Your 1-Page Marketing Plan - Part 1: Before - Prospect

[Pesso]

Hey Square Readers,

Who’s ready to read?

We hope you picked up a copy of our second book, The 1-Page Marketing Plan by Allan Dib and are excited to dive in!

The book jumps right into practical information and instruction to help you make your own 1 page marketing plan. You can also sign up through his website for a digital version of the materials. 

He breaks down the book and plan into the three sections, following the three customer stages: Before – Prospect, During – Lead, After – Customer. Our discussion questions will follow this along, having you fill out your own Marketing plan here.

We’ll start off today with the Prospect Phase from Chapters 1 to 3. The author describes this phase as “get them to know you and indicate interest,” and the focus is identifying who your core target customers might be and to figure out how to best reach them.

Target Market

It is incredibly important to start by narrowing into a specific niche for your business that is enjoyable, lucrative, and profitable, that you can succeed in. The tighter and more specific, the better!

Messaging

Your messaging here is your Why. If you've read Start with Why by Simon Sinek, our first Book Club book, that's a big chunk of how you position yourself here.

Media

How you reach your prospective customers is essential. You don't want to rely on what Dib calls "Accidental Marketing," just throwing everything out there in the hopes of someone accidentally stumbling on you. You want to be direct and reach your core audience where they engage.

So jump on in with your answers in the comments below:

1. What is your Target Market and Audience?
2. What is your messaging to your Target Market?
3. What Media will you use to reach them?

Feel free to share any other thoughts you have about this book!

We can’t wait to hear your thoughts in the comments below!

After you're done with this, check out Part 2, the During -- Lead Phase.

Happy reading,

Pesso

P.S. here’s the full 1-Page Marketing Plan Worksheet, showing it all:

[Smellthis1919]

Omgosh ...this amazing ....thanks for doing this  ..it will be soooo much nicer to do this together than on my own ...you guys rock 👍☺️ i will be working on it today and the next few days ...see you soon with my answers ...yah!

[Pesso]

Thanks so much @Smellthis1919 ! I'm glad you're up for sharing and doing it all together here -- there's so much power in putting it out there and getting feedback from others. 

Looking forward to seeing whatcha got!

[Spicec1]

1. What is your Target Market and Audience? Young college students, singles  divorcees, youth, and overnight employees.
2. What is your messaging to your Target Market? We offer funny pastries that are fun to share via social media and with friends.
3. What Media will you use to reach them? The Stan Store to create an email list as well as social media, tik tok, youtube, and instagram. I love this book by the way it has great information I really wish I had a paperback copy in addition to my audio version. 

[Pesso]

Thanks so much for sharing, @Spicec1 !

This looks like a great start. I love the business model and ideas!

I would challenge you to narrow your target market down to a single group for the purposes of the 1-Page Marketing Plan. Dib talks about getting as narrow a niche as possible so you can send a single cohesive message with your marketing, rather than trying to be everything to everyone. Each of them have drastically different needs, habits, and more, and it can be difficult to appeal to all of them at once. Which one of those can you focus in on for this?

Good call out -- I think this is definitely a good book to have a paper version of to use as a reference and go back to particular sections and lines -- highly recommended!

[Spicec1]

Ok I will narrow it down to a dark subculture that enjoys dark items like horror film cults, magic, and fantasy. 

[Pesso]

That's a cool idea, @Spicec1 -- what kind of people are into that? Who are they? How will you find them?

Take a look at my response here -- creating a persona of a few people that would be in your target audience can be super helpful to figure out who they are and how to market to them. 

[Granny1]

Oh my god, this book is amazing I'm still listening to the book. It really have me rethinking my target market and zoning in on just those people. I was just talking to any and everyone, but that gets old fast. My target market are dog trainers and dog walkers.  I still need to work on my message to the dog trainers/ dog walkers. My why is strong for the health conscious dog owners because they are all natural no chemicals or preservatives in my dog treat and made with love. How I plan on getting to them is through dog facebook/alignable groups. I wanted to use email marketing but I need to meet some trainers/walkers first.  I was meeting dog walkers on Alignable and sending out free samples but I didn't have any way of knowing if they used the treats or just throw them in the trash, even after following up. I need help. 

[Pesso]

Thanks for sharing, @Granny1 !

I love that you're focusing in on just dog trainers and walkers -- that's such a great niche with really specific needs and habits, and can have a huge impact. 

Great use of bringing in your Why here too!

Sounds like you're right on track so far with that plan. 

It can absolutely be hard to know what the status is after giving out samples. What tended to be the responses when you followed up? Have you had any success with converting into sales after samples? Is giving samples the best way forward there? 

I'd love to hear you talk more about it and maybe someone else could jump in after and share their thoughts too!

Hopefully the book will help bring it all into focus and help develop a plan for you--

[Granny1]

Thank you, I've stop giving out free treats and cold calling companies because it didn't work.  I would like to start a newsletter /blog to keep in touch with my customer at my craft show/farmers market. I will finish the book and figure out how to get repeat customers. Have a great weekend.

[Spicec1]

Great reminder I need to work on a blog too. 

[Serenity35]

im loving this book so far and can already see myself reading it again. I love that it allows us to fill out of form while reading it to implement what we are learning and put it into action.

[Pesso]

Thanks @Serenity35 !

Would you want to share your answers so far? I'd love to hear more about your marketing plan so far -- what your target audience is and your messaging, if you're open to share!

[MissyL61]

Since starting the book I've realized that I need to identify my niche and concentrate my efforts there. And that is what I've done today.

[Pesso]

Thanks for sharing @MissyL61 !

I'm so glad that you found your niche -- what is it? I'd love to hear more!

[MissyL61]

My niche is healthcare workers that have to renew CPR certification every 2 years. I used to say it was everybody because everybody needs CPR but I have narrowed my target. I'm focused on getting my message out to that particular market.

[Pesso]

That is such a great one, @MissyL61 ! And definitely can be a great captive audience too, since you know when they're due for a recertification and they need to do it in order to keep their jobs!

Are you keeping in contact with them and sending them some messages in the months leading up to their expiration?

[MissyL61]

That's the plan. Just started so I only have a few, but keeping up on when recertification is due.

[Doran]

So glad you posted the worksheet.  I bought the book on Audible so missed out on all the fill-in parts.  

[Pesso]

Glad that helped, @Doran !

You can also sign up through that link for the materials! This is definitely a book that seems like having in writing, digital or paper, to use as a reference and really follow the instructions would be good. Hope the audiobook is helping too though!

[JAP21]

First post here, and am way behind LOL. I bought the Audible version for both Why and this one. Finished listening to Why yesterday, and flagged a couple of items to discuss with my co-owners, so I can't really answer definitively yet. In some ways, it is easier when you are only 1! I went right from Why into 1-page, and got the biggest laugh at the start - this book is unabashedly about making money.

We are the North American distributors for a European company's products in a sport that is already a niche sport. The products cover the range of abilities for participants in that sport, so a goal is to refine our messaging and how we communicate that - what Type pf participant in that sport really has the same beliefs we do? Those are the people we want to connect with, who will love what our products represent rather than those of other companies. Like other sports equipment - running shoes, skis, tennis rackets, whatever - that isn't really about the products themselves. At least, that is how I am seeing this so far. And, it's not the easiest thing to establish because even though we handle North America, it is a global company.