

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Some digital tools have built-in analytics.
It is important to check whether:
•you need to set up tracking of specific goals
in advance such as in Google Analytics
•you look retrospectively like on most social
platforms
•the analytic tool measures the exact metrics
you are looking for in relation to your
objectives
Use of analytics

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Measuring success
Tracking progress from the beginning of your digital marketing journey enables you to
benchmark against your own success.
Benchmarks may be available online, but they may not match your
unique situation such as your market, skills, budget and local area.
Measuring success for the first six months:
•Are you improving month-on-month in each metric you are measuring?
•Are you learning new things each month that help you adapt your plan?
Measuring success after six months:
•Based on the numbers you recorded each month from the start, what reasonable targets can you
look to reach in 6 months’ time?

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KPIs are a numerical measure that shows your
success in a specific area
They should be attainable but challenging and
therefore should:
•Be based on your changing performance
over time so far
•Drive you to achieve the maximum rather
than staying static.
For example: Grow 50 followers per week
Key performance indicators (KPIs)

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