PPC Advertisement Mississauga

1. Your road to success • BUSINESS START-UP • & Digital Marketing

2. ABE LEVEL 3 AWARD IN DIGITAL MARKETING ESSENTIALS FOR SMALL BUSINESSES Element 5 – Creating a digital marketing plan for a small businessLearning outcome 8 – Develop a creative digital marketing plan for a small business

3. THE DIGITAL MARKETING PLAN Learning Outcomes:  8. Develop a digital marketing plan for a small business (Weighting 35%) 8.1 Summarise 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 8.2 Recommend 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 8.3 Recommend methods of measuring the effectiveness of the digital marketing plan • Monitoring performance • Methods of measuring success • Use of analytics

4. A DIGITAL MARKETING PLAN FOR A SMALL BUSINESS

5. 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

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

7. Defining your objectives

8. 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

9. Tips for defining your market • 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

10. Who are your target customers?

11. Assigning a budget Assigning a budget for your plan allows you to allocate money and plan your spending. Some online activities are free, e.g. PR and blogs, whilst others will have to be paid for 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.

12. 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

13. MESSAGING, DITIGAL TOOLS AND SCHEDULING WITHIN A DIGITAL MARKETING PLAN

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

15. Creating your message 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.

16. 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

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

18. 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

19. What makes a strong central marketing message?

20. Steps to creating a strong marketing message

21. Implementing a digital marketing plan 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.

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

23. Creating a schedule A schedule helps you manage the activities of an online business. 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. Scheduling your digital marketing activities means: • you can plan your time efficiently • you have ready-made to-do lists to help you stay organised

24. 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.

25. MEASURING THE EFFECTIVENESS OF A DIGITAL MARKETING PLAN

26. Measuring effectiveness Once you’ve set your objectives and created a plan, you need to keep track of how close you’re getting to your goals. 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.

27. Monitoring performance 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. The key principle of monitoring digital marketing

28. Use of analytics 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

29. Measuring success Benchmarks may be available online, but they may not match your unique situation such as your market, skills, budget and local area. Tracking progress from the beginning of your digital marketing journey enables you to benchmark against your own success. 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?

30. Key performance indicators (KPIs) 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