5 Essential Steps to Create a Marketing Plan that Turns Leads into Paying Customers
Hi, I’m Francie.
If you’re hanging here on the Founding Females blog, you’re aiming to start and build a strong business. That means, you’re my kind of people. Welcome! I hope you learn something here that will make you wildly successful.
5 Essential Steps to Create a Marketing Plan that Turns Leads into Paying Customers
Ever feel like your marketing strategy just isn’t cutting it, but you aren’t sure why?
As an entrepreneur, your to-do list never seems to get shorter. You don’t have time to waste. That’s why it’s essential to feel confident your marketing efforts will *actually* bring clients through your doors.
In this post, we’ll outline exactly what you need to know to build a small business marketing plan. Your marketing plan will help your ideal clients think, “wow, she gets me!” and feel compelled to buy into the transformation you promise to deliver.
Here’s what we’ll cover in 5 Essential Steps to Create a Marketing Plan that Turns Leads into Paying Customers:
What is a marketing plan and why is it important to entrepreneur success?
The biggest mistake I see entrepreneurs make when it comes to marketing
Exactly how to create a marketing message that cuts through the noise and reaches the people who are best fit to buy from you.
Exactly how to create a buying experience that guides leads into paying customers.
Exactly how to decide which marketing channels are right for your audience (notice I didn’t say, “right for you”?).
How to create a clear vision of transformation (after all, customers aren’t buying your offering, they’re buying the change you’re able to help them make).
A helpful template you can use to create an effective marketing plan.
What is a Marketing Plan?
A marketing plan is a written vision with distinct detail about how to best communicate your message to an audience primed to buy from you. Your marketing plan guides exactly how you’ll create a strong perception for your audience about the value your business offers and lead them through the process of buying from you.
As we discuss how to create an effective marketing plan, we’ll talk about important considerations for building your marketing strategy, including the importance of speaking to one specific person, how to meet ideal clients (Click here if you’re still trying to figure out how to know who your ideal clients are!) where they are with a defined message, and how to craft a marketing plan that turns leads into paying customers.
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Why Does Every Entrepreneur Need a Marketing Plan?
Without a marketing plan, you can’t be sure your marketing efforts have synergy. A clear plan helps you reverse engineer your ultimate marketing vision and create a clear action plan for appropriate steps to take to make that vision happen. Marketing doesn’t come naturally to many entrepreneurs, especially women. That’s because society tells us not to talk about ourselves too much.
In marketing, you must create an air-tight plan for talking about yourself and your business in a way that helps customers become raving fans. Without a clear plan, you’ll create and write according to what society tells you is appropriate instead of a clear, compelling message that earns customers.
The Biggest Marketing Mistake Entrepreneurs Make
Often when I ask female entrepreneurs what their existing marketing plan looks like, they tell me, “I try to post on social media every day.” Babe, that’s not a marketing plan.
Yes, social media is a great way for businesses to connect with their target market and deliver repeat touch points. Yes, there are perks to social media - it's super accessible, your target market likely uses it all the time, and it's easy.
The problem is that for many businesses, social media is their only form of marketing, Then, they're left at the mercy of things like algorithm changes which control who sees their message and when. They tend to focus all their energy on “going viral” when actually, those resources could be better spent on a lasting marketing strategy.
That silly game where you log into Instagram 10 times a day to see if there’s any activity and your follower count wavers back and forth between gaining and losing a few followers? Yea, let’s not do that anymore. That game is a time-suck that’s destroying your mental health and productivity. There’s a better way.
Social media outlets have far more control over your message than you may realize, and if you foresee running your company long term (5-10 years), crafting a marketing mix (with social media as one slice of the pie among many) is crucial for building a business that will last.
Bottom line: Social media should be one slice of your “marketing pie,” not the whole thing. Plus, I’m going to show you how to build a marketing plan without relying on social if that feels more life-giving to you.
Let’s dive into the step you need to build a strong marketing plan for your small business.
Marketing Plan Step #1 Develop Client Avatars
The "client avatar" is sometimes referred to as a "buyer persona." It explains in detail who is a great fit to buy from you with a detailed description about what their life is like.
Helping Founding Females® clients carefully create their client avatars is something I help with in tailored marketing plans because nearly every business decision revolves around who is on the other end of the transaction.
Client Avatars are at the root of:
The exact words you choose to describe the transformation your creates for clients in all marketing content
How you talk to people about your business
Where you position your marketing message online and in person
What your brand looks and feels like
Here’s what I tell clients about creating their ideal client avatars…
It’s absolutely critical that you know your target market well. And by know them “well,” I don’t just mean the basics, like they’re a mom between the ages of 30-45 who live in your town, workout, and make $100K per year.
