MPub: Advancing the 7 Sentence Marketing Plan

Advancing the 7-Sentence Marketing Plan(Goals, Actions & Audience)

by Monique Trottier

Monique Trottier@BoxcarMarketing

The 7-Sentence Marketing Plan

• Sentence 1: What is the purpose of your marketing?

• Sentence 2: How will you accomplish your purpose?

• Sentence 3: Who is your target market?

• Sentence 4: What is your niche in the marketplace?

• Sentence 5: What tools and tactics will you use to carry out your marketing?

• Sentence 6: What is your business identity?

• Sentence 7: How will you measure success and allocate time and budget?


Sentence #1: What is the purpose of your marketing?

• What are your goals? These need to be specific and measurable:

• Reach a new audience (#, %)

• Promote an event (#, $)

• Get sales (#, $)

• Identify the top 3 goals and tailor them to be specific to your client/project. Be as specific as possible (i.e., drive # people to the FB page who will enter the contest (est. 10% conversion rate))


Example from Assignments1. What is the purpose of your marketing?

The purpose of Okanagan Woman is to reach a niche market of women in the Okanagan focused on a regional view of their interests and issues. We want to gather more specific information from these women as to what they want to read about, and what deals they are looking for. We will print 25000 copies in our initial print run, and we want to see these in stores and in the publics’ hands.

Our goals also include the promotion of the magazine launch, in order to attract at least 100 people to the launch party, including prominent community figures.

We also want local advertisers to request media kits, and to establish these advertisers as long-term clients. We hope at least 100 local businesses will request media kits.


Sentence #2: How will you achieve that purpose?

• Sentence #1 must include specific, measurable goals. #2 provides more detail.

• Lead Generation: acquiring customers or convincing prospects to stay in touch via email newsletters, sign-up forms or other offers.

• Revenue Generation: typically about increasing sales – what percentage increase are you aiming for? What’s the desired average order value? Number of orders? Lifetime value of the customer?

• Audience Engagement: If you’re trying to get build community – how many new members a month do you need? If you are generating buzz, what volume increase are you expecting and estimating?

• Your goals need to be measurable so that you will know if you’ve met them or not.


Example from assignmentsThe purpose of this plan: is to create a buzz around the launch of Okanagan Women magazine – making known its content, mission statement and what it offers in comparison to similar magazines available in this region. We will focus on making advertisers aware of the myriad possibilities for tie-ups and promotions and get retailers to subscribe to the magazine.

Remember you want to set some specific, measurable goals (#, $, %)

Our actions: First, we will hold a ‘Are you an Okanagan Woman?’ contest that will run as an advertisement on websites we know our to-be-readers frequent often. The contest promotions will also be supported by radio spots, a Twitter and Facebook account and both will lead interested people to the contest website. Once here, people can sign themselves or their friends, siblings etc as someone they think is the quintessential Okanagan woman, who will be featured in an issue of the magazine. There will be 50 early-bird prizes for those who sign up.


continued

The website will have some short, snappy information on the content of the magazine, its esteemed columnists and information on getting in touch with the editorial and marketing departments.

Once we have a database of these users, we will approach advertisers whose products are a perfect fit for our readers. We can offer them a discount for the first three issues and also promotional tie-ups in terms of content and visibility at events. We will also re-tweet and add links on Facebook of any promotions advertisers might have during special seasons – things that add real value to our readers.

To generate subscriptions from retailers, we can offer discounts to those who decide to subscribe for 2 years or more. We will add these retailers to our annual listings booklet of what’s going on around the region for the year and give them free advertising in there.


Example 2

1. The purpose of our marketing is:

To arouse interests of retail advertisers to apply for a media kit, fully book 100% of the magazine’s

available pages for advertisement, and generate subscription of 25,000 initial print run from retailers. Our

secondary goal is to increase popularity of Okanagan Woman magazine among housewives in Okanagan

area.

2. I will accomplish my goals by …

• Attracting the retail advertisers to the magazine’s official website where they can download a media kit

and book an ad.

• Offering customized advertisement service for retailers whose initial subscription exceeds 800 copies.

