One-Page Marketing Plan

Below are the basics of a simple one-page marketing plan that any business or new venture can use to create a marketing strategy that drives growth and allows for systems to be created.

For more in-depth information see the book The One Page Marketing Plan by Allan Dib.

3 Phases of the Marketing Journey

Phase	Status	Goal
Before	Prospect (in target market)	Get them to know you and indicate interest
During	Lead	Get them to like you and buy for the first time
After	Customer	Get them to trust you, buy from you regularly, and refer new business to you

*Download the 1-Page Marketing Plan Canvas Here

Before Phase

In the before phase you are dealing with prospects who probably don’t know you exist. The goal is to get them to know you and respond to your message.

Once they indicate interest by responding, they are considered a lead and enter the second phase of your marketing funnel.

The key in this phase is the following:

Identify your target market and customer avatar
Craft a compelling message that hits their pain points and differentiates you from the competition
Determine which media is best to target this market

1- Selecting Target Market

You need to niche down since you have limited money and want to target your exact prospects as best as possible which increases conversions and decreases spend. Niching also makes price irrelevant as someone looking will go with you over a generic competitor.

To determine your target market consider:

P- Personal fulfillment: how much do you enjoy dealing with this type of customer

V- Value to the marketplace: how much does this segment value your work and are they willing to pay you for your work

P- Profitability: how profitable is this market segment

Put down the different types of customers or segments that you work with, niches, or services within your vertical and determine which one is best. It’s important to determine one ideal market segment to target.

Create a customer avatar for your ideal market segment

2- Crafting Your Message

Most marketing messages are boring, timid, and ineffective. To stand out from the crowd, you need to craft a compelling message that grabs the attention of your target market and compels them to respond.

*One ad one objective

What is the purpose of your ad? What action do you want them to take?
What does your ad focus on?

Developing a Unique Selling Proposition

Don’t base your marketing and business on another me-too proposition. Remember there are low-cost providers, quality higher-cost providers, and unique variants of the service offering that serve different people.

*If you haven’t clarified why your business is valuable/exists and why someone should buy from you compared to your nearest competitor then you have no shot.

Most products and services are based on a commodity offering. Think about why we spend 4x more for a coffee that’s $12 compared to a 7/11 coffee that’s $2.

Your USP should answer the question: Why should I buy from you rather than your nearest competitor?

Common ways people go wrong:

Quality and great service are expectations. They are a part of good business practice something unique.
People only find out about your quality and service after they buy from you. A good USP is designed to attract prospects before they’ve made a purchasing decision.

2 Questions You Must Answer:

Why should they buy?
Why should they buy from me?

Getting Into the Mind of Your Prospect

Ask yourself what the prospect really wants?

Not the service or product but what that gets them.

People seeking dentistry want a sexy, healthy smile that will get them more dates, intimacy, success, and a healthy mouth throughout their lives. They want to know that if they invest in this that it will also last and not break down.
People seeking restoration services want their water damage or flooding cleaned up as quickly as possible so they can relax and restore the value of their homes. They want to know that the company will do the job correctly and not cause other problems.

Your prospect has 3 options:

Buy from you
Buy from your competitor
Do nothing

Again:

Why should they buy now?
Why should they buy from you?

Crafting Your Offer

Of all the products and services you offer, which do you have the most confidence in delivering value with? What problem are you sure you could solve really well for your target market?
Of all the products and services you offer, which do you enjoy delivering the most?
Of your products which ones are the most profitable to your business

3- Reaching Prospects With Advertising Media

Advertising media is the vehicle you use to reach your target market. You simply need to find the right medium which has the largest amount of your target market on it and advertise your message at a profitable cost.

This is the most expensive component of your marketing so it needs to be selected and monitored carefully to get a return on investment.

*What gets measured gets managed

If you’re a small business then you need to get a return on your marketing spend not waste money on mass marketing techniques

Key Advertising Numbers:

Customer Lifetime Value– upfront profit + back end profit (or total purchases of customer)

Customer Acquisition Cost– total ad spend / number of new customers

Conversion Rate– how many people convert into a call, form fill out, purchase from a landing page

Cost Per Lead– total ad spend/ total leads (calls or submissions)

Sales Closing %– total leads / total new paying customers

Constantly testing and measuring these numbers is how you build a high growth business.

The real profit is made on the backend by repeat purchases from customers
Stick to the goal of having your front-end profit pay for your customer acquisition cost until you know your lifetime value of a customer…..then if you have high customer values you can be negative on the front end

Remember a successful campaign has to get three elements right:

Market: the target market you send your message to
Message: the marketing message or offer you send
Media: the vehicle that you use to send your message to your target market. Digital ads, direct mail, email, podcasts, print ads, and so on.

