Mastering Marketing Planning: 15 Years of Insights to Help Small Businesses Visualize, Set Goals, and Identify Ideal Customers

I’ve been teaching online and social media marketing for 15 years. This started many years after taking intensive training in strategic and systems thinking which formed the foundation for the marketing planning I share. While my students and clients are unaware of the basis of the planning structure they learn, those who embrace the process learn to adapt the simple five questions for any type of planning they need to do.

As I’ve worked with hundreds of small and medium-sized business owners, I’ve found the areas where they have the most difficulty are in the following:

1. Visualizing the future they are trying to create as a result of implementing their plan,
2. Setting reasonable and achievable stretch goals that include financial, customer, employee, and community,
3. Describing their ideal customer(s) in terms of age, income, education, gender, ?marital status, hobbies, interests, ethnicity, and so on.

Every year I modified and refined the templates I shared with students and clients to find a combination that was easy to understand and fill out, resulting in a fairly comprehensive marketing plan without doing intensive primary and secondary research. Most clients and students didn’t have any data to work with nor the resources to hire or conduct market research. They all had access to computers and the internet with varying degrees of tech savvy. Most were using at least one social media platform. My goal was to help them use the tools they had access to and create a marketing plan that would provide some structure, strategic thinking, and help them implement actions to attain their goals.

The result is an 8-page workbook that I continue to update each year as social platforms change and new marketing tools become available. This workbook contains a bonus page of questions you can use to determine the viability of any plan or project. Use it once you’ve set your goals and strategies for the planning horizon. It will help you stay on course and help to prevent you and your team from getting distracted by new opportunities that may look worthwhile but may not help you reach your planned goals.

On October 23 at 10:00 am AZ time, I’ll be presenting a webinar showing how to use this workbook for your marketing planning. Everyone who registers for the webinar and attends will receive a copy of the workbook. Register here: https://hubs.ly/Q02R6rk20.

Ideal Customer Tips

For those who have a challenge describing their ideal customer, I’ve included pictures with simple descriptions to help you identify your target customer. This is just the starting point, though. Ideally, you will download a simple “buyer persona” template from any number of sources, including Hubspot, Xtensio, and Canva, and fill in the blanks to paint a picture of this ideal customer.

This is one area that has been challenging for many. You may think your product or service is of interest to anyone of any age, gender, and income level. The reality is that while your customers may be quite diverse, the ideal, repeat customer may not be. Having a picture in your mind of who this person is, their likes, dislikes, social media preferences, and even where they live and work?will help you create targeted, customized messages that are more likely to attract your ideal customer.

Here are some tips to help you better describe this ideal customer:

1. Think about why you started your business. Who did you have in mind as a potential customer?
2. Who encouraged you to create the product or service? Friends? Colleagues? Family? Neighbors?
3. What did they say about your product or service that encouraged you to create the business?
4. How does what you do compete with other similar businesses? What makes your products or services unique?
5. Did any of your friends, colleagues, or family members buy your product or service or invest in your business? Why or why not?
6. Describe those individuals – their age, gender, education level, marital status, and where they live.
7. Do they use social media and messaging apps? If so, which ones?

If you can answer those questions, you’re on your way to describing your ideal customer. He or she may be someone like you. Perhaps you’re filling an untapped need that these individuals have expressed. See if these questions help you describe this ideal customer.

Once you’ve identified that individual, do a little research on Google to determine the demographics of various social media and messaging apps. I recommend doing this every 6 months since the demographics change as popular sites are acquired, new platforms are created, and the algorithms change on existing ones.

?AI can also help with research

You can also use Microsoft Copilot or Google Gemini to help with this research. OpenAI’s Chat GPT is another option, however, it is more useful in content creation rather than research. Plus, the free version still uses the older version of GPT-3.5 (based on 2022 data) while Copilot and Gemini use GPT-4o, which is based on 2023 data. A newer GPT-5 is scheduled for release in December 2024.

Regardless of which AI tool you choose, ensure your prompt is specific with as much context as possible. Below is an example ….

“I operate a (describe your business) or provide (describe the service you provide) and sell my products/services online or in person through my website, online store, or physical location in (city or town). Provide demographics for the most likely person to purchase my product or service and where they might live or work in terms of large cities, urban areas, or rural communities, Also tell me which social media and messaging sites they might use.”

The more specific you are, the better the results you will get.

• If you have a physical store or place of business that customers visit, mention that and the types of products customers can access in the store.
• If you only sell online, include that in the prompt and list the types of products you sell online.
• If you sell services and promote them via your website, email, and social media, list the types of services you sell and the solutions you provide with those services. ?

Once you’ve done this research, go back to the workbook, mark an x on your ideal customer, and add some brief detail based on the research. Then complete the other pages to finish your marketing plan. ?

I look forward to your feedback once you’ve created your plan!