• Positioning the magazine as a first-choice channel for local women to obtain the timely sales information

of their interests.


Goals, Actions, Response, KPIs Grid

GoalActions that will achieve

goalWhy

Desired Audience Response

KPIs

Attract advertisers to the

official website

Search engine marketing

guide potential customers to the official website

Download the media kit and book an ad

Book 100% Ad Pages.

Goals > Actions > Response > KPIGoals (#1) > Actions (#2, 5, 6) > Response (#3, 4) > KPI (#7)


Suggested Revision

Goal (#1) Actions that will achieve goal (#2, 5)

Desired Audience Response (#3)

KPIs (#7)

Attract advertisers to the official website to request a media kit or book and ad

Book 100% of available ad space

Search Engine Marketing

Outreach to local advertisers

PR

Direct email

Open the email

Visit the website

Download the media kit

Book an ad

Email open, CTR

# visitors (referral and direct)

# visitors (organic)

# downloads

# bookings


Sentence #3: Finding Your Target Audience

• Who are the people you want to reach?

• Create personas for them:

• What kind of people are they?

• What characteristics do they share?

• What social media channels do they use?

• How do they engage online?


Sentence #3: Example Persona

Name:Title:

Basics: (Includes demographics and psychographics – age, gender, location, family life, likes and dislikes, location in adoption curve [i.e. innovator, early adopter, early majority, late majority)

Professional and personal background: (Includes job title, job history, role, leisure activities)

Quote: (related to context of the marketing)

Favourite Sites: (What websites does this person visit with context to this project?)

Goals: (What is this person’s goals when looking for the services/product you’re offering?)

I need / I want: (What does this person need and or want in order to reach the above goals? Remember to keep in mind all of the characteristics you described above)


Sentence #3: Personas

• Developing personas. Personas are character sketches of individual audience members that define who the content is for and you can use as sounding boards.

• “Playing Barbies” or G.I. Joe

• Moves you away from what the project team wants and towards what the persona wants.

• Ideally, a project will have both primary personas – common user types that are important to the business success of the project – and secondary personas – user types that are very different from primary users but whose needs still need to be addressed for the success of the project. This helps to ensure that all user needs are outlined.

• Make a better product that is more relevant to the audience.



• If you can’t imagine the people represented in your personas, go and search for them – investigate!

• What kinds of websites are similar?

• Who is commenting? Follow the clues and links.

• Find them online – profiles, Facebook, Twitter.

• Check your assumptions with the Forrester Social Technographics ladder.


http://www.forrester.com/empowered/tool_consumer.html





• The Social Technographics Ladder from industry analyst firm Forrester can inform you about typical web behaviours based on gender, age and geographic location.

• Find what your target audience does online.

• For example, while a small percentage of website visitors comment on blog posts, create content for contests and engage of Facebook pages, the majority of people are Spectators – they’ll read blogs and “Like” Facebook pages but they won’t actively engage with brands.

• Check your specific, measurable goals – are they realistic?

• Check your assumptions – will this campaign work with our particular target audience?


Sentence #3: Social Technographics Ladder

• Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff introduced Social Technographics in an April 2007 report:

Many companies approach social computing as a list of technologies to be deployed as needed – a blog here, a podcast there – to achieve a marketing goal. But a more coherent approach is to start with your target audience and determine what kind of relationship you want to build with them, based on what they are ready for.


Sentence #3: Social Technographics Lessons

This matches what we’ve been talking about in earlier study units.

• It’s not about the tools, it’s how we use them.

• Markets are conversations and successful marketing campaigns are about conversation, collaboration and community.

• Clay Shirky in Here Comes Everybody talks about: sharing, collaboration, conversation, collective action.

• Open Brand iCitizen Motivations are competence (I can), collectivism (I connect), cultural change (I am) and celebrity (I matter).

• Important to understand these theories as we look at the 7 Sentence Plan because when we are talking about audience, we are not talking demographics, but rather motivations.

• It’s not about Facebook but what Facebook allows us to do.


• Consumer data from Forrester helps us understand how consumers approach social technologies.

• Behaviours on ladder – 6 levels of participation that may or may not overlap.

• People participate in multiple behaviours all over the ladder.

