This presentation explains the basics of the 7 sentence marketing plan - an approach to marketing strategy that defines an organization’s audience, objectives, and marketing opportunities.

1. Back to Basics:
The 7 Sentence Marketing Plan
PUB 355: Feb 25, 2011
by Monique Trottier
monique@boxcarmarketing.com
You should follow me on twitter @boxcarmarketing

2. 1. What is the purpose of your
marketing?
• You need speci c, measurable goals:
• Lead Generation: Get a customer or get a chance to convince
them to be a customer in the future. If you are trying to increase
subscribers or # ppl to store - what % increase are you aiming for?
• Engagement: If you’re trying to get build community - how many
new members? If you are generating buzz, what volume increase
are you estimating?
• Online/Offline: Ultimately you are trying to increase conversions.
If you’re trying to increase traffic to the site - how many unique
visits /month? How many downloads? Subscribes? Event
attendees?
• Your goals need to be measurable so that you can know if you’ve
met them or not.
• Goals > Actions > Tactics > Estimated Results monique@boxcarmarketing.com
twitter: @boxcarmarketing

3. 3. Who is Your Target Audience?
• Clearly de ne the characteristics of your audience. Elaborate on
your persona work - who are these people? What are they really
like? What do they do online?
• Basics about that person
• Go back to the conversation prism - where does your audience
hang out online? What blogs do they read? What websites do
they visit?
• What goals do they have when engaging with your campaign?
• (Namaste eg.)
monique@boxcarmarketing.com
twitter: @boxcarmarketing

4. • Think about the motivations behind online behaviour. Read Chapter
5 in Here Comes Everybody about why Shirky participates in
wikipedia.
• Also think about the different types of community affiliation:
• Source: Harvard Business Review’s “Getting Brand Communities Right”
monique@boxcarmarketing.com
twitter: @boxcarmarketing

5. 4. What is Your Niche in the
Marketplace?
• Be clear about why the audience cares about what you’re doing.
• In order to attract your target audience you need to answer “what is
this”, “who is this for” and “why should I care”.
• What attracts your audience? Why do they return?
• Who are your competitors? What sets you apart? Look at your
competitors’ “About Us” page for how they describe themselves. How
are you better or different?
monique@boxcarmarketing.com
twitter: @boxcarmarketing

6. What is Your Competitive
Advantage?
• Why should someone choose your product over your
competitors’?
• You need a strong elevator pitch - make advertisers say “Wow,
why aren’t I advertising with them?” Make customers say “I will go
out of my way to shop there because ...”
monique@boxcarmarketing.com
twitter: @boxcarmarketing

7. SPHERE
• Pre-mature if you haven’t nailed down your campaign (eg. So Nice):
• So What: Why does your client’s product/service matter? What makes
your client different from its competitors? (list competitors – name, URL)
Why do consumers choose your client over someone else?
• Personality: What are the adjectives that describe your client’s brand?
• Hook: What’s your client’s story angle? Use phrases that are easy to
remember to helps to spread your client’s story via word of mouth.
• Ego: Who does your client need to engage with? Who can bene t from
promoting the brand amongst their friends? Why do people want to
engage with the brand?
• Relevancy: What is the relevancy between the audiences’ motivations and
what your client is trying to do?
• Effort: What does your client need to do in order to keep the audience
engaged throughout the campaign as well as after the campaign is
nished.
monique@boxcarmarketing.com
twitter: @boxcarmarketing

8. 5. Marketing Weapons that I Plan to
Employ:
• Your marketing weapons need to:
• Clearly explain what you will do.
• Explain how your tactics are related to the purpose & goals from
#1.
• Do you plan to do blogger outreach? Which blogs would be good to
pitch to? [include URLs].
• How are you going to increase your email list?
• How will you implement Facebook Ads (what demographics/
psychographics/keywords? Remember, you can set up ads in
Facebook without having to pay. It will give you an idea of potential
reach and costs.)
• Look at the conversation prism - what tools can you use? Think about
your target audience and what they care about/where they are. monique@boxcarmarketing.com
twitter: @boxcarmarketing

9. 6. What is Your Business Identity?
• What is your brand’s personality?
• What adjectives describe it?
• What are the feelings the company wants to evoke?
• What brand attributes does it want to convey?
• Go back and look at the brand attributes of OPEN companies.
• How do you align your identity with the identity of your customers?
monique@boxcarmarketing.com
twitter: @boxcarmarketing

10. 7. I Plan to Devote ($ or hrs) to
marketing (ROI)
• As a rule, estimate 2 hours per channel per week for maintenance
mode.
• Double or triple that during a contest period—promo mode.
• You have to really nail down your campaign before we can answer
questions about hours or dollars
• You may want to cut down on the number of social media channels
you’re using so that you can concentrate your efforts in a few
channels in order to be more effective.
• ROI = Return on Investment (If you run this campaign, what do you
expect to achieve? Is there a good business reason to do it, or is it a
waste of time and money?)
• Goals > Actions > Tactics > Results monique@boxcarmarketing.com
twitter: @boxcarmarketing

11. Overall Comments
• Make sure you’re thinking through each of the sentences and
building on the lessons and presentations from the class.
• Use the conversation prism to look at existing communities beyond
twitter and facebook.
• Follow your goals from #1 all the way through the document.
• Ideas need to have clear, executable tactics associated with them.
• Make sure to be clear in your focus and not distracted by all the
possible things you could do.
• If you haven’t already, read Friends With Bene ts. In particular:
Chapter 2, 3, 5, 6, 11, 12 and 13.
monique@boxcarmarketing.com
twitter: @boxcarmarketing

12. The sentences are connected
• You need to make connections between the
sentences and between the strategy (the why) and
the tools (the how)
• Sentence #1 (your purpose and goals), needs to
align with Sentence #6 (your marketing tactics), and
#7 (the time you'll spend on your tactics and what
you'll measure).
• The marketing tactics that you choose to use and
how you will measure success needs to be directly
related to your goals - if a tactic isn't related to your
goals it shouldn't be a part of your marketing plan
monique@boxcarmarketing.com
twitter: @boxcarmarketing

13. • Sentence #2 (your client's target audience), #3 (your
client's niche), #4 (your client's competitive
advantage) and Sentence #5 (your client's business
identity) all need to work together.
• Your client's niche, competitive advantage and
business identity need to re ect the wants and
needs of the target audience. If your client's identity
and positioning don't address something that your
audience wants or needs you need to reexamine
the audience that you're targeting.
monique@boxcarmarketing.com
twitter: @boxcarmarketing

14. Did you watch the Social Media ROI
Video?
monique@boxcarmarketing.com
You should follow me on twitter @boxcarmarketing