Last year I put together a “one-sheet” Marketing Plan for a major companies fledgling web business. Senior management was impressed with what I presented – but, I ended up not accepting the assignment. Therefore, since a good amount of time has passed I have decided to share what I put together (with all identifiable information removed). The Marketing Plan was meant to be brief, yet detailed, and focus on immediate results / ROI using minimal guidelines and budget.
What do you think? What would you have added / changed?
Marketing Plan for Multi-Channel Web Focused Business
Budget: $20,000 (no paper based materials)
Overview
Making the assumption that every other standard online channel is being covered and working within the limitation of no paper based materials, the challenge is to spend $20,000 in a manner that would deliver the highest ROI possible. The goal for this budget should be a combination of traffic generation, branding / exposure and the completion of the shopping experience by as large of an audience as possible.
Taking into account the budget and goals, below are the best options
Options
• Guerrilla (offline) marketing
• Contests / viral marketing
• Social Media Marketing / Advertising
• Online display / remnant media space
• Integrated marketing
• Partnership marketing
• User-generated content
• Local / targeted online & offline advertising
• Pay-Per-Click
• Lead Generation
• In-store promotions
• Email marketing
Marketing Plan
Looking at all of the available options and focusing on a strategy that would ideally deliver in 3 areas: low cost, high impact and broad reach. The ideal solution would be the creation of an online / offline contest that focuses on social / viral components. The reason for the effectiveness of a contest over other marketing channels is that the exposure is potentially unlimited. The viral nature of a contest brings the possibility of increasing the effective audience exponentially – where other marketing strategies will have exposure limited to what is paid for.
Contest Details: “Win a $1,000 shopping spree”
Contest Components
• Online scavenger hunt using xyz.com
• Contestants search selected sites for specific clues that lead to products found on xyz.com and in stores. The first “x” people to complete all tasks correctly win the shopping spree.
• Promoted via Facebook, Twitter, blogger outreach, email database, partnerships, Press Releases and small budget PPC / display advertising.
• Contest can be focused on specific regions or nationwide.
• Benefits include increased traffic to targeted websites, viral / word-of-mouth promotion, increased brand awareness and increased in-store traffic.
Other contest options
• Contest that focuses on specific geographic locations – for example: xyz@xyz stores compete to collect the most recyclable materials – winning store gives a donation to a local charity.
• “Create your own xyz.com commercial” – winner, chosen by the people, would receive $5,000 and their video featured in an online advertising campaign.
• Product review contest – each product review written is an entry into a contest where a winner of a xyz.com shopping spree is chosen at random.
It should be noted that unknown variables specific to the executive business plan would impact the actual marketing strategy – for example: a focus on local versus regional versus national.
Success / Impact
How successful any marketing plan is depends on what the goals and objectives are. In this case, based on the strategy, success can be measured in 4 specific ways.
1. Site Traffic
• The most measurable success metric would be the amount of traffic a marketing plan generates.
2. Site Conversions
• Driving traffic to a website is vital; however the focus should be on getting visitors to utilize the website to its fullest business potential.
3. Retention
• The key component of success for any online start-up goes beyond traffic generation. It is imperative that the people who come to xyz.com keep coming back. This is done by ensuring the best possible user-experience and a solid CRM strategy.
4. Store traffic
• Even though the increase in foot traffic to specific stores might be insignificant when compared to overall numbers, it is the connection with xyz.com that is the greatest value.