• Rapid pace of behaviour change – tools changed and a 7th rung added in 2010.

• Analyze customers’ social technographics first and then create a social strategy based on that profile.

• The answer to Sentence #3: Who is the target audience? informs all parts of the 7 Sentence Marketing Plan.

Sentence #3: Social Technographics Analysis


Example from Assignments

Name: Beatrice Holmes

Title: Retired Nurse

Basics: Betty is 61 years old and lives in West Kelowna. She’s a retired nurse living on a pension, and her husband is a retired doctor. She is very financially stable and controls her own spending. She has two children (Julie, 35 and Fred, 38) and three grandchildren (ages 10, 8 and 5). She loves the Okanagan and taking part in things that are going on in the community. Betty also loves to shop. She’s always looking for new and interesting products that she can buy for herself or her family, and to talk about and tell her friends about. She loves discovering new local shops and spreading the word about them.

Likes: Spending time will family, vacationing, spas, shopping, cooking and baking.

Dislikes: Being unable to find the things that she wants and high shipping prices.


Example from Assignments

Technical background: Uses Facebook to connect with her family and see pictures of her grandchildren, online shopping (amazon.ca, www.pleasemum.com, www.bathandbodyworks.com, www.bedbathandbeyond.ca), and email (subscribes to Groupon, a few newsletters from local businesses).

Magazines: House and Home, Okanagan Life, and Chatelaine.

Goals: To find out more about local businesses and participate in community events so she can find new things to share with her family and friends.

I need/ I want:I need to find out about new local businesses and community events.I want to be able tell others about new stores and products that I like.I want to participate in community events that are casual and support my interests.

Quote: “I just found the neatest thing at the mall the other day…”

http://www.pleasemum.com

http://www.pleasemum.com

http://www.bathandbodyworks.com

http://www.bathandbodyworks.com

http://www.bedbathandbeyond.ca

http://www.bedbathandbeyond.ca


• Sentence #1 and 2 establish the basic outline of the plan.

• Sentence #5 and #7 reinforce that plan.

• Sentence #3 (your client's target audience), #4 (your client's niche and competitive advantage) and Sentence #6 (your client's business identity) all need to work together.

Your client's niche, competitive advantage and business identity need to reflect the wants and needs of the target audience. If your client's identity and positioning don't address something that your audience wants or needs you need to reexamine the audience that you're targeting or the product you are offering.

The 7 Sentences are Connected


Sentence #4: What is Your Niche in the Marketplace?

Be clear about why the audience cares about what you’re doing.

In order to attract your target audience you need to answer:

• “What is this?”• “Who is it for?” • “Why should a member of my target audience care?”

What attracts your audience? Why do they return?

Who are your competitors? What sets you apart?

• Look at competitors’ “About Us” page.• How are you better or different?• Why should someone choose your product over theirs?

You need a strong elevator pitch:

• Make advertisers say “Why aren’t I advertising here?”• Make customers say “I will go out of my way to shop there because...”


Sentence #4: S.P.H.E.R.E.

• So what: Why does your client’s product/service matter? What makes your client different from its competitors? (list competitors – name, URL) Why do consumers choose your client over someone else?

• Personality: What are the adjectives that describe your client’s brand?

• Hook: What’s your client’s story angle? Use phrases that are easy to remember to helps to spread your client’s story via word of mouth.

• Ego: Who does your client need to engage with? Who can benefit from promoting the brand amongst their friends? Why do people want to engage with the brand?

• Relevancy: What is the relevancy between the audiences’ motivations and what your client is trying to do?

• Effort: What does your client need to do in order to keep the audience engaged throughout the campaign as well as after the campaign is finished.


Hook

There are 9 themes that get people talking:

• aspirations and beliefs• David vs. Goliath• Avalanche about to roll • Anxieties• Contrarian/counterintuitive/challenging assumptions• Personalities and personal stories• How-to• Glitz and glam• Seasonal/event-related


Sentence #4: Example


Sentence 4


Sentence #4: Example S.P.H.E.R.E.

