The first step in putting together a marketing communications plan for your business is to know who your customers are. That answers our first question:
1. Who should receive your marketing messages?
The next two questions are:
2. What should the messages say?
3. What image of my business do I want to project?
A message should reflect your company's mission statement (if you have one). It should reflect what your organisation does and believes, or talk about a particular product or service you offer.
A message or set of messages are the building blocks for all of your communications, e.g. adverts, press releases, website content, brochures, social media content, etc.
Some tips:
- Think about your audiences and carefully consider what you want them to think about you. Will your message make them take action?
- Make sure the messages are clear and concise – keep it simple and memorable.
- Don't forget the ‘why’, i.e. answer why your organisation does what it does.
You can then move on to the next few questions:
4. What's your budget?
5. How will the messages be delivered?
6. What actions do you want people to take after they've received the messages?
7. What 'control' methods will you use – i.e. how will you make sure that the messages don't get disrupted?
8. How will you summarise what was achieved, e.g. find out what return on investment was achieved?
After this you'll be in a great position to start making decisions about what types of marketing communications tools (website, paid advertising, social media etc) you need for your business.