The winning recipe

I’d like you to think about The Great British Bake Off – different contestants, different recipes, different personalities all trying to win Paul and Mary’s vote and grab their attention.

Your marketing plan is rather like a winning recipe.

You need the right ingredients, that is your marketing channels – at the right time – in the right proportions – to suit your target audience.

So in your marketing mix think about:

1. Your Audience – Primary audience and influencers. Who should you be targeting, where are you likely to find them? What are their tastes? They are likely to be at different stages in their relationship with you, have different need levels but one common aim. Your objective is to provide a solution to them and explain how your product/services can help them. You could segment them in order to send tailored messages/offers.
2. Ingredients (aka Channels!) – What’s right for your business in order to achieve your goals working within your budget? You don’t need to use every channel and throw everything into the mixing bowl. Consider a mixture of online, offline and face to face eg social media, direct mail, events, networking, PR & communications.
3. Tools – use them to give you an advantage – business plan, marketing strategy. Some gadgets are a fad others will save you time and make your business efficient and allow you to analyse what you are doing such as Hootsuite, Google Analytics.
4. Practice/Review – see what brings a ROI, set measurable goals and keep improving. Consider adding different ingredients (affiliates) or more of an ingredient that’s producing results. Analyse your data to support your decisions and tweak.
5. Competitors – watch, compare, keep ahead, monitor trends and remain unique. Don’t steal their recipes but learn from them, highlight what makes your product/service different. You could consider collaborations if not direct competitors.

A sprinkling of personality and a good marketing mix based on a strong plan produces the perfect bake.

So get ready for the Technical Challenge you can all be Star Bakers but remember it’s not style over substance! Get in touch if you’d like a review of your marketing plan.