Admit it.  You haven’t started working on your 2010 marketing plan.  Sure, you’ve thought about it and maybe you even built an outline.  You may have held a meeting or two to discuss.  And your calendar for 2010…well, it’s already full of trade shows, weekly meetings with your marketing team, scheduled promotional mailings, and perhaps even a few webinars.  Unfortunately, that’s not really a marketing plan.  And that’s certainly not the way to address interactive marketing.

If you already have your 2010 plan built and ready for action, I commend you.  Based on the organizations that approach us on a daily basis regarding planning, you early planners are in the minority.  The good news – industry wide – is that strategic marketing planning is back in vogue for 2010.

It seemed that the end of 2008 and at least the first half of 2009 were marked by marketing plans that might as well have read “Hold on for dear life and hope people start buying things again.”  2010, on the other hand, feels quite different.  The organizations we’re speaking to, while still cautious, recognize that they need to get back to the business of growth, and they realize that interactive marketing represents a potential driver for this growth.

Organizing, writing and communicating a marketing plan is not an easy task.  As a matter of fact, it’s not a task.  It’s a process.  Whether you’ve been through the process or not, I offer up five tips that ought to help you get started:

1) Ease into planning with a full evaluation of current/past marketing activity and results.

Sit down with the appropriate team of people and evaluate everything you’ve done for the past two years.   I wouldn’t go back more than two years, because your business (and the entire marketing category) has likely changed a good deal during that time period.

Look at both traditional and interactive assets, plans, programs and results.  Make it thorough: brochure, website, direct mail, email, search marketing, events, social media, special promotions, etc.  Leave no stone left unturned.

2) Hire the right people to help.

The execution and results of your 2010 marketing plan will only be as good as the planning and strategy stage.  If you falter on planning, you can count on failing in execution and results.

If you don’t have the right person or people, hire them.  There are plenty of options available: short-term employees, full-time employees, consultants and freelancers to name a few.   Don’t make this the place you skimp.

3) Stop wondering why what you’ve done in the past is not working.

We hear this one all the time.  The typical comment is “I don’t get it.  We used to drop an email to our customers and prospects and…voila…we’d see leads flowing in almost immediately.”

Get over it.  The economy has changed.  Your customers have changed.  Your prospects have changed.  The way people buy has changed.  Everything has changed.  It’s time to move on and stop lamenting why your old marketing methods aren’t working.  Instead, start fixing and planning.

4) Use the data you already have and by all means use everyone else’s data.

Today’s most effective marketing plans are driven – at least in part – by some form of data.  Data comes in all shapes and sizes, but it’s out there and available.  Some forms of data – like your own web analytics – are easy to evaluate.  Other forms of data – like the chart below – may leave you questioning your assumptions about marketing methods.

There are two types of data you can access – your data and data from others.   If you can’t trust your own data…well, that’s an entirely different problem.  Regarding accessing outside sources of data, there are a number of possibilities: analyst reports, research from associations you belong to, conversations with colleagues, attending presentations/webinars on particular topics, reading articles in publications related to  marketing or your industry…there is no excuse for not being able to find data to back your decisions.

5) Document the planning process.

If you do this the right way, you’re going to enjoy it.  Others in your organization will enjoy it too.  That means you’ll get to go through the process again in 6-12 months, maybe even sooner.  Document everything you go through to generate your 2010 marketing plan.  Trust me – you’ll be very thankful you don’t have to reinvent the wheel the next time around.

About the Author: Mike Sweeney is Managing Partner of Right Source Marketing. Don’t hesitate to drop Mike a comment on this post.  Follow Mike on Twitter for more marketing commentary.

So you’re ready to redesign your website.  Or maybe you’ve launched a new business and are designing a new site from the ground up.  Congratulations, while this is going to take some effort and involvement on your part — whether you work with an internal team or bring in a firm or specialist as a partner — it’s going to be exciting, interesting, and probably a chance for you to learn a lot.

Before you do anything though, it’s critical to have a plan.  I know those of you who regularly read Marketing Trenches aren’t at all shocked – it’s rare that we do anything without mentioning a plan.  In this case, what you really need to think about before you do anything with the website is everything that you are going to do after the website.  What do I mean by that?

Let’s face it, the days of “If you build it, they will come” are long gone.  Except with some very rare exceptions, you can’t just launch a website, lay back, and wait for prospects, customers and dollars to roll in.  So, before you even start on your new website, make sure you have planned – and budgeted – for the marketing of that website.  Make sure you have thought about marketing as an ongoing piece of the puzzle as well, not just a burst at launch for a month or two and then nothing.  Don’t think that a launch email and submitting to search engines is all you need, you need to make sure you address all your online and offline marketing channels, including a plan for search, email, and social media among others.