So What: What makes this mag special? • Relevant, reputable, original content and access to underground and established artists

Personality: What are the adjectives that describe the brand? • Relevant, reputable, underground, easily accessible, mobile

Hook: What’s the story angle?• Underground and established. Local artists.

Ego: Who does the mag need to engage with?• Artists who hold a high reputation within street culture• Advertisers: exposure; interviews with stores and brands• Artists: exposure in Van, TO, Montreal; exclusive feeds and original content• Staff: own writers, videographers, photographers (high quality, professionalism)

Relevancy: What is the relevancy between the audiences’ motivations and what the mag is trying to do?• Easy access, mobile• Original content, inspiring, motivating content• Knowledge of the current hype: events, discounts, fashion, music, gossip

Effort: What does the mag need to do in order to keep the audience engaged throughout the campaign as well as after the campaign is finished.• Weekly up-to-date content, contests and chances to win.


Sentence #4: Competitive Advantage

• Nothing else exists like this in the Canadian market

• No other magazine on urban street culture delivers more relevant content than justalilhype

• justalilhype stands out because of its ability to share new, hip, cutting edge taste with its audience.

• justalilhype is a valuable player in trendsetting

• For advertisers, it’s exposure to a diverse, concentrated audience of 17-25 year olds focused on street culture of Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal

• Gather data to prove position in the market: Inbound traffic, PageRank, social media subscribers, etc.


Sentence #4: Competitors and Competitive Advantage

• Ion Magazine and Inventory have print versions of their magazine.

• Ion Magazine has also been around for more than 5 years.

• Inventory Magazine also has a physical retail store in which they sell various products and brands that feature in their magazine.

• Our content is different because we only post original content.

• Justalilhype! has a crew of talented and skilled photographers and videographers to help capture the essence of street culture for its readers, while many other media outlets simply use photography provided by the interview subjects.

• The Modline magazine has more of a focus on mainstream news. Justalilhype! attracts their audience by providing coverage of both mainstream and underground events. For example, they attend both the prestigious Vancouver Fashion Week and underground Hip-Hop Breakdancing Tournaments.

• Visiting Modline will bring you to coverage of mainstream events, but visiting justalilhype! will allow you to see a glimpse of all angles of the city, both underground and mainstream events.


Example from assignmentsSo What: Okanagan Woman offers only 100% local content, and has a community interest in women’s issues (with connection to the Kelowna Women’s Shelter).

Personality: The magazine offers local women a personal connection to their community and unique source for local products and businesses.

Hook: A community of support for local women.

Ego: Readers benefit from the chance to learn about new businesses and products that they can share with their friends and families. Advertisers will benefit from connecting their brand with the magazine, the Women’s History Month event, and the Kelowna Women’s Shelter.

Relevance: Readers care about supporting local businesses and a charity that is close to their community.

Effort: As a free event, readers will find it easy and fun to participate in. It is something they do not have to make a large commitment to, but can visit at their leisure, like a trip to the mall.

Competitive advantage:

The event will show how the magazine develops a close personal connection with the reader. By having the advertisers as vendors at the event, they become more closely involved with the magazine, and a connection between the advertiser and the magazine will be built into the minds of the attendees.

The magazine wants to promote that they support local businesses and that by reading the magazine, people can find out more about great places to shop. However, it is not just all about shopping and buying. Okanagan Women is about empowering women as well, and linking the event to a charity helps to express this mantra.


Sentence 5: Tools & Tactics

• Details on the activities noted in #2

• Specific examples of the tools

• Schedule

• Evaluation of tools, supporting statements

• Conversation, collaboration, community

• Case studies, examples


Example from assignmentsMarketing tools to be used will be a combination of:

Personal emailsWebsite BlogInvitations to launch partyBrochures for initial informationNewsletterContests that link readers to local business peopleForumsQuarterly promotions or featuresSeek out business people with something to say about local economies to write for the magazine


How would you extrapolate this?

Goal (#1) Actions that will achieve goal (#2, 5)

Desired Audience Response (#3)

KPIs (#7)

Attract advertisers to the official website to request a media kit or book and ad

Book 100% of available ad space

Search Engine Marketing

Outreach to local advertisers

PR

Direct email

Open the email

Visit the website

Download the media kit

Book an ad

Email open, CTR

# visitors (referral and direct)

# visitors (organic)

# downloads

# bookings

Goals > Actions > Response > KPIGoals (#1) > Actions (#2, 5, 6) > Response (#3, 4) > KPI (#7)


Sentence #6: What is Your Business Identity?

