Imagine it’s a year from now and you’ve just successfully sold out your brand new online course in record time. As an online creator educator, you have developed a loyal band of followers who are engaged and committed to learning exclusively from YOU. Now, rewind back to the current moment, and you may be wondering how your future self got to this pivotal point in your career.
While producing quality content is important, that’s only half the battle. Learning how to build a brand marketing plan is behind-the-scenes stuff that is a *crucial* step in launching and running your own business.
Did you know that 81% of consumers need to trust a brand to consider making a purchase? Or that 77% of consumers prefer shopping with brands they follow on social media? This is why it’s essential to have some sort of brand marketing plan in place, so that you’re already in consumers’ minds before they’re even thinking about making a purchase.
Your brand marketing plan will determine the success of your business, and whether it sinks or swims. But don’t worry – this blog is here to provide a comprehensive guide and a step-by-step process to creating a marketing plan that will keep your business afloat and thriving.
Continue reading or skip ahead:
- Understanding brand marketing
- How to define your brand identity
- Developing your brand strategy
- Implementing your brand marketing plan
- Monitoring and evaluating success
- Conclusion
Let’s dive in!
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Understanding brand marketing
Before we begin, let’s cover our bases. What exactly does brand marketing entail?
Essentially, brand marketing is a strategy for making people aware of your brand and defining what that awareness should look like. The goal is to create an emotional and intimate experience for potential customers, so that they are able to form a relationship with your brand that is built on trust and that is long-lasting.
A brand marketing plan is the foundation on which relationships are built and maintained with your consumers, which is why learning how to create a brand marketing strategy should be high on your list of things to do. A brand marketing plan is also a roadmap to discovering the ins-and-outs of your business, so that you can target potential customers more effectively.
Benefits of having a strong brand marketing plan
The benefits of having a brand marketing plan in place speaks for itself. No matter the size of your business or what industry you’re in – even if you’re a content creator or creator educator – having a top-tier brand marketing plan will set your business up for success.
Here are the top benefits of a brand marketing plan:
- Increased brand loyalty – Customer loyalty is one of the most important indicators of the longevity of your brand. It evolves from continued positive emotional attachments and product or service satisfaction. Loyal customers perceive your brand value to be very high. They tend to be repeat customers and will be an effective channel for word-of-mouth marketing.
- Competitive advantage in the market – Having a brand marketing plan increases brand recognition, which gives your business a competitive edge amongst competitors. It’s an indication of how well you know your target audience and vice versa… this advantage allows your customers to differentiate your products and services from your competition.
- Enhanced customer trust and credibility – Brand loyalty and recognition ultimately increases customer trust in your business, enhancing your credibility in your niche market. Establishing this trust and credibility is a huge milestone. When you release a new product, it will have a strong impact on your customers and spark curiosity and excitement.
Related: How to Position Yourself as an Expert: 10 Pro Tips
How to define your brand identity
Establishing your brand’s unique identity is what sets the foundation for your brand marketing plan.
Before you begin creating a brand marketing plan, you need to clearly define your brand’s mission, vision, and values. Outlining these important aspects of your business will help streamline the process of creating a brand marketing strategy. If you’re ever feeling confused or lost in which direction to head with your marketing plan, refer back to these core statements that you’ve set for yourself to help provide clarity.
Defining your brand identity also means establishing your unique brand voice and personality. To do this, be authentic and genuine when creating your business’s value proposition. This is a statement that captures the essence of your products and services, invoking positive feelings from your audience by highlighting the compelling benefits of your brand. It also sets you apart from other competitors in your niche market.
First and foremost, begin setting the foundation of your brand by identifying your target audience. You can do this by putting yourself in your future customers’ shoes. What do they value? What are they looking for? How can your business help them in ways your competitors cannot? Developing these customer personas will help you better understand your audience. On top of that, be sure to engage in thorough research and define your ideal customer demographics. This will play a huge part in making your brand marketing plan applicable and relevant.
Evaluating your current brand position
Here are a few steps you’ll want to take when evaluating your current brand position:
SWOT analysis
An effective way to evaluate your brand’s current position more in depth is to conduct a SWOT analysis. This is simply going over your brand’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. A SWOT analysis is a useful tool because it provides valuable insights that will improve your brand’s overall effectiveness and refine strategies in your brand marketing plan.
