How I redacted my marketing plan

New year new resolutions, but also new business plans. In fact, during these first weeks of 2019 I was redacting the yearly marketing plan for FruitsApp.

Even if I had a general idea of the results of the last year and the goals for this year, then when it comes to redact a formal document, it always takes time. So I decided to divide it into smaller parts.

First of all, I started with an overall of the 2018. I have highlighted the results that we reached, in terms of profit, new users, retention and Countries, with an explanation on how we got there, in terms of campaigns, sales, channels used and events we attended.

In that way I could have seen a correlation between the different actions taken and the results reached.

It is fundamental to keep track of what we do and what the final results are. The metrics help us to define if we are hitting the KPIs that we aim. In that way we can consolidate our strategy, adjusting the direction and define what channel is working best. I, therefore, divided each goal into a scheme to unify what we did and what we achieved.

After a first recap of what we reached last year and the lessons learned, I decided to divide the plan into two big parts. The first one is focused on acquisition and activation, while the second one on revenue and retention.

Acquisition is what I consider awareness, therefore, how do i make people aware of FruitsApp? How do I reach them? Which message do I want to communicate to make my clients perceive my values? How do I want to transmit my vision? Even if it goes without saying, I would like to underline the importance of having clear and defined vision, mission and values and a deep knowledge of the segment, before deciding the communication and the channels.

A good acquisition plan, will lead to high activation, which I define how the number of people that finally use the platform.

The activation is the second step and is strictly correlated to the acquisition, that’s why I decided to put them together. Of course the ideal scenario would be that all the people reached would use my service, but this is unlikely.

In order to define the strategy, I first defined the goals, the biggest and final one, and the ones needed to reach it, in terms of communication and reputation. So I decided how I want to be perceived by the clients and then how I can transmit this message.

After that, I believed that a brief recap of the segments would have been appropriate. For this reason, I just mentioned the different targets that we aim and the necessary and different actions to reach them. Therefore, I specified a calendar dividing the actions based on whether they need to be done every day, every week, every month or based on necessities.

In that way I could structure my every-day work and have a guideline.

Once I defined the generic goals and KPIs, the actions and the channels through which I want to reach my clients, and structured everything in a calendar, I detailed each of the action, defining the offline or online channels, the specific goals for that campaign in terms of acquisition and activation, the target and the timing, leaving an empty space for the results.

I will be able to compare what I wanted to achieve and what I really achieved, having, therefore, I clear vision of what worked and what didn’t.

Once I have clients, of course I want them to use my service and to be loyal. For this reason, the second part of the plan is focused on how to increase retention. This second part of the plan has a similar structure as the first one. In fact, I started with a recap of the results reached in 2018, according to the actions taken.

The second step has been to set the major KPIs in terms of revenue to reach during this year and define the retention rate that we expect. To reach these goals, I decided to divide our users based on the type but also on the use that they make of the platform. It is easier to define the strategy for each of them.

Therefore, for each type of user I created a chart to intersect two values: number of transactions and average ticket. In that way I have separated the users based on their role, how many times they use my service and the amount of revenue they generate. From that point I can establish a strategy to move each segment to the next box, therefore, to increase the retention of the users, reaching the brand loyalty.

For this part as well, I made a calendar to define the frequency of the actions that need to be done during the year. Then, again, I defined each action in a more accurate way, choosing the right channel and setting a goal. There is space for the future results, so I can have a clear vision of how each action will have gone.

I consider that metrics are fundamental for the success of what we planned.

It is important to check the metrics once per week to see if everything is going how we planned. In case we see that something is not working, that we have to be flexible enough to modify our plan and change our path. The lean startup teaches us that we have to act fast and change faster when needed. This is what I learned so far, even if we make plans, we know that they’re are flexible and can change during the year.

We are always ready to sharpen our aim and to do it quick.

But we couldn’t do it if we don’t check often our metrics and how our clients react to our services.

This is how I redacted this yearly marketing plan, but if you have other tips and suggestions I’d love to hear them. Let’s exchange our experiences!!