Too often I’ve seen it happens where clients spend a huge chunk of their budget on the website itself and have little if anything budgeted to market it.  Make sure you don’t fall into that trap, even if it means reserving some website pieces for a second phase.  Because without a commitment to a marketing plan, it probably won’t matter what content or features your website has if nobody knows about you.

Think of your ongoing marketing as the fuel for your website, powering you forward.

After all, what good is that new car if you don’t have any gas to take it out of your driveway?

About the Author: Will Davis is Managing Partner of Right Source Marketing.  Don’t hesitate to drop Will a comment on this post.  If you liked this post, follow Will on Twitter for more commentary like this.

If you haven’t addressed the first two steps in the lead generation planning process – establishing the right mindset and building a strong roster of stakeholders – you may want to go back and review those before you read this.  After all, if you’re a smart lead generation marketer, you know (or you’ll find out) that process is critical.  Skip a step or ignore part of the process, and you can expect a weakened lead generation program.

Next up is identifying the metrics that matter.  Note I am using the phrase “that matter.”  Simple, but important.  Many marketers make 1 of 2 mistakes during this phase.  Either they don’t address metrics at all, or they identify a long list of metrics that don’t really matter or ones they’ll never ever track.

As an individual in charge of this program, you should discuss lead generation metrics with the person you report to, or the person that represents the most important stakeholder in the program.  Don’t be surprised if you get responses like some of these:

“I don’t care you how you do it or what the metrics are; we just need more leads for the sales team.  Focus on volume.”

“As long as we don’t spend over $XX,XXX, we’ll be ok.  Focus on using that budget wisely.”

“We just need to get our name out there more.  That will help our guys prospect, give them the confidence, and likely get some more deals closed.”

All of these examples represent what I call Metrics Avoidance Disorder (MAD), a common condition that affects approximately 75% of those asked to discuss marketing metrics.  Symptoms include:

• Cancellation or rescheduling of metrics-related meetings

• Desire to focus more on creative execution than metrics

• Making irrational statements regarding the expected results of a lead generation program

The good news is that there is a cure for MAD.  Persistence, the ability to educate key stakeholders, and some clear and concise reporting visuals can lead to MAD-free living.

Read the rest of this entry »

Recently, I’ve seen a lot of studies about the lack of success of small businesses in social media.  In one eMarketer article alone they reference not one but two of them:

Small businesses are not hitting it off with social media, according to an August 2009 study from Citibank.  More than three-quarters of US small-business executives surveyed did not find social networks helpful for generating leads or expanding their business

According to an online survey by Internet2Go and MerchantCircle, 45% of small-business owners use Facebook to promote their business, and 46% have a Twitter account. In total, 53% had created a social network profile.

The article goes on to speculate that the lack of time or manpower may be the biggest impediment to success, but I think it runs much deeper than that.  I think many people think that if you can count yourself as one of those cited above that “have a Twitter account” and “created a social network profile” that you should start to see massive success in social media.

The reality of course is very different.  Sure, like anything else time and manpower is a factor, but I think it’s a pretty small one.  And my view on social media is, either you’re in or you’re out.  If you want to be involved in social media do just that – be involved.  Don’t expect to set up a profile somewhere and the truck full of cash immediately starts rolling up to your front door – it doesn’t really work that way does it?  (Note: If I am wrong, you have done this it did work, and you aren’t required to hide from the authorities in countries that won’t extradite, call me – we should talk).

The fact is — and try not to be too shocked here — the individuals and businesses that have the most success in social media have a strategy.  Social media fits in as a part of their overall business and marketing strategy, and they have a defined social media plan.  Now this doesn’t have to be a 30 page plan — maybe it’s a simple one pager that outlines goals, associated tactics, daily/weekly activity, etc.

You may start by getting your feet wet in social media and seeing what it’s like, which I’ve seen many folks advise as a first step.  Listen first, then begin to engage, then evaluate.  The “Ready, Fire, Aim” solution if you will.  This is a start, but it will only get you so far.  At some point you need a clear strategy, and then you can go and execute against that strategy.  That’s the most likely path to success.

Agree? Disagree? Feel free to share your thoughts in our comments section.

About the Author: Will Davis is Managing Partner of Right Source Marketing.  Don’t hesitate to drop Will a comment on this post.  If you liked this post, follow Will on Twitter for more commentary like this.