“Plans are useless, but planning is indispensable,” said US President Dwight D. Eisenhower. So true! Right? No matter how much you plan in life, things go or can go wrong at any point. This stands true for the e-commerce world as well. Circumstances change drastically, consumer trends shift and initial experiments don’t always succeed.
According to research quoted by Shopify in its blog, brands that focus proactively on a marketing plan are 356 percent more likely to meet success. However, the main question is what is a realistic e-commerce marketing plan and what does it look like? In this guide, we will tell you how you can tackle unforeseen scenarios and overestimations that can put the marketing strategy at risk.
Every great marketing plan needs one thing first: a product that is 10 times better than the next. Once you have that, marketing is about deep human connections. It felt obvious that there was a sweet spot somewhere in between: people who wanted to follow along, and a true behind-the-scenes look into building a massive chocolate business from the ground up.
Nick Saltarelli, Co-founder, Mid-Day Squares
What is a Marketing Plan?
A marketing plan is a strategy used by a business to put its services or products before its target customer.
A marketing plan doesn’t mean a step-by-step never-fail manual. Instead, it is a roadmap that helps you to achieve the best-case scenario while maintaining realistic expectations and preparing backup plans in case something doesn’t work.
Steps to Create a Realistic Marketing Plan
- Write an executive summary
- Conduct market research
- Plan a marketing strategy
- Set goals and measure performance
1. Executive Summary
For those unversed, consider an executive summary like an elevator pitch summarizing the top information from your marketing plan. It is basically the first page of your plan.
A. Business Details: Name of your company and its location.
B. Products or Services Offered: Mention special features, competitive advantages or customer picks your marketing efforts will depend on.
C. Mission Statement: What your business is trying to accomplish and why does it exist? Put it in one sentence and that’s your mission statement. For example, YETI’s mission statement is, “Build the cooler we’d use every day if it existed.”
D. Marketing Goals: Define goals that you aim to achieve through your marketing plan. Jot down short-term and long-term business goals related to customer retention, sales growth and new customers, etc.
E. Budget and Projections: Stakeholders of a large or public company are interested in knowing how much revenue your marketing budget will generate.
F. Marketing Team: Describe the responsibilities and experience of the marketing team. One should know the team members executing the plan and whom to go to if the marketing plan fails.
An executive summary should be the last on your list while you create your marketing plan. This is because, during the research process, you can get some valuable points that can be used in the executive summary.
2. Market Research
To create a marketing strategy that results in revenue, do not go overboard with assumptions. Every single assumption leads to uncertainty in your marketing plan. Study the data of your customer base thoroughly by diving deep into surveys, marketing analytics and social media audiences. It helps you to understand the target audience you are trying to cater to and why they would choose your product or services over a competitor’s.
From age, location and income level to the medium they use to find new products, derive information about your buyer. Consult your customer segments and buyer personas. Remember buyer persona and target audience are not the same. While children are the target audience of a toy brand, parents are the buyer persona.
Now, it’s the time to run a SWOT analysis that would help you know your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. It will also help you uncover your unique selling proposition (USP). The key takeaways from SWOT analysis should be used in building a marketing strategy.
A diverse media strategy is crucial to help an e-commerce business survive in this highly dynamic market. By driving traffic through SEO, email, and media coverage, we’re more resilient and less impacted by a single tech platform changing their algorithm in a way that may be harmful to us.
Sam Harper, Co-founder and CEO, Hippy Feet
3. Marketing Strategy
Here you have to elaborate on tactics and campaigns that you will use to popularise your product or service. Marketing strategy can be divided into four sections- channels, formats, messaging and budget.
A. Marketing channels
Marketing channels means platforms used to implement the strategy. Refer to your market research to find out the channels used by your target audience-both online and offline to buy products. Below we have mentioned some of the popular channels used for e-commerce:
Social media: According to a Shopify blog, social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn and Pinterest are used by six out of ten people. They are free to use, hence brands prefer to interact and engage with prospective buyers via social media.
Search engines: Make search engine optimization (SEO) an integral part of your marketing plan. Around half of the online shoppers start their journey on search engines, hence it is an opportunity to put forward your product in front of potential buyers.
Email marketing and SMS marketing: The customer’s contact number and email address are two of the most sacred channels that offer direct contact with your target audience.
Podcasts: By sharing podcasts, you can establish your brand as a pioneer in the industry, thus building trust between your customers and the product you offer. You can record conversations between your team, experts and customers and make it share them on social media platforms.
Offline channels: Though we live in the era of digital marketing, the power of offline and in-person marketing cannot be underestimated. Brands should also try to grab the attention of their target audience through radio, outdoor and TV advertising and mostly word-of-mouth recommendations.
