The 3+1 Method…How To Craft Your Marketing Plan! [Step 3]
Restored from the Empower Network archive (2011–2017), lightly edited to meet our current advertising standards. Views are the original author’s.
Congratulations on making it this far and to Step 3 inside How To Craft Your Marketing Plan.
And so far we completed 2 critical steps to making sure your “marketing hat” is on straight. We have found:
- Our Target Market
- The Message To Our Market
Now it is time we discuss where we are going to market…
Step 3. THE MEDIUM
The Medium is nothing more than the “where” or the “place” you will consistently present your message so that it gets in front of the eyes of your target market. The medium is extremely important and is something most people don’t truly consider.
For example, (let’s switch it up a little) let’s say you are targeting new mothers, women who have just had their first baby. The average mind instantly thinks they have got to get on the radio, or in Babie’s R Us, or in the local newspaper or TV..yeah, TV would be awesome! Right??
Aside from the high costs of these traditional mediums, lets consider their effectiveness and measure-ability.
Number 1:
If you were to run a radio ad, could you determine the time of the day that new mother would be listening, so you could run your ad during that spot?
Number 2:
How many mothers are listening to THAT station? Do mothers even listen to that station?
Number 3:
How many mothers have actually purchased something as a result of hearing an ad from that station? For how much? etc…
So if you were going to spend the money on a radio spot, what types of demographic and psycho-graphic data do you have to help you determine whether even running this spot could be profitable for you?
Does the data you gathered in Step 1 actually match up to this medium…does it make sense to advertise “here”?
And to be honest, most people EVER ever consider these factors. But as a marketer, that IS your job…that is what you get paid to do. You get paid to take a message and match it to the corresponding market, and when you do that successfully, you make sales, and when you make sales you get paid!! See how this works?
Today’s exercise is designed to help you identify 1 and no more than 2 mediums that you can effectively use to get your message in front of your market. And I say no more than 2 because a home based business owner, going through this training, you are still learning, there may be some time costs or some money costs and you do not want to spread yourself too thin.
In keeping with our example above using new mothers as the target market, maybe a new mommies blog would be ideal for you to contribute posts as a guest blogger. It’s free and clearly the people you want to buy from you are socializing there.
Or maybe a new mommies meetup group (for my more belly to belly peeps)! Get out and hang out amongst the new mommies and take sample of what you have while learning about them and getting to know what they want in their lives to assist them. Offering your product as a solution to a problem THEY state they have (not that you want to convince them to have) wil make you a God-send to them…or at least they will feel that way!
In order to hit a bulls eye, you have got to have focus and aim specifically towards that center. NOT try to hit every point all over the board because the conventional thinking you have gathered along your journey (which is most likely wrong) has you thinking you can reach more people by marketing everywhere at once.
That is a crock of crap…so get rid of that mentality, it will hurt you along the way. Choose 1 no more than 2 advertising platforms to work with for now.
In making your selection, keep in mind where YOUR target market ALREADY hangs out. Where do they spend their free time? Where do they ask questions or support others who are similar to them? What are their interests and where do people with those interests actually browse around?
Knowing your target market was FIRST on purpose…because you must KNOW who they are. Establishing your message was SECOND on purpose, because you MUST KNOW what they want and where they are most like to go looking for it.
Now that you are determining your medium, where you advertise and where your target market is looking for the solution to their problems MUST overlap….and that is the sweet spot!
Take today to do a little more research and decide on the 2 place you will be advertising to get your message out to your market. Do not worry about what to say on the advertising platform just yet…do not jump the gun. For now just decide where the most ideal place or places would be and have that down in this marketing plan.
As you can see, today’s lesson wasn’t so hard afterall, and guess what?
We are one step away from completion of this training series.
You’re almost done with your Basic Marketing Plan…how does it feel?
Hopefully you should feel more confident in your business and in your approach! And that in turn should feel pretty darn good!
Once you have chose your 1 or 2 mediums, go ahead and post them in the comments section below so I can see how you are progressing and whether or not you are actually giving this plan a go!
Be back here tomorrow for our last and final step, which is your USP!
I’ll show you how to create a Unique Selling Proposition that will help you to stand out from the competition! And this is a killer module!
So again, choose your mediums, share them in the comments section below and I’ll see you on tomorrow!
To your success,
~Tracey
P.S. If you have already completed this step and you are ready for the Bonus Step,
If you need a little more review on your Marketing Message and want take another look at Step 2,