5 Critical Components of Your Marketing Plan

If you don’t have these 5 components in your marketing plan, you are wasting time and money.

At Firebrand, we have an acronym we use to help clients remember the important parts of a marketing plan or strategy. Using this “system” will also help you be in front of customers when they are making buying decisions aka the infamous ZMOT or Zero Moment of Truth.

Marketers love acronyms and mnemonic devices. Oh, and alliteration, we love alliteration. It’s not because we like to be clever (well… maybe just a bit), but we want to help people remember. We want to capture their attention. At Firebrand Creative, we say we like to “make a statement that sticks.” A marketing plan that you don’t use because it’s not in the forefront of your mind is one that won’t be used.

Your brand, product, or service needs to have a “consistent, authentic and measurable presence that adds value.” Or… CAMPAV (pronounced Camp A-V). These 5 components are a necessity in every strategy, every plan, and every tactic. If you cannot accomplish all four of these in a certain area, then you need to expand your team so that you can, or put off that part of the plan. They are that critical.

Like Young MC said “break it down for me fellas”:

You must be CONSISTENT in your posting

There are a lot of voices on the interwebs. Like, seriously, a lot. Having a social media presence is a bit like having a grape in a vineyard. It doesn’t mean anything unless your voice cuts through the noise. Consistency is one way to do that.

When you post regularly, you will be “top of mind” with your customers. If you post a few times each week, you are much more likely to be in front of the customer when they are ready to make a purchase.

The actual frequency of your posts, blogs, podcasts, or videos will be dependent on your own business, but they do have to be regular. You may need to post 3x a week, or you may need to post 1x a month. But it needs to be regular.

Inconsistent postings will signal to customers that you only care about them when you have something to say. Customers WANT to hear from the brands they love. Infrequent trumps inconsistent.

You must be AUTHENTIC

Authenticity is hard to describe but we all know what it looks and feels like. Maybe feels like is the better describer to land on. We know what authenticity feels like. It’s the brand that believes in itself and wants you to believe as well. It’s the company that is doing good in the world and encourages you to do good as well. Or it’s the person who posts normal, everyday, average photos and doesn’t seem to curate their image.

Being who you say you are, believing what you want other people to believe… these are the things that make brands authentic.

You are building a relationship with your customers or consumers by letting them see through the social media curtain and get a glimpse of the true people behind the brand.

Your posts must be MEaSURABLE

Every marketing effort must be measurable. Digital marketing has made this much easier. Print advertising effectiveness is notoriously hard to measure. You can’t tell how long someone looks at your ad or if it made an impression. With digital media, we can. And we should.

Not every post needs to be a zinger. But we use the “less than zingers” to help develop more zingers. Think about what is important to your brand goals when defining what to measure.

Likes are rarely the right thing to measure. How many people discovered your post from Hashtags? Did people view your profile or website after seeing a post? How many people forwarded a post? Was your story enaging, how many “back clicks” did your story get?

Most of the time, people scroll through their feed and click the heart on about everything. We aren’t looking for an ego boost, we are looking for what moves customers closer to making a purchase or becoming an advocate. We want to know how each post can perform better than the last.

You have to be PRESENT when and where your customers are

If a post is posted in a channel where there is no one to hear it, does it make a sound? I think that is how the old debate goes.

Presence asks, where are your customers and are you there too?

I routinely hear about how Facebook is dead and no one uses it but Karen. But my data shows me something different. It shows me that a lot of people are on Facebook and it is a great channel for viral content.

Instagram is sexy. Snapchat is young. TikTok is fun. None of that matters if your customers are not there. Go back to your brand personas and target audiences and put the effort into being where your audience is. If you don’t know where your audience is, take a look at our Jumpstart your marketing posts.

Every post must ADD VALUE to the customer

Are you posting content that adds value to your customer? Is it something they enjoy looking at or reading? Are they learning something?

Posting content that YOU like might help you be consistent, but if it does not, in some way, add value to your customer it will not help them connect to your brand.

In our post on defining the target customer we talk about shared values. Your brand has values and your customer has values. An authentic brand experience happens when those values overlap. That is when you are adding value to both the brand and the customer.

I’m all for a gorgeous Instagram page aesthetic, but only if it adds value to the customers. If they like to see reposts of other people using your brand, then show it to them. Our blogs, videos, and posts are about exploring the shared value between our customers and their brands.

Make sure CAMPAV is a part of your marketing plan.

So that’s CAMPAV. Try to implement it into your marketing plan. When you look at your Instagram page, you should ask these questions. Am I being consistent? Am i being authentic, do I believe this post? Can I measure what I’ve posted and am I actually doing it? Am I posting WHERE people can find my posts? Do they want to see what I have posted?

The same is true of your website. Are you updating consistently, does the brand seem alive? How are you measuring what pages work best and why? Are you available when people have questions? And are customers finding what they need from you on the web?

At every step of the journey, ask the questions. Is my product offering a consistent and measurable presence that adds value to my consumers?

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