Do not forget to mention in your marketing plan how you intend to make use of each channel. Whether you want to boost it through advertising and plan to go organically. You can also reach potential buyers through sponsored content. There also arises a significant question regarding how many marketing channels one should use. If you include several marketing channels at once, you are at risk of exhausting all your resources with poor returns. Similarly, if you heavily rely on one channel, it might pose a risk.
For example, consider Facebook. Initially, brands made a huge investment to get buyers via Facebook. They were guaranteed to reach new audiences every time they posted something on a business’s page. However, the algorithm of Facebook changed and it compelled brands to pay for advertising. Hence, any change in the existing algorithm of digital marketing channels can render your marketing plans completely unhelpful.
As quoted by Shopify, Marquis Matson, VP of Growth at Sozy says, “If you rely on SEO, then any algorithm updates could potentially cut your revenue for months before you recover. If you rely on paid ads, then any changes to privacy policies can cut your revenue. If you rely on email marketing, then any ESP policy changes can cut your revenue. Diversifying your acquisition is crucial in a fast-paced digital marketing world”.
“The original marketing plan was to drive traffic to our Shopify store through ads—relying heavily on paid Facebook and Instagram traffic. While this is still a major component of our marketing strategy, the decreasing effectiveness of these ads has forced us to expand our marketing efforts,” Sam Harper, Hippy Feet’s co-founder and CEO told Shopify.
“A diverse media strategy is crucial to help an e-commerce business survive in this highly dynamic market. By driving traffic through SEO, email, and media coverage, we’re more resilient and less impacted by a single tech platform changing their algorithm in a way that may be harmful to us,” added Harper.
B. Formats
Each channel requires a different set of content formats to garner attention and boost traffic. Different formats include:
Audio: The audio content format is helpful for reaching audiences who listen to podcasts and radio.
Images: Brands can use images, infographics, memes and GIFs to attract shoppers on social media sites.
Video: Video consumption has grown over time. You can make videos demonstrating your product or publish explainer videos on YouTube, Instagram and TikTok. While YouTube is the second largest search engine in the world, Instagram and TikTok also focus on video content.
Written content: There are consumers who still prefer reading to know about a particular product or service. Written content like blogs or transcripts contain keywords that help your brand come to the fore in search engine results.
Customers constantly want fresh and interesting content and that’s too much for a small business. If you can’t provide unique content to your customers regularly, then focus your content marketing strategy on accumulating user-generated content (UGC) from existing customers.
What is UGC?
For the unversed, UGC is information in the form of video, photo, comment, blog, poll response or discussion provided by an unpaid contributor on a website. Hence, the more your customers share their experiences, the more content you have available that you can reuse on different channels. This strategy is effective especially when are low on budget.
You don’t just have to create content but also promote it wisely. If you don’t have time to invest in promotion, collaborate with influencers whose followers overlap with your target audience. Partnerships with popular influencers will not only help you directly reach potential customers but also build brand credibility. Customers tend to trust a brand if they hear about it from someone they believe.
C. Messaging
Your message needs to be consistent across all the channels of your marketing strategy. Irrespective of what format you use, your message should be clear. Mixed messages will only confuse potential customers and you will lose credibility even before creating brand awareness.
A simple trick to refine your message is to outweigh your competitors in a particular aspect. For example, any brand can be cheaper or comfier or more authentic than its rival brands. You will find that the messaging of a particular retailer revolves around its adjective.
If you are not able to figure out your value proposition adjective, then research. Ask your existing customers. Conduct a survey on social media to find out why they purchase your brand. Now, you can refer to the SWOT analysis and check the weaknesses of your competitors. Write down the adjectives that frequently erupt during the entire process.
Your marketing strategy should not heavily rely on product specifications. Customers are more interested in knowing what will they get from purchasing your product.
“Every great marketing plan needs one thing first: a product that is 10 times better than the next. Once you have that, marketing is about deep human connections. It felt obvious that there was a sweet spot somewhere in between: people who wanted to follow along, and a true behind-the-scenes look into building a massive chocolate business from the ground up,” says Nick Saltarelli, co-founder of Mid-Day Squares as quoted by Shopify.
Instead of prioritizing product promotion, the brand “focuses on getting people to fall in love with us, the founders, to scale the human connection,” Nick says.
“We use all the social channels available to shoot and put out mini-episodes of reality-TV-like entertainment on a daily basis of all the hurdles, success, and evolutions we go through as a company. We focus less on the product and more on telling compelling stories of how we’re building Mid-Day Squares,” he added.
D. Budget
A marketing budget is the amount you plan to spend during the execution of your marketing strategy. Small companies have a tight marketing budget. There are many ways through which you can cut down on expenditures while simultaneously presenting your brand in front of new customers.