Different Digital Marketing Channels:

Social Media Marketing- paying for ads on social platforms or building a following on a social channel and introducing call to actions to acquire customers
- Twitter
- Instagram
- Facebook
- TikTok
- Youtube

Social Media Demographics:

18-29 years – Snapchat (41%), TikTok (35%), Instagram (32%)
30-39 years – LinkedIn (34%), X/Twitter (34%), Snapchat (33%), Instagram (32%)
40-49 years – LinkedIn (25%), Facebook (22%), X/Twitter (21%)
50-59 years – Facebook (29%), LinkedIn (24%), Pinterest (24%)

Influencer/Affiliate Marketing– partnering with people and brands that already have a large following and influence over a specific target market and offering them a deal
Email Marketing– best for repeat purchases and nurturing new leads with sequences and a newsletter to keep your brand top of mind
SEO– search engine optimization is building content assets on a search platform like Google or Tiktok that show up when users are searching for the content. Good for the acquisition of new customers who are already searching on your topic.
Paid Advertising and PPC– paying for ad placements on different social networks, platforms, and other digital media
Content Marketing– creating content and dispersing it on social media channels or even ranking it in search engines
Print, Billboard, In-person marketing– traditional methods of reaching your audience in the physical world

*The key is finding which media channel is best for your target market.

Where do they hangout? What type of content or advertising will reach the most targeted prospects with the least cost associated with it at a scalable level?

How to Have an Unlimited Marketing Budget

When spending money on marketing one of the 3 things will occur:

Your marketing fails (make less profit than you spend)
You have no idea if your marketing was a success or failure because you don’t track it
Your marketing succeeds (you make more in profit than you spend on ads)

If your marketing is working there is no need to have a budget that limits the growth of the channel. You are simply looking for the marketing channel that is the most profitable and has the highest ROI once you have success. The only time to have a marketing budget is in the testing phase.

*The most dangerous thing is relying on one marketing channel with your whole business. It’s like building a house on a sandy foundation.

It’s smart to have 5 different sources and a good amount of them in paid media so that you are forced to track the ROI.

The During Phase

The during phase is the phase where you have gotten interest from a portion of people through your initial marketing efforts on ads or content marketing and you now have some form of contact and can work on nurturing and educating these leads to turn them into paying customers.

4- Capturing Leads

The during phase is the phase where you’re dealing with leads. Leads are people who know you and have indicated interest. The goal is to get your leads to buy from you for the first time.

Most people will not be making a purchasing decision on the day they see your ad so you need to have a lead nurture process and input them into a database
The more money you can spend marketing to high-probability prospects, the better your chances are of converting them to a customer
You only have so much money and you need to spend it on high-probability prospects instead of spraying and praying

Offering an Ethical Bribe

You can offer some type of ethical bribe like a free analysis or book or another item of value that will get them to give you their name and email address so you can nurture them until they buy your product or service.

The goal with your ads is to generate leads not to focus on selling straight from the ad.

3% will buy right now
7% very open to buying just need a little push
30% interested but not right now
30% not interested
30% wouldn’t take your product for free

Be a farmer, not a hunter. A farmer will naturally grow exponentially over time while a hunter will always have to exert maximal energy for the days food. Hunting is good only when you are in desperate need of food.

* It’s key to build a system where a lead comes in from your advertising, they get input into your CRM, you nurture them, and then you develop a loyal customer who comes back.

5- Nurturing Leads

Taking prospects from being interested to desiring your product or service.

The average salesperson follows up with a lead once or twice. In marketing, the money is in the watering and follow-up

Lead Nurture Process

Lead
Contact #1 – 50% of salespeople have given up
Contact #2 – 65% of salespeople have given up
Contact #3 – 80% of salespeople have given up
Contact #4 – 90% of salespeople have given up
Contact #5 – You have become a factor in the leads mind
Contact #6 – Your lead gets to know you
Contact #7 – You are earning top-of-mind awareness
Contact #8 – You are probably the only person to make 8 contacts with this person
Contact #9 – At this point, when your lead is ready to buy, you have 90% chance of sale
Contact #10
Contact #11
Contact #12
Raving Fan Customer

Advertise with the intention of finding people who are interested in what you do. Do this by offering a free resource or valuable piece of content that presents a solution to a problem they’re experiencing. This positions you as expert or educator rather than a salesperson
Add them to your database
Continually nurture them and provide them with value
1. A newsletter on your industry or info on how to get the most out of what you offer
2. A sequence of educational material on the thing they are interested in or case studies

Marketing Assets

Lead capture websites and landing pages
Webinars
Email newsletters
Articles, resources and long-form content
Industry reports
Direct mail sequences
Email sequences
Social Media
Videos
Podcasts
Print Ads
Handwritten notes
Text message sequences
Shock and awe packages

*All ads are designed to plug cold leads into the system where marketing assets are deployed to create raving fans

*Make your first interaction and lead follow-up with customers extraordinary

Decide on a marketing calendar for the business:

Daily: check social media for mentions and respond
Weekly: write a piece of content and send the link in an email broadcast to subscribers
Monthly: run an educational webinar and answer questions from attendees
Quarterly: send past customers who haven’t purchased recently a reactivation email
Annually: send all customers a gift basket thanking them for their business

Then determine who needs to get these activities done and what processes they will implement for the timeline.

