What is a Promotion Plan why is it so essential to your business?
There are lots of different plans that can be used inside a business. For example, I've spoken about the benefits of business planning and marketing planning before.
But, if you want to create a cash injection, or boost your sales, there is no plan more effective than a promotion plan!
So let's explore why a Promotion Plan is so helpful to you:
What is a Promotion Plan?
Definition:
Promotion Plan
Noun
A revenue based plan, designed to help you improve sales of a particular product/service, in a specific time frame.
Where a business plan is designed to outline the goals of a business, and marketing plan is designed to outline who the business serves, and how it will reach new customers,
A Promotion Plan asks:
What do you we want to sell, how many of them do we want to sell, when do we want to sell that many by, and what are our strategies for achieving that?
That's why a Promotion Plan is the first plan I focus on, whenever I am working with a client who wants to "hear more cha-ching" in their business, and get their sales humming.
Even if you DO have healthy cash flow coming into your business, it’s still vital to have a Promotion Plan at all times. Here's why...
Why is a Promotion Plan so essential?
One of the mindsets that I find small business owners have about their business, is that they feel like if they present a product or offer a couple of times, and think that will be enough.
Unfortunately, that's not how promotion works:
What most people don't realise is that 80% of purchases are made between 7-12 touch points.
This means that the majority of your customers need to see your offer 7-12 times, in a variety of ways, before they'll push "buy now".
Many, many small businesses I know, never get to that number, because they think "I've made my offer 1-2 times. People must have seen it. I don't want to be pushy..."
Another common problem is that they might present one product once, then another product once or twice, then another one etc. But, there is no organisation or strategy to their promotion activities.
Unfortunately, because buyers need frequency of seeing the offer (those 7-12 times), and education about it, this lack of strategy is a little like going into a forest to chop down a tree, but chopping a little bit of this tree, and a little bit of that tree...
Using that approach takes many more axe swings before a tree is felled, because it leads to a confused audience, and someone who is confused, will not buy. It usually leads to a very tired axe swinger!
This is why a Promotion Plan is so essential:
- as it helps a business be strategic with their promotion activity.
When we're strategic, we can use less axe swings, for better results. Or, in the case of our promotion activities - present our offer an appropriate amount of times, for it to be able to get maximum results...
How do you create a Promotion Plan?
To create a successful promotion plan, there are several must-haves to clarify in your plan.
1. You need to be clear on WHY you are creating the Promotion Plan
– Why are you doing this Promotion Plan?
- What is your over-arching goal for it.
The Promotion Plan is unlikely to need to be your entire business's revenue goal. Because it's likely you have more than one revenue stream, or product/service range.
But, it should outline which of the products / services you are wanting to focus on promoting, and why...
For example;
Mine might be: I am promoting my main signature program, Flight Club, so that I can help more businesses, and create a revenue boost for my business.
2. WHO – are you running your Promotion Plan for?
The next thing that you need to outline, is who your target audience for the promotion is.
Now, very importantly, this is not the same as your target market for your entire business. There might be overlap, but your target marketing for your Promotion Plan needs to be a very specific subset of people that you serve.
The reason for this, is that the more specific you are with who you are targeting, the easier it will be for you to market your offer to those people!
For example;
My main target audience for my business is small business owners in NZ, Australia, USA and Canada, who want to grow their business more effortlessly.
My main target audience for my Flight Club promotion might be product-based small businesses in New Zealand, who still work from home, and manufacture their own products.
Or, I could get more specific again and decide to target NZ course creators.
See how these target markets for my Flight Club promotion are a more selective subset of one of my main target markets?
3. WHAT – are you actually offering?
What product(s) or services are you wanting to drive sales for at the moment? Then, what is your specific, and compelling offer that you'll be making with this Promotion Plan.
Think specific.
I know I've already said specific twice - but that's because it's so important. What specific products(s) or services are you going to push this period?
It's best if you only choose one product range or service. Because if you try to promote too many things at once, it creates confusion for your customers, and makes it hard for you to generate the marketing.
Whereas if you focus on one main offer at a time, it's much easier for your target audience to become familiar with your offer, as we talked about above.
4. HOW – are you going to offer it?
I find that this is often where the most confusion happens. Because we are programmed to think of a "promotion" as a fixed discount or limited time offer. And for sure, your Promotion Plan may include some of those. But, it also might not.
There are lots of different ways to make compelling offers. I talk about all the different ways inside my Promote Like a BOSS course, or inside my signature Flight Club Program. But, the main thing you need to note, is that you need to be really clear on what the value of your offer is...
- What problem does it solve for the target market that we just defined?
- What makes it compelling so that someone would jump on board now, rather than later?
- How will you market it - e.g. what channels will you use etc.
Those last two will often make or break someone's success...
5. WHEN – is your Promotion Plan going to run?
Next we are all about timing....
You will have two timeframes to your Promotion Plan:
a) Your behind the scenes timeframe -
Your behind-the-scenes timeframe is - how long you'll work on the Promotion Plan, from the minute you start to get prepared, until all offers are finished and orders have been fufilled.
This one depends on a couple of different factors. Like - who your target audience is, and how long they take to make their buying decisions.
For example - if you work with corporates, you'll likely need a Promotion Plan to last 3-9 months. Because the lead time on buying decisions can be so long.
But, if you're a Product-based business who sells low ticket offers, that have a short buying decision timeframe, then you could probably run a Promotion Plan that only lasted 2-3 weeks.
b) Your active promotion timeframe -
This one is the timeframe involving all your public-facing offers... How long will each of your compelling offers be valid for, and when will they finish?
Usually people find that they get the majority of their sales within the first 48 hours, then in the last 48 hours. So, if your offer is a low-value offer, it's best not to run very long promotion periods.
Whereas, if your offer is something high-value, or something that people need to register for (like an event), then you can absolutely start to market things much further out.
6 - HOW did your Promotion Plan go?
There's one final step in our Promotion Planning process, and that's - once it's all over, it's time to review how it went.
Here are some questions to ask yourself:
- Did you make your goal?
- What worked really well?
- What didn't work so well?
- What would you do differently next time?
I hope you enjoyed my Promotion Planning process!
I have a variety of ways I can help you create a successful Promotion Plan in your business, at all different price points.
So, if you'd like help to get your sales humming, reach out and let's have a chat.
About the author:
Kat Soper is the Founder and Head Trainer of The Helpful Academy Online Business School.
Kat is passionate about helping start-ups and small businesses succeed and achieve their business goals so that they can achieve the lifestyle they desire (and deserve).
Love this, and explained so simply and so well of how they all fit together.