This article provides general educational information. Adapt the suggestions to your goals, audience, budget, and applicable rules.
1. Start with a specific objective
Choose an objective that connects to a real business need: for example, helping more suitable people discover a service, improving enquiry quality, or making repeat purchases easier. Avoid vague aims such as “go viral.” Define the time period and how you will recognise progress.
2. Describe the audience
Write down who the service is for, what problem they need solved, what questions they ask before buying, and what could stop them from proceeding. Use customer conversations, support questions, and trustworthy research rather than assumptions alone. Collect only information you are authorised to use.
3. Clarify the offer and message
Explain what you offer, who it helps, what is included, and what the next step is. Keep claims accurate and supportable. Make pricing, limitations, availability, and any important conditions easy to understand.
4. Choose channels you can maintain
Select a small number of channels that match your audience and capacity. A useful website, a consistent social profile, direct outreach where permitted, or a relevant email list may be more manageable than trying every platform at once. Follow each platform’s rules and applicable privacy and marketing laws.
5. Make a realistic budget and schedule
Separate staff time, creative production, software, advertising spend, and other third-party costs. Build a schedule with time for review and approvals. Do not commit money on the assumption that a campaign will automatically pay for itself.
6. Decide what to measure
Choose measures that match the objective. Depending on the project, these might include qualified enquiries, completed forms, conversion rate, cost per result, repeat engagement, or response time. Use consistent definitions and avoid drawing strong conclusions from tiny samples.
7. Review and improve
Set a review date. Compare results with the original objective, record what changed, and test one or two reasonable improvements at a time. Keep a note of external factors such as seasonality, stock availability, pricing changes, and platform updates.
A simple one-page plan
- Objective: What business outcome are we trying to improve?
- Audience: Who are we trying to reach?
- Offer: What are we communicating?
- Channels: Where will we show up?
- Budget: What can we reasonably spend?
- Measures: What evidence will we review?
- Review date: When will we decide what to change?