By “know them well,” I mean you can easily and naturally provide a level of detail about your ideal clients so intimately that you can articulate things like:
what they talk about with their girlfriends,
what the thoughts sound like when they can’t sleep at night, and
the words they use to imagine their life after journeying through the transformation you promise to create.
To be able to create a message that captures prospective clients’ hearts, you really need much more detail than just the basic, general demographic information. The good news is, once you have this level of detail, you can then craft marketing messages that deeply resonate with the people you’re trying to reach and move them to take action. Only then can you help them go from lead to paying customer to repeat customer.
Remember, creating your ideal client avatars isn’t about excluding someone who doesn’t fit that description. You can sell to anyone you please, but you should talk to one specific person. Narrowing ideal client avatars is about guiding you to craft a message that your audience can’t ignore.
Download this free spreadsheet that shows you exactly how to create your own ideal client avatars and get into the nitty gritty detail of what their life is like.
Step-by-Step Guidance to Create Your Ideal Client Avatar
And Voila! Enter your best email address to gain instant access to the Ideal Client Avatar matrix.
Marketing Plan Step #2: Select Marketing Channels
Let’s talk about how to know exactly where to position your marketing message online and in person so you can reach the people you were best meant to serve.
But first, here’s how entrepreneurs typically start a business:
1. Business idea
2. Build a makeshift brand
3. Open new social media accounts on platforms they already use
4. Ad hoc their website
5. Tell a few people about their business and expect it to be a success.
That process doesn’t work for lots of reasons. It’s why so many entrepreneurs feel stuck!
That’s why it’s important to choose marketing channels based on where your ideal client already spends time, not the channels you feel most comfortable managing. Essentially, you need to position yourself where it’s convenient for them to pay attention to you.
The essence of creating a business is delivering value by filling a need your audience struggles to deal with. At the core of everything you do as a business owner should be meeting your customers where they are. That means delivering a great experience to a real kind of person who has a need they’re willing to pay money for someone to fix. Talk to them on their terms and inject yourself into their lives.
Once you create your ideal client avatars, selecting marketing channels is easy. That’s because having a clear idea of what life is like for your ideal client guides you to understand where your ideal clients already spend time online and in person. Creating a strong presence in 3-5 key areas in person and online is the key to an effective marketing strategy.
Here are 10 ideas of marketing channels to help you think through where your ideal clients spend the most time:
1. SEO - Your customers are already spending time finding answers to their questions in the search engine. If your site isn’t optimized, you are leaving money on the table. (PS Twice each year, we run the ✨ SEO Glow Up ✨ Training designed to help female entrepreneurs get right with SEO. Click to be notified when we’re hosting the next round of the ✨ SEO Glow Up ✨ !
2. Email marketing - I love MailChimp if you’re just getting started or ActiveCampaign if you’re further along on your business journey.
3. Networking events - search local Facebook events or reach out to local groups like the local Chamber of Commerce of Small Business Development Center for ideas.
4. Conferences - These aren’t necessarily conference best fit for your niche, but conference where your ideal client goes to learn
5. Write a blog strategically with opt ins to grow your email list, internal links, optimized keywords, and sufficient content to teach your audience something (and use these effective SEO tips to help grow your website traffic)
6. Google Business Profile - See below for best practices on how to leverage this valuable marketing tool
7. Pinterest - Pinterest is so underrated if you aren’t dependent on local customers
9. Free workshops or webinars - position yourself as the expert with a call to action to work with you at the end of the value-packed educational sesh!
10. Published ebook positioning yourself as the authority of your topic - think of it as the highest quality business card you could disperse
11. PR Strategy, like appearing on local news stations and guest positing on high trafficked sites. I show you exactly how to do that in this Press Release 101 course.
Keep in mind, you don’t need fresh content for every marketing channel. Here are 5 Ways to Maximize Your Marketing Content because, let’s face it, marketing is just one task of many for you as a female entrepreneur.
More small business marketing ideas
Looking for more small business marketing ideas? Here are 25 Ways to Market Your Business (Aside from Social Media)!
And Voila! Enter your best email for instant access to the guide.
Here are some marketing idea examples for how you might use a marketing channel in your business:
Search MeetUp.com to find groups of people with interests that align with your ideal client. Then, show up to those MeetUps and build familiarity through genuine relationships.
Fill out your Google Business Profile – your ideal client is likely already using Google. Make sure your profile is complete with the following
A clear description of what you do and who you do it for
Easy access to your phone number and website
Customer reviews
At least 30-60 days of consistent posts using their post feature. I’ve found success using similar style to social media posts and tweaking the Google Business posts with clear calls to action.