“I apply for any competitions, press opportunities, and awards to get my small business out there at any given opportunity,” says Terri-Anne Turton, founder of The Tur-Shirt Company.
“I focus on those my target market knows of to build credibility. Plus, most of the awards I enter are free or low-cost; they just need some time investment and creativity to take part. It proves my USP to my target market—that my kids’ clothing products are unique—without investing thousands into advertising, ” Terri-Anne told Shopify.
The strategy yielded the desired results. The Tur-Shirt Company not only won a Junior Design Award but also a shoutout from Steven Bartlett, a media entrepreneur, after being selected in his #DeserveToBeFound competition with Facebook.
Your budget may vary but remember time is a valuable resource that should be managed and accounted for. Do not forget to note down the time you intend to spend on your strategy execution.
4. Measure Sucess
A marketing plan is incomplete without reasonable goals. So make sure you create plenty of them at regular intervals and measure your store performance to achieve the goals. It is the final stage of an investment plan where you break down each goal and measure your success.
Here is when the return on investment (ROI) comes into the picture. It is the revenue amount you expect after investing a certain amount as per your marketing budget. The ideal goal for a Shopify store marketeer is to generate $100,000 in sales using an investment of $1,000. It is 100 percent, which might seem huge but it is achievable through the right marketing plan.
Once you target ROI, it stops you from overspending on your business. In case you fail to reach the predicted ROI, you can allocate your funds to another resource that could help. Having said that, revenue is not the only important thing while measuring success.
A Shopify store’s success can also be measured with factors like brand awareness, social media reach and followers and website traffic. The ultimate aim for a store owner is to increase a loyal base of customers. The earlier you start, the futher you reach in terms of marketing and expansion.
Happy customers have been powerful word-of-mouth catalysts for our brand, and it has made sense to keep them engaged. We’ve been getting a steady stream of five-star ratings on websites and social media, which we then share on our Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram profiles. It’s a great alternative to pushing loud sales messages that don’t always work.
Chris Campbell, partner, The Charming Bench Company
Apart from the discussed four points, there are other key performance indicators (KPIs) as well. All of these, discussed below, are based on the funnel stage.
a. Top of the funnel (TOFU)
These are the least informed customers. They don’t know anything about your store or what you deal in. They can be attracted with the help of social media posts, video content and podcasts. These channels help you capture the potential customers that are looking for new learning or inspiration.
You can use metrics here to understand what type of content is helping you the most to engage with such an audience. Metrics like page views, video content, website traffic, click-through rate (CTR) and cost per click (CPC) can be considered while planning the marketing strategy for the TOFU audience.
a. Middle of the funnel (MOFU)
These people are aware of their problem or requirement that needs to be fulfilled. Here, the marketeer’s role is to promote the right content through channels and formats that reach the target audience. Search engines and retargeted ads can help you achieve success while targeting MOFU.
The most trusted application to know your audience is Google Analytics. Its dashboard provides you with detailed statistics and reports on each segment of your website. However, you don’t need to focus on all reports that it shows. Important segments to observe while targetting the MOFU audience will be bounce rate, pages per session, traffic source number and conversion rate through e-mail marketing.
The data discussed above will help you decide on advertising campaigns and targetting meta keywords for all the pages of your Shopify store.
c. Bottom of the funnel (BOFU)
This is the toughest part as these people know about your business and your competitors as well. They are much aware of the realities of e-commerce. You have to convert this audience into paying customers and make them loyal to come back again to shop from your online store.
There are metrics that help you target this segment of the audience as well. The conversion rate of how many people added your products to your cart, average order value (AOV), orders placed, the conversion rate of checkout and sales conversion rate are among the data that can help you target the right audience.
The story doesn’t end here. You need to put in effort in the post-funnel stage as well. The most crucial part is to retain the existing customers along with attracting new ones. Here is when discounts and rewards help. Just make sure you acknowledge the loyalists and keep them happy.
Does Number Matter?
The rising number of social media followers and YouTube subscribers won’t be enough. Make sure you target your existing customers as well. Try if you could record their testimonials and put them on your website. Also, word-of-mouth referrals from your loyalists would help you reach a bigger audience.
Chris Campbell, partner at The Charming Bench Company, explains how his company values satisfied customers. “We’ve been asking for more reviews from satisfied customers. We’ve managed to get them to be more vocal about their experiences, rather than focusing on promotional content or paid advertising as our top investment priorities,” he said.
“Happy customers have been powerful word-of-mouth catalysts for our brand, and it has made sense to keep them engaged. We’ve been getting a steady stream of five-star ratings on websites and social media, which we then share on our Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram profiles. It’s a great alternative to pushing loud sales messages that don’t always work,” he added.