Pro tip: Tools like Canva offer a range of different free SWOT analysis templates for you to choose from to help organize your brand’s identity.
Market position and perception
At this stage, continuously reviewing your brand’s market position and perception will help identify key areas of focus. Remember that brand positioning is crucial for establishing your unique identity that will set you apart from the sea of competitors in your niche area. The perception that consumers have of your brand also plays a fundamental role in shaping your brand’s distinct identity. Understanding consumer perception and being able to effectively manage this is an essential component in building a strong brand marketing plan.
Pro tip: Start brainstorming ideas for managing consumer perceptions such as developing cohesive and consistent messaging, posting and monitoring feedback channels, engaging in creative storytelling, and continuously conducting market research and engaging in social listening.
Competitor analysis
An essential part of creating a brand marketing plan is to identify your key competitors and analyze their branding strategies.This isn’t about copying what your competitors are doing, but rather it’s about understanding the unique opportunities your brand can leverage. Conducting a competitor analysis allows you to identify market trends and gauge what your target audience is looking for.
Pro tip: Ask yourself these key questions when looking at your competitors: What gaps exist in my niche market? What consumer needs are currently underserved? Are there any emerging trends that my competitors have yet to tap into? This will help you determine what differentiates your brand from your competition.
Setting clear objectives and goals
Any successful brand marketing plan will have a clear measure of how to get from point A to point B. However, this can be a daunting task when you have loosely defined objectives or unrealistic goals that are too large to accomplish right away.
We have listed two ways that you can clearly define your business’s objectives and goals in your marketing strategy: SMART goals and key performance indicators (KPIs).
SMART Goals
You may have heard of SMART goals, which stands for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound. This formula is a great way to set realistic and attainable short-term and long-term goals that will yield real, impactful results.
Integrating SMART goals into your brand marketing plan will not only provide clarity for where to direct your efforts, these goals will also help you track your progress effectively. Those who use SMART goals in their marketing efforts ultimately increase their chances of success by staying focused on key objectives.
Pro tip: Check out this blog post for more details and tips on how to integrate SMART goals into your brand marketing plan (with templates and examples).
Key performance indicators (KPIs)
KPIs may sound intimidating, but they are simply metrics that can help you track and measure the success of your brand marketing efforts. Without the use of KPIs, it’ll be very difficult to measure your progress and track goals. They are essential elements to include in the more logistical side of your marketing efforts.
There are many different types of KPIs out there – some more technical than others – so, it’s up to you to decide what metrics will compliment your brand marketing plan the best.
Here are some examples of some key KPIs:
- Lifetime Value of a Customer (LTV) – The estimated value of a customer’s relationship with your business.
- Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) – The amount of money it takes to convert potential leads into paying customers.
- Net Promoter Score (NPS) – Measures customer loyalty through looking at their likelihood of recommending your brand.
- Return on Investment (ROI) – The amount of money you gain compared to your marketing costs.
- Return on Ad Spend (ROAS) – Measures the success of your Ad campaigns.
- Marketing Qualified Leads (MQL) – Measures how many leads your brand attracts.
- Sales Qualified Leads (SQL) – Prospective customers that are ready to make a purchase.
Our tip is to do your research on KPIs and only pick one to begin with, so that you don’t become too overwhelmed. Become familiar with how it works, then slowly start to add more that are relevant to the success of your business.
For example, if you are an online creator educator, your focus should mainly be on KPIs that are related to social media metrics to help you track and analyze your performance. Engagement KPIs that measure the quality of the interactions with your social followers through likes, comments, and clicks would be a good place to start.
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Developing your brand strategy
Now that you’ve defined and explored your brand’s identity, it’s time to start thinking about your brand strategy and how you want to develop your brand marketing plan.
Choosing the right marketing channels
The marketing channels you use will largely depend on the kind of business you are operating. Digital marketing, traditional marketing (such as offline channels like print advertising, events, and direct mail), or a combination of the two each offer their own unique advantages.
If you are a creator educator operating in the digital market, you will most likely utilize digital marketing through social media, content marketing, email marketing, and SEO to reach your audience.
