In my experience, few Business owners actually take the time to sit down and write a full-blown Marketing plan. Unless they’re doing so in order to access funding, or as some sort of business course, it doesn’t normally happen.

As much value as there is in a big, thick marketing plan, I would argue that a focused one-pager will get more use and, as a result, be much more effective.

Everyone approaches the one-page marketing plan a little differently. You can do a quick Google search and find tons of templates and ideas to work from. But I’m going to give you the basics here. And honestly? Those templates aren’t tailored for your services as a speaker or coach anyway, so you might as well just work with a blank page in your appointment book, journal, or open up a new Word document.

Your marketing plan will help you get a full picture of your business so you can see the gaps, fill them, and leverage your strengths.

What goes into a one-page marketing plan?

This document will show you where you are now, where you want to be, and the best way to get there. Your first step is to ask yourself the following questions and answer them in your marketing plan.

Why are you doing this? You need to know the answer to this question before you do anything else. Maybe you’re marketing to get ten new clients. Maybe you need to increase your income by 5%. Perhaps you want to get 100 Facebook likes or to add 1000 people to your newsletter list. Figure out your why, so you’ll know when you’ve crossed the finish line!

Who are you doing this for? Whether you’re making a plan for a particular service, or for your business in general, it is important to get your head wrapped around your target audience. Go as deep as you can. This article from Inc.com (a bit older, but still valid) will help.

What is your differentiator? What makes your services different than those offered by your competitors? How are you better than them? Why would your target market choose you over someone else?

What problem do you solve? When marketing your services, you must understand what problem you’re solving in the marketplace. Knowing this is key to help you promote yourself to your audience.

What benefits do your clients enjoy? What is the benefit of working with you? Do you help people get clear on their goals? That’s not a benefit! That’s a feature. The benefit piece is… what happens when those people are clear on their goals? Do they double their income? Do they find love? Do they lose inches off their hips? Those are the benefits, and you should clearly be able to name those experienced by the people you serve.

Now that you know who you’re helping, how you can help them, and why you want to help them, it’s time to come up with some ideas for getting your message in front of them. This will be the bulk of your one-page marketing plan—your ideas.

Where can you get in front of members of your target audience? Are they on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter? Are they reading magazines or industry newsletters? In order to reach your audience, you first must know where they are spending their time.

What can you do to reach your potential clients? This is where you come up with ideas for reaching your audience. Just go ahead and make a list of things you will realistically do that will help you get your audience’s attention. Things like: Start building a list, create a newsletter, write a press release, start a YouTube channel, follow more Twitter accounts, make more connections on LinkedIn, attend one conference per year, etc. It’s best to keep the list as focused as you can by only naming things you will actually commit to doing. Remember, you only have one page

With your ideas listed, now it’s time to create an action plan.

Break this down by month or quarter and create a big to-do list for those marketing activities you’re going to carry out. For example:

February: Create a lead magnet to start building a list; follow ten new Twitter accounts

March: Send out a newsletter; post a daily Instagram story; sponsor a Facebook post

April: Write a LinkedIn article; follow ten new Instagram accounts; learn Twitter Moments

When you’re all done, you’ll have a one-page map to take you where you want to be with your business. If you find all this overwhelming, don’t just give up! There are lots of teams like ours out there who help professionals just like you with their marketing tasks. Reach out to someone if you need to. The need to market your business is never going away, so if you need help, get help!

Do you have any thoughts about this type of one-page marketing plan? Let’s discuss!