What Is A Big-Picture Marketing Plan?

When looking at marketing there are a lot of different ways to approach it. But the truth of the matter is that the large-scale overview of what it takes to create a viable marketing plan is very important, and well beyond a single section in a business.

Businesses are multifaceted, and involve more than just the production of products or delivery of services.

Well-run businesses also include management, planning, communications, ethics (company standards both for within the company, and for what is permitted from clients or customers), promotion, marketing, sales, finance (both accounts payable and accounts receivable, along with bookkeeping and general financial planning and management), quality assurance, and public relations.

In order to put together a solid marketing plan, a bit of a bird’s eye view is needed which looks at the big picture of everything, because a breakdown in anything can affect marketing efforts.

Some big picture questions are:

• What exactly is the business or brand and what does it offer?

• Do people know the business exists and understand what it offers?

• Is there a good flow of new customers or clients? If more are wanted, do you know where to find them? If you don’t know where to find them, do you know how to find out where to find them?

• When a lead for a sale comes in, what happens? Is there someone there to manage it, answer questions, follow up, and close the sale? Once closed, are the delivery resources available to deliver what was sold? Once delivered to, do people leave reviews? Are positive reviews promoted?

• Are the personnel of the business utilized? For a super small business this might mean developing a schedule with allocated time to work on marketing. For a business with staff it might mean reviewing the production of the staff and their downtime. Is there a delivery driver paid hourly who waits around between deliveries but could help schedule Social Media posts? Is there a receptionist watching YouTube between phone calls who could be sending emails or doing outreach?

• What is the product quality? How is the customer service? Is it easy to get questions answered or does it take 6 web forms, a chatbot, and a sacrificial email address to talk to a person?

• Are common questions easily answered and incorporated into the marketing to help people understand the business or products offered?

• Is any of the promotion educational? Does it help people understand more about the field and why they even need that product or service, how to access it, what to expect, and why this specific business or brand is the best option for what they need?

• Are goals set in a range, meaning the immediate urgent ones are given priority, while longer-term or “nice to have” goals are set as things to do later?

• Is the marketing plan managed? Are targets reviewed and progress noted? Are things that are running behind looked into and supported to reach the goals? Are goals that are met acknowledged and celebrated?

• Has “just go viral on Social Media” become the core drive for all marketing? Or are all forms of connecting with community and potential clients and customers explored?

• Do you know what type of content should be shared and is that the content being shared?

Using those questions you can give yourself at least the start of a “big-picture” plan.

When we do a full marketing consultation, in-depth questions are asked, with a conversation as needed for each question. That part usually takes about an hour, and is followed by a review of existing marketing (website, emails, any social media posts, etc). From all of that a proposed plan is put together including an overview of what was reviewed, what was found to be strong and what areas could potentially use more attention or repair.

Different marketing targets are written out, with notes as to what is priority, what should be looked at next, and what could be considered for the future. And once the plan is delivered it is yours to work on.

When we come on to support marketing services, we help to execute the plan, and as part of that we meet monthly to review how things are going and support with reaching all of the goals. That is also why our monthly services have a minimum service window, because we need to ensure you’re not going to waste money starting a project with no opportunity to finish it, and give us enough time to get you results!

For those who aren’t ready to hire someone to support them with marketing services, this blog goes out for free, and the questions above are a good place to start!

There’s several dozen posts covering many aspects of marketing planning and execution, content creation, and social media. And if you ever need help, we’re here for you - no chatbot required! Fill out the “Contact Us” form below, or drop us an email, give us a call, reach out on any of our socials - we’re pretty easy to reach!