Let’s explore digital marketing more in depth:
Social media marketing
Social media platforms are a goldmine for marketing. They not only help you reach a larger target audience, but platforms such as Instagram, TikTok, and X can also empower you to leverage social media tools to boost sales.
It was found that 75% of consumers say that social media impacts their purchasing decisions, and 9/10 people say they buy from brands they follow on social networks. This is a good indicator that consumers who connect with brands on social media end up being loyal customers.
While this topic could be a course itself (which it is, if you want to check out 12 different social media courses here), the main takeaway to remember when starting your social media marketing journey is to pick one platform and stay consistent with it. Engage in marketing practices every single day on the platform that is the most relevant to your business. This is where your audience members will already be, waiting and ready to interact with your content.
Content marketing
Content marketing is a subdivision of social media marketing, and it refers to actively posting visual or written material online with the goal of attracting leads to your business. You are creating content that revolves around your brand identity, such as blog posts, infographics, videos, web pages, photos, ebooks, and more.
The goal with content marketing is to provide value to your target audience. You want consumers to have some kind of emotional reaction or attachment to the content you’re producing so that they stick around.
One of the most effective content marketing strategies is to create a narrative that tells some sort of storyline… doing this will allow your content to come across as more genuine, authentic, and engaging to your audience. They will view this as a tailored experience, promoting brand trust.
We’ll explore how to create a content marketing plan later on.
Email marketing
Your email list will be one of the most valuable tools in your brand marketing plan as this is a direct point of contact to your consumers. At times, social media can become unpredictable and you never know how the algorithms are distributing your content. But an email list gives you control over content reach and engagement.
That’s not all… building an email list is also a great way to establish more personalized relationships with your audience. You are communicating important messages with email marketing, and this channel should be a priority for any business owner.
There’s no one-size-fits-all approach to building an email list – it all depends on your resources. To create an email marketing strategy, you’ll want to start by setting some goals for the purpose of your emails. This often leads to segmenting your audience based on their preferences. You’ll then want to learn the best tactics for building your email list, which include selecting your platform and metrics.
To learn the exact process for successful email marketing, check out this complete guide to building an email marketing strategy, with steps and examples.
SEO marketing
Search engine optimization (SEO) is the best practice for increasing traffic to your website and platforms. This enhances your brand’s reputation and assists new customers with finding your brand.
SEO is the process of organically increasing your website’s visibility on Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs). To do this, start by customizing the title, description, and keywords on your landing pages and products. If you’re a course creator, you’ll also want to focus on optimizing SEO for your course, bundle, membership, and community pages.
SEO processes are valuable as they help rank your website and platforms higher in searches, which drive more end-user traffic through brand awareness and trust.
Check out this blog post on how to increase your website traffic through SEO practices in 49 different ways.
Creating a content plan
As we previously mentioned, social media and content marketing are extremely important tools that will contribute significantly to your brand marketing plan. Creating content that converts is definitely a priority, as this will impact how you reach and connect with your target audience.
Having a content plan in place is essential. Earlier, we established the importance of identifying your brand’s unique value proposition and brand positioning. These will help guide your content creation process, ensuring that you’re building a consistent, relevant, and cohesive brand marketing plan.
Here are some things to think about when creating a content plan:
- Types of content – Figure out where your audience is and meet them there. This will influence where you should prioritize creating and posting content. To gain a wider reach, you’ll also want to diversify your content with different types, including blog posts, videos, infographics, podcasts, and social media posts.
- Brand messaging – Be sure that any kind of content you create aligns with your brand’s core message. Your brand will stand out from your competitors when you develop consistent messaging that resonates with your target audience. You can do this by creating key messages and taglines on all your content that communicates your brand’s value. This will also clearly define what sets your brand apart from everyone else in your niche.
- Content distribution – Next, identify the best channels to distribute your content to maximize reach and engagement. As we mentioned earlier, this is where KPIs come in handy. They provide real statistics and metrics for you to base your decisions off, so you aren’t going in blindly to a plan that isn’t set up for success.
- Content calendar – Having a content calendar is an extremely useful tool. Creating and posting content can easily become overwhelming if you don’t have a plan in place to track your creations. This will help you plan and schedule your content to ensure consistency and relevance. Trust us, using a content calendar will be a lifesaver.