3. Develop a content strategy that educates or entertains your audience and positions you as the authority on a subject. House that information on your own website. Keep in mind that it’s challenging to position yourself as an expert on Instagram or Facebook because that space is so saturated. A better alternative is to turn your website into an asset by posting high quality content on a site you own. That way, you can direct the calls to action intentionally within your site.
4. Double down on Pinterest. It’s one of the biggest search engines available. Plus, it’s a platform created to not just entertain like other platforms, but meet users’ needs in specific ways.
5. Be seen in person. In-person relationships are really effective for conversion. People are wired for connection. Commit yourself to one in-person event per week for three months. I promise you’ll see results. Here are a few more tips:
Don’t show up to the same events every month or every week.
Channel your inner extrovert and make the rounds at lots of different types of events.
Before the conversation ends with a new connection, ask something like, “What can I do for you? Who can I connect you with? How can I be in your corner?”
Then, follow up on that promise.
Remember, consistency wins with marketing. You need to give any new marketing channel a minimum of 90-days of consistent, committed effort to see results.
Marketing Plan Step #3: Outline the Buying Cycle
To talk about a good marketing mix, we need to talk about the concept of The Buying Cycle. The Buying Cycle is the psychological process customers go through as they make a decision to buy from you.
The main phases of The Buying Cycle are awareness, consideration, purchase, and after-sale. Let’s go more in depth and talk about what happens within each phase.
The Buying Cycle | Phase 1: Awareness
Every customer who buys from you will experience first learning about your business somehow. It’s in this phase that the lead develops a high level view of what you do and who you do it for. Think of it as the first impression.
At this stage, the potential customer is at the farthest point from making a purchase. Content that most appeals to potential customers in this stage is content that develops a relationship between you and them. They have to come to know, like, and trust you in order to see you as a solution to the problem. Hard sells here tend to be fruitless and super cringe-y.
What Works Here
Clear description of what you do. *Think* Apple’s “1000 songs in your pocket” when Steve Jobs introduced the concept of the iPod.
Clear, recognizable branding so they can associate the value you provide with an image that evokes feeling.
A focus on transformation to prepare them for the next phase of The Buying Cycle: Consideration
Appropriate Calls to Action in the Awareness Phase:
· Learn more about us
· Take a tour
· Watch a video
· Learn from me
Think of this stage like an introductory handshake or a wave.
The Buying Cycle | Phase 2: Consideration
In the consideration phase of The Buying Cycle, the lead has associated the transformation you provide with their own unmet need. Here, they dig for more information about how you could be the answer to their problem.
At this point, the lead is sizing you up to see if it feels right. They’re likely comparing your offering to the offering of your competitors, so highlight what makes your offering unique.
Content that appeals most to customers in this stage is value-packed content that helps solve a problem they’re having and, at the same time, aligns your business as a solution to the problem they’re facing.
For example, a lead in the Consideration phase might be combing through your About page on your coaching website to see if the words you use resonate. They might also check out your service packages to see if the pricing fits within their budget.
Think of this stage as if you’re showcasing the parts of your business that make it special so the buyer can feel confident your solution is the answer.
The Buying Cycle | Phase 3: Purchase
‘Purchase’ is the third phase in The Buying Cycle. Often leads in this phase need a little bump or incentive to step into the transaction. Likely, several repeat touch points have guided them into this space.
The customer is primed to make a purhcase because they have first come to know, like, and trust you, and they’ve also seen how you offer a potential solution to their problem. Now they have to make the decision whether they want to buy from you.
This is where a really on-point marketing message with refined copy comes in handy because you can so clearly identify your ideal client’s need and have offered a clear path to transformation.
When you do word this in a way that deeply resonates, you nullify any objection they have. It’s here that they feel less risk and more comfort about parting with their money. Make sure you have positioned clear FAQs on your site, highlighted your terms and policy for buying, and offered social proof to help guide them into the transaction. Then, don’t give them any distractions that might lead them into a non-converting space.
Think of this stage as if the buyer grasps the value of your brand and your perfectly position call to action make him or her want to do a happy dance, as if to say, “Finally someone can help me with this annoying need.. thank you!”
The Buying Cycle | Phase 4: After-Sale
Existing customers are the easiest and least expensive to sell to. The after-sale phase of the buying cycle is so important because repeat customers help drive down marketing costs and create efficiencies in your business.
Existing customers have already overcome the psychological barriers involved with deciding to purchase, so focus on continuing to build a strong relationship and continue to meet their needs over time.