What is your brand’s personality?

• What adjectives describe it? • What are the feelings the company wants to evoke? • What brand attributes does it want to convey?

Go back and look at the brand attributes of OPEN companies from the OPEN Brand book.

How do you align your identity with the identity of your customers?


Sentence #6: Example

Feelings evoked by justalilhype! magazine include: youthful, friendly, confident, open and enthusiastic.

Brand attributes they want to convey include creative, underground, professional, and trustworthy.

• Justalilhype is a leading online magazine in Canada focusing on mainstream and underground culture.

• With its creative approach to documenting and representing street culture, justalilhype! has garnered a large following among young adults who are encouraged to provide feedback on articles, music, and videos through the website and social media channels. (Justalilhype! generally receives an average of 5 of comments on blog posts.)

• Not only has justalilhype! allowed users to engage and interact with its brand, but also encouraged users to be creators of content – they’re open.

• With such a variety of distributed content, justalilhype! attracts and caters to the likes of different audiences, essentially “giving each user what they want.”


Sentence #6: Example Proof

• Proof points: number of retweets, comments on blog posts, page views, unique visitors.

• By encouraging feedback on articles, music and videos justalilhype! allowed users to engage and interact

• Encouraged users to be creators of content.

• Different audiences gives each user what they want

• Creates sense of community and collaboration.


• Sentence #3 (your target audience), #4 (your niche and competitive advantage) and Sentence #6 (your client's business identity) all need to work together.

• Your niche, competitive advantage and business identity need to reflect the wants and needs of the target audience.

• If your business identity and positioning don't address something that your audience wants or needs you need to reexamine the audience that you're targeting, or you need to make some cultural and product changes within the business.

• Match what they want with what you’re offering.

Revising Sentences #4 & #6


Sentence 7

• Do the KPIs relate to the stated goals in #1?

• Are they specific and measurable? Can they be used to evaluate the campaign’s success?

• Are there estimated hours per channel or budgets?


Example from assignments 1. Purpose/Goals

i. promote launch - generate excitement for new magazine and for new advertising opportunitiesii.ensure advertisers request media kit - make the information accessible and make acquiring it easyiii.generate subscriptions - get the target audience excited for new magazine so they will continue to order

it

• Add specific numbers to these goals, # advertisers requesting a kit or mags for the store, and some way to monitor excitement.

2. I will accomplish my goals by...i. ...by spreading the word using online and print mediums, such as Facebook, Twitter and newsletters distributed throughout the community

ii. ... by setting up a website, email and telephone number and by ensuring that these outlets are well-monitored for quick response times

iii. ...by featuring and promoting events that are important to the readership; by setting up a blog on the magazine’s website to encourage women to suggest content that matters to them.

• Use initial ideas to guide your goal #s:# FB fans# Twitter mentions# press mentions# newsletter sign ups, etc.

Customer service is a great angle. It could be the deciding factor with advertisers if you make this the most pleasant, or easiest experience.


continued

10 hours/week on marketing and communication tasks -- newsletter, web maintenance, feedback and contributions from readers via blog, email and telephone

6 hours/week on online marketing -- 2 hours for Facebook, 2 hours for Twitter and 2 hours for Groupon for promotions, feedback, news and updates, etc.


Next StepsACTIVITYComplete the Group Persona Assignment

http://bit.ly/mpub-personas

READINGS FOR THURSSteve Krug, “Chapter 2: How We Really Use the Web, ” Don’t Make Me Think, http://www.sensible.com/chapter.html

Open Brand Part 3: Inside the Open Brand" and "Part 4: Getting to Open,” Open Brand, p. 100 - 186.



http://www.sensible.com/chapter.html

http://www.sensible.com/chapter.html

MPub: Advancing the 7 Sentence Marketing Plan

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Transcript of MPub: Advancing the 7 Sentence Marketing Plan