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Implementing your brand marketing plan
Now that you have a good understanding of all the essential components that go into a successful brand marketing plan, let’s go over how to implement this strategy.
To ensure that everything runs smoothly, you’ll want to have a plan for how you will carry out your marketing strategy. We suggest keeping some kind of document where everything is clearly defined. This can be referred to at any point, or if your marketing plan needs any revisions.
Here are some key factors to consider when implementing your brand marketing plan:
Budget allocation
Whether you have an established business and are looking to spruce up your brand marketing plan, or if you are a budding creator educator who is just venturing into the world of brand marketing, it is essential to create a budget for yourself.
Your marketing budget outlines the amount of money you can allocate towards marketing initiatives. Having a budget helps you track revenue and expenses to determine your return on investment (ROI).
If you don’t have a huge budget to begin with, chances are that you won’t be allocating a significant sum towards marketing efforts. And that’s okay! Especially in the digital marketing world, you don’t need a massive budget to effectively reach your target audience and capture leads. While paid Ads, fancy KPIs, and paid partnerships can definitely help, they aren’t an essential ingredient of a successful business.
To determine your marketing budget and allocate resources effectively, start by analyzing your goals and objectives. This will provide clear direction and ensure that your marketing efforts align with your business’s desired outcomes.
Also, don’t shy away from the free resources out there! There are plenty of excellent free marketing tools at your disposal that are worth looking into. For creator educators, check out this guide on 20 free tools to create and promote your online course.
Timeline and milestones
All businesses should have an estimated timeline for when they want to accomplish certain things. This is what keeps you accountable and actively working towards your goals. As we mentioned earlier with SMART goals, you want to work towards something that is measurable.
We recommend creating a timeline with key milestones and deadlines. This begins with reviewing your brand’s current performance and situation. Nothing is set in stone, and this timeline can be updated depending on your business’s circumstances. We also discussed earlier how assessing the market, your competitors, and the strengths and weaknesses of your business will help direct your marketing plan, and therefore your timeline. Evaluate where you are at now, and review and update your timeline as you start reaching milestones.
A good habit is to create a timeline for everything – the large goals and the smaller marketing milestones. This is an organizational tool that allows everyone to be on the same page, viewing any campaigns, projects, and events planned for the future.
Team roles and responsibilities
One of the best things that you can do for your brand marketing plan is to assign team roles and responsibilities to ensure the smooth execution of your business’s strategy.
Developing a structure for your brand’s marketing plan depends on how large and how predictable your business is. Think about if you can afford to have some loosely defined roles that allow for more experimentation, or if your resources are more limited and you need your team to be structured by specific marketing disciplines (such as social media, content, product/service, SEO, or website). When developing team roles and responsibilities, think about how different teams will collaborate with one another.
If you are a one-person-show, you can still create an outline for your specific roles and responsibilities so that nothing is missed. Running your own business can be a lot at times, which is why it’s vital to be organized when implementing your brand’s marketing plan.
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Monitoring and evaluating success
Once you’ve implemented your brand marketing plan, that’s not the end! You’ll need to continuously monitor and evaluate the success of your strategy, so you can make necessary adjustments depending on what works well and what doesn’t serve your business’s goals.
These are some key ways to monitor and evaluate your success:
- Track performance – To ensure that your marketing efforts are not wasted, it is essential to use specific tools and analytics to monitor the performance of your brand marketing strategies. Again, this goes back to some of those KPIs we listed earlier. Use what is most relevant to your business and goals.
- Analyze results – Regularly reviewing your KPIs allows you to adjust strategies as needed. Not everything will work right off the bat, so you’ll need to make some tweaks here and there. But it’s best to base your decision off of real evidence, which is why regularly analyzing results is a good habit to get into.
- Continuous improvement – There will always be something to improve in your brand’s marketing plan. New trends and ideas are emerging all the time, so you’ll never be bored when implementing your marketing strategy! Learn from your successes and failures to continually refine your brand marketing plan.
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Conclusion
There you have it! Our ultimate guide to building a brand marketing plan from scratch.
Having a brand marketing plan is essential for any business to succeed in today’s competitive market. By following the tips in this guide, you’ll be well on your way to creating an effective brand marketing plan for your business!
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