This December, while some people associate the end of the Maya calendar with the end of the world, most businesses face a more practical question: the plan for next year.
In the dive industry, December is a particular month. Here in Bali, the rainy season is settling in, the boats are quieter and operators begin discussing next year. Many centres draw up ambitious plans in December. By March, most of those plans have been set aside in a drawer.
What is the alternative to a long marketing plan?
We recommend replacing the marketing plan with a marketing page: a single sheet that can be posted on the office wall, next to the tide tables, and consulted every day. A plan that does not fit on one page is rarely read again in March.
Why does a one-page marketing plan work for a small business?
Large businesses need long plans. They have departments, budgets that require approval and teams that need to know what other teams are doing.
A dive centre with six staff does not. Neither does a restaurant in a small Quebec town, a B&B on a river or a craft shop that attends three markets each summer. These businesses need to know what matters this year, whom they want to reach, through which channels and when. That information fits on one page.
A long plan also carries a less visible risk. Because writing it requires effort, it gives the impression of progress. A business may spend two weeks on a thirty-page document and feel well prepared. Then January arrives, the phone rings, an employee resigns, the website stops working, and the document is never opened again.
A single page, by contrast, is consulted because it remains in plain view.
What should the page contain?
Many templates are available. The Business Development Bank of Canada offers a free marketing plan template that goes into considerably more detail than the approach described here. It is a useful tool for the initial thinking before condensing the result. You may complete the long version once, then reduce it to a single sheet.
The page contains five blocks:
- Goals. Three at most, written so that next December you will know whether they were achieved.
- Who. The two or three types of customers you want more of. Not "everyone", but specific people.
- Where. The channels you will actually use to reach them: website, your Google+ Local page, a newsletter, one social network, local partners, or whatever suits your business.
- When. A calendar showing twelve months across the page, with the main campaigns marked.
- Money and time. An estimate of what you will spend and who will do the work.
If a block requires more than a few lines, it is usually a sign that it can be simplified.
Why limit the plan to three goals?
This is the point clients most often question. Many would like seven goals. In our experience, seven goals means that none is carried out properly.
Good goals are specific and verifiable: "Fill the shoulder season better than this year." "Get 40 new reviews on TripAdvisor." "Launch the French version of the website by April." "Build a newsletter list of past guests and send it every month."
Weak goals are wishes: "Grow the brand." "Be more active on social media." "Improve our online presence." Because they cannot be measured, there is no way to know whether they were achieved, which may explain why they are so common.
Why should every action have a date?
An idea without a date remains an intention.
The calendar is where a one-page plan proves its value. For a dive centre, this means planning backwards from the seasons. If the high season starts in July, customers book in March and April. The newsletter and the promotion must therefore go out in February, and the photos and copy must be ready in January. December is the time to work this out.
In Canada, the principle is the same with different seasons: sugar shack season, summer on the lakes, fall colours, the snowmobile trails. Each season has a moment when customers begin planning, and it is generally earlier than expected. We recommend marking that moment on the calendar, along with the planned action and the name of the person responsible.
Administrative dates belong on the calendar as well: domain renewal, the end of your hosting contract, and the date when the hours on your Google listing need to change for the holidays. These are the items that cause problems when nobody has recorded them.
How often should the plan be reviewed?
We recommend a monthly review rather than a yearly one. A yearly review often leads to the plan being abandoned: it is read in December, the gaps become apparent, and a new plan replaces it.
A monthly review takes fifteen minutes. On the first Monday of the month, with the page on the wall, the team answers four questions. What did we plan to do last month? Was it done? What is coming next month? Does anything need to change?
Circumstances will change. A new competitor opens, a road closes, or a partner makes an unexpected offer. A monthly review allows you to correct the page in pencil rather than discard it. By the end of the year, the page is covered in notes and arrows, which shows that it was used.
Measurement deserves attention as well. Choose one or two figures per goal and review them monthly: bookings, newsletter sign-ups, enquiries from the website, reviews. There is no need to analyse every report in Google Analytics. When it is unclear what to measure, the goal is usually too vague.
How do you keep the plan in use?
Most of the dive operators we worked with this year do not need more ideas; they already have many. What they need is to select a few, assign dates to them and review them again a month later.
If you would like an outside perspective on your plan, a session on marketing strategy with someone outside the business can help you focus it. Otherwise, we recommend setting aside time this week with a single sheet of paper. December, with its rainy afternoons, is well suited to this work.