The 1-Page Marketing Plan: Get New Customers, Make More Money, And Stand out From The Crowd

by Allan Dib

“the fastest path to the money.”

There’ll be a gazillion business books there for you on all these airy-fairy concepts and much more, mostly written by professional authors and researchers who’ve never actually built a high-growth business.

Running Out of Oxygen Really Sucks

“Money isn’t everything... but it ranks right up there with oxygen.”

I know all about delivering value, changing the world and so on, but how much of that are you going to do if you’re broke? How many people can you help?

Should the cabin experience sudden pressure loss, oxygen masks will drop down from above your seat. Place the mask over your mouth and nose and pull the strap to tighten. If you are traveling with children or someone who requires assistance, make sure that your own mask is on first before helping others.

To live through an impossible situation, you don’t need to have the reflexes of a Grand Prix driver, the muscles of a Hercules, the mind of an Einstein. You simply need to know what to do.

It seems that no matter how hard the owner(s) try, their efforts to get to the next level just lead to frustration.

Many small business owners fall into the trap described in Michael Gerber’s classic book, The E-Myth Revisited. That is, they are a technician, for example, a plumber, hairdresser, dentist and so on, and they are good at what they do. They have what Gerber describes as an “entrepreneurial seizure” and they start to think to themselves, “Why should I work for this idiot boss of mine? I’m good at what I do—I’ll start my own business.”

They go from working for an idiot boss to becoming an idiot boss!

just because you’re good at the technical thing you do doesn’t mean that you are good at the business of what you do.

you must resolve to become good at the business of what you do—not

If you’re good at the technical thing of what you do but feel like you could benefit from some help on the business side, then you’re in the right place at the right time.

Professionals Have Plans As a kid my favorite TV show was The A-Team. In case you’ve never watched it, I’ll give you the executive summary of 99% of the episodes: Bad guys harass and threaten an innocent person or group. The innocent person or group begs and pleads with the A-Team to help them. The A-Team (a motley bunch of ex-soldiers) fight, humiliate and drive away the bad guys.

“I love it when a plan comes together.”

Professionals never just wing it. Doctors follow a treatment plan. Airline pilots follow a flight plan. Soldiers follow a military operation plan.

Invariably, when someone makes a mess of something it often becomes clear in the aftermath that they didn’t have a plan.

Just like you wouldn’t want to be on a plane where the pilot hadn’t bothered with a flight plan, you don’t want you and your family relying on a business for which you haven’t bothered with a business plan. Often the stakes are almost as high. Marriages, partnerships, jobs and more are often the casualties of failed businesses. It’s more than just your ego on the line so it’s time to “go pro” and create a plan.

However, later when I thought about it more carefully, I realized that while the document itself was a bunch of nonsense, the process I went through with the consultant was valuable in clarifying some of the key elements in my business, particularly one key section of it called “the marketing plan.”

Pareto was an Italian economist who noticed that 80% of the land in Italy was owned by 20% of the population. Hence the Pareto Principle, commonly known as the 80 /20 rule, was born.

80% of a company’s profits come from 20% of its customers. 80% of road traffic accidents are caused by 20% of drivers. 80% of software usage is by 20% of users. 80% of a company’s complaints come from 20% of its customers. 80% of wealth is owned by 20% of people. Woody Allen even noted that 80% of success is showing up.

doing more of the 20% stuff is your fast track to success.

So 64% of effects come from 4% of causes.

majority of your success comes from the top 4% of your actions. Or put yet another way, 96% of the stuff you do is a waste of time

Struggling business owners will spend time to save money, whereas successful business owners will spend money to save time. Why is that an important distinction? Because you can always get more money, but you can never get more time. So you need to ensure the stuff you spend your time on makes the biggest impact.

leverage is the best kept secret of the rich.

If you want more success, you need to start paying attention to and expand the things that give you the most leverage.

You may look at getting 50% better at your negotiation skills. This, in turn, may help you renegotiate with key suppliers and get an incremental improvement in your buy price.

By far the biggest leverage point in any business is marketing. If you get 10% better at marketing, this can have an exponential or multiplying effect on your bottom line.

The marketing plan ended up being the 20% part of the business planning process that produced 80% of the result.

The 1-Page Marketing Plan is the 4% of effort that generates 64% (or more) of the result in your business.

Small business owners who would have never had the time, money or know-how to create a traditional marketing plan now have one.

If the circus is coming to town and you paint a sign saying “Circus Coming to the Showground Saturday,” that’s advertising. If you put the sign on the back of an elephant and walk it into town, that’s promotion. If the elephant walks through the mayor’s flower bed and the local newspaper writes a story about it, that’s publicity. And if you get the mayor to laugh about it, that’s public relations.

If the town’s citizens go to the circus, you show them the many entertainment booths, explain how much fun they’ll have spending money at the booths, answer their questions and, ultimately, they spend a lot at the circus, that’s sales.

And if you planned the whole thing, that’s marketing. Yup, it’s as simple as that—marketing is the strategy you use for getting your ideal target market to know you, like you and trust you enough to become a customer. All...

Just as the answers in physics change as new discoveries are made, so too do the answers in business and in marketing.

Strategy is the big-picture planning you do prior to the tactics.

Strategy without tactics leads to paralysis by analysis.

Tactics without strategy leads to the “bright shiny object syndrome.”

Think of your marketing plan as the architect’s blueprint for getting and retaining customers.

It’s trackable. That is, when someone responds, you know which ad and which media was responsible for generating the response.

It’s measurable. Since you know which ads are being responded to and how many sales you’ve received from each one, you can measure exactly how effective each ad is.

In summary if we were to describe the three phases in table form, it would look like this: PHASE STATUS GOAL OF THIS PHASE Before Prospect Get them to know you and indicate interest During Lead Get them to like you and buy from you for the first time After Customer Get them to trust you, buy from you regularly and refer new business to you

The goal of this phase is to get your prospect to know you and respond to your message.

By focusing on the right target market for your business, you’ll be able to get a better return on the time, money and energy you invest.

focus on a niche and become a big fish in a small pond

With this type of marketing, business owners are like an archer in the middle of a dense fog, shooting arrows in every direction in the hope that one or more of them will hit the intended target.

To be a successful small business marketer you need laser-like focus on a narrow target market, sometimes called a niche.

A niche is a tightly defined portion of a subcategory. For example, think of the health and beauty category. This is a very wide category. A beauty salon can offer a wide variety of services, including tanning, waxing, facials, massage, cellulite treatment and much more. If, for example, we take one of these subcategories—let’s say cellulite treatment—this could be our niche. However, we could tighten it up even further by focusing on cellulite treatment for women who’ve just had a baby. This is a tightly defined niche.