6- Sales Conversions

Sales conversions is all about trust and demonstrating enough value to motivate interested leads to become paying customers.

If prospects get to the sales conversion and they are not asking to buy then the nurturing process was not done correctly.

When you position yourself as a commodity the only thing you can do is pressure sell and shout super loud. The way you position and market will have a dramatic impact on the prices you can charge for your product. The real profit comes from the way you market yourself compared to other businesses
Resolve to stop positioning yourself as a commodity and competing solely on price
The welcome guest brings value to your life while the other person is a pest who doesn’t fit your needs
Give before you take which breaks down the sales resistance
Offer a guarantee or show credibility
Make it easy for people to buy from you using the latest technology

The After Phase

In the after phase you are dealing with customers who have already bought from you. This is the stage where you increase their lifetime value and get a great return on your initial marketing investment. You will also generate referrals in this phase.

7- Delivering a World Class Experience

By delivering a world-class experience, you turn customers into a tribe of raving fans who want to buy from you repeatedly. Systems need to be implemented to deliver this experience.

How to turn customers into raving fans:

Sell them what they want, but give them what they need
Create theatre around your products and services
Use technology to reduce friction
Become a voice of value and create content to your tribe
Tell the audience about the effort that goes into your product or service

Main Systems You Need in Your Business:

Marketing System: generate a consistent flow of leads into the business
Sales System: lead nurturing, follow up and conversion
Fulfillment System: the actual thing you do in exchange for the customer’s money
Administration System: accounts, reception, human resources and so on

8- Increasing Customer Lifetime Value

This is where the real money is made. To do this, you need to have strategies and tactics for getting existing customers to do more business with you. You also need to know, manage and continually improve key numbers in your business.

Ways of Increasing CLV:

Raising Prices– if you’re positioned correctly and you have a good customer experience and it’s not easy for customers to switch to other businesses, this is easy.
Upselling– including packages or upsells with each product/service. Once someone has bought they are 10x more likely to buy more then.
Ascension– moving customers to your higher priced products/services and having multiple pricing options
Frequency– send frequent reminders to your customers or education on the products they have bought to increase the frequency of them visiting your business and buying. This is where an email newsletter or some type of content to keep your business at front of mind is good. Consider offering subscriptions.
Reactivation-Contact past customers and offer them a deal or discount for coming back to purchase

Key Business Numbers to Monitor:

Leads: # of new leads that come into your business
Conversion Rate: percentage of leads you convert into customer
Average Transaction Value: know the average dollar amount that customers spend with you
Break Even Point: identify the gross profit number that you need to hit in order to cover your fixed expenses

Monthly Recurring Revenue- revenue that is on subscription or contract
Churn Rate- % of people who cancel the recurring revenue
Customer Lifetime Value- total profit value of 1 customer over the lifetime of their spending

*Shows how important these key numbers are in the profitability

	Before	After
Leads	8,000	8,800
Conversion Rate	5%	5.5%
Total Conversions	400	484
Average Transaction Value	$500	$550
Total Revenue	$200,000	$266,200
Gross Margin	50%	50%
Total Gross Profit	$100,000	$133,100
Break Even Point	$90,000	$90,000
Total Net Profit	$10,000	$43,100

*Remember to get rid of crappy customers who don’t love your business and won’t pay more for your product/services and focus on marketing to your raving fans who will buy more over the lifetime.

9- Orchestrating and Stimulating Referrals

Getting referrals is an active process. Many businesses hope for referrals but don’t have a system for getting them. By implementing some simple tactics you can make the flow of referrals a more reliable part of your marketing process.

How to Get Referrals:

Ask through email and in person and give them a reason why they should give a referral where it makes them feel good or helps them out
- Give them a discount card or something that makes them look good to their friends
During the sales or service process tell them about the referral process
Get specific about the referral type you need and the people who would know these referrals and reach out to let them know. Go through the existing customer base
Determine who has your clients before you. This entails knowing your target market well. Reach out and set up a deal with them for referrals.
- Before your customer does a transaction with you they will do business with someone else before and after who spent money to acquire them. Figure this out and where they do business and create a JV
- The goodwill that the other person or business has created will also transfer to you so this is a game of trust and compensation for business expenses
Build brand equity– if you build your brand equity over time you will create raving fans just like Apple

You should also look to see who has your clients after you’re done with them:

Sell the leads: there’s very likely someone else in a complementary but noncompetitive line of business who would be willing to pay handsomely for hot, qualified leads.
Exchange the leads: if you don’t want to or it’s not appropriate to accept payment for leads, you could set up a two way lead exchange program with someone else in a complementary business
Resell Complementary Products: you could buy complementary products and services on a wholesale or white label basis and resell these to your customers.
Become an Affiliate Referral Partner: this is similar to the model of selling leads, except that instead of being paid per lead, you get paid a commission on sales to the third party you refer them to

*Look at who has your customers before you and after you and find ways of creating value in both directions. This can become an important source of new customers and new revenue for your business.