Create an experience to treasure and nurture existing customers. Treat them like gold. The goal is not just another sale, but a raving fan for life. VIP Events and “members-only” perks are examples of after-sale efforts.
Marketing Plan Step #4: Promise Transformation with a Well Crafted Marketing Message
Every customer has a need they can’t meet on their own. If they could, they wouldn’t need you. Developing a clear marketing message means you can describe the transformation you promise in a way that makes sense and feels desirable to them.
Think about your ideal client’s life before you save the day. Your marketing message should be able to clearly describe three things:
where they are without their need met,
where they want to be, and
how you’ll guide them through the transformation.
Where to Talk About the Transformation You Create
It’s not enough to describe your offering. You must make the connection between how your offering helps create meaningful change in your customer’s life.
Your promise of transformation should be thread throughout the conversation any time you talk about your business. It should become second nature to clearly convey how you create transformation. This should be literally everywhere, like in your website copy, media kit, social media posts, FAQs, email signature, presentations you give, etc.
Once you create a strong marketing message with a well-crafted path to transformation, you’re ready to tie it with a bow in a marketing plan!
Marketing Step #5: Create your Marketing Plan
Your marketing plan is the “how” behind how your message works. When you outline the logistics of marketing, you bring to life how your marketing plan will actually turn leads into paying customers.
Marketing Plan Sections
Market research you’ve conducted, including competitor research and an industry analysis
Goals and objectives for marketing efforts
SWOT Analysis, meaning Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats,
Marketing channels you’ll use to connect with your ideal client
Metrics you’ll use to gauge whether it’s working. We call these key performance indicators or KPIs,
Annual marketing budget – typically a small business marketing budget is 6-8% of annual revenue
Sales strategy synopsis – here, you’ll describe how you’ll close more deals to generate more revenue, whereas marketing is the broader approach to communicating your message
Marketing Roles and Responsibilities – If your business is more than just you, meaning you leverage employees or contractors to execute your marketing strategy, this is where you outline who is responsible for what.
Marketing Plan Template
Take with you! No need to reinvent the wheel. Download this simple Marketing Plan Template to complete your small business marketing plan.
And voila! Enter your best email for instant access to the Marketing Plan Template.
Conclusion
Creating a small business Marketing Plan takes lots of intention and planning. But don’t skip these important steps as a small business owner because the effort pays dividends!
Taking the right steps will help ensure the effort you put in is effective for attracting the right type of customer who is eager and ready to buy.
Once you have created your ideal client avatar, selected your marketing channels, outlined the buying cycle, created a marketing message that promises transformation, and finalized it with an official marketing plan, you’re ready to start executing on a timeline that makes sense for you.
You’ve got this, babe! You’re well on your way to building a business that lights you up inside and easily turning leads into paying customers.
Related Articles for Female Entrepreneurs
Female business resources
Dream, Build, Grow: A Female’s Step-by-Step Guide for How to Start a Business (with free access to the resource suite)
Hi, I’m Francie!
Nice to meet you. I’m the founder of Founding Females®. Some call me a business sage because I love to empower female entrepreneurs to breathe life into the business dreams God called them to.
After feeling like a misfit in the corporate world, I discovered a life I loved waking up to through business ownership.
I’m the author of Dream, Build, Grow: A Female’s Step-by-Step Guide for How to Start a Business, a guided journal helping hundreds of women start and grow their businesses.
I’m also a passionate entrepreneurship hype girl, female leader, public speaker, and community enthusiast.
My MBA and 10 years in a corporate career and in business ownership positioned me as an entrepreneurship educator with forward-thinking strategies for starting and growing successful businesses.
As a community leader, I realized other women could thrive with the right guidance and support. I created the Founding Females® Mastermind Community that provides a safe space for women to build better businesses.
I believe that anyone with a dream on their heart can pull up a seat to change the world through entrepreneurship. Looking to grow your own business? Click for info about how to work with me.
About Founding Females®
The mission of Founding Females® is to help build a better future for female entrepreneurs through education, encouragement, and shared wisdom. We create safe spaces for women to share business challenges and receive peer support.
In addition, Founding Females® offers an online female business mastermind, a how-to guidebook for female entrepreneurs called Dream, Build, Grow: A Female’s Step-by-Step Guide for How to Start a Business, and in-person events, like an annual women’s business conference and local Founding Females Meet Ups.
Curious to connect with women business owners who are paving new paths, providing tremendous value to customers, and growing their businesses? Our Women’s Business Mastermind blog series features women business owners who are raising the tide for all of us.