A Simple Review of Marketing Plans - Combined Episode with Tim Fitzpatrick

What happens when you bring two enthusiastic marketers together to talk about marketing plans?

An episode filled with endless marketing tips and fun!

Absolutely enjoyed recording this special combined episode with Rialto Marketing's  Tim Fitzpatrick and my podcast, The Marketing Nomad Show.

Here's what happened in this episode:

 We each talked about our marketing plans and our similar yet subtly different approaches

 The most overlooked step when it comes to marketing plans and how you can avoid making that mistake for your business

 Why you shouldn't be scared about 'Research' and how to get started with research for your marketing plan

 Our final thoughts on which marketing plan is the best for your business

Check out our episode and let us know your thoughts in the comments below!

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Related Podcast Episodes:

1. Episode 61: Where do you start with your Marketing plan?
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3. Episode 60: Content Creation with Intention - What's That All About?

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Transcript

Tim Fitzpatrick: 0:01

The marketing planning process does not have to be complicated and it does not have to take forever. In this special combined episode of the router marketing podcast and the marketing Nomad podcast, Prithvi Madhukar and myself are going to share our thoughts on the marketing plan process to make it simpler for you. I am Tim Fitzpatrick with reality marketing where we believe marketing shouldn't be difficult. All you need is the right plan. prett welcome.

Prithvi Madhukar: 0:34

Hi, guys. I hope you guys are doing super, super awesome. I am so excited about this special combined episode with realtor marketing with of course, Tim. And a little bit about me, my pseudonym online is the marketing nomad. I am a marketing strategy consultant, I'm a YouTuber, I'm a podcaster. I'm an Etsy shop owner. I'm also a nano influencer with a zest for life. And I'm very, very happy that you guys are going to be joining us as we do a simple review of our marketing plan processes.

Tim Fitzpatrick: 1:09

Awesome. And real quick, I'll just introduce myself, for those for your audience that doesn't know me. Again, my name is Tim Fitzpatrick with reality marketing, what we find is there are so many people that are just battling information overload when it comes to marketing. And as a result, they're just not sure what those next steps what the next right step should be, to help them get from where they are currently to where they want to be. So we primarily work with b2b service based businesses. And we help them create, implement and manage a marketing plan to communicate the right message to the right people. So they can build results that last so we get the fundamentals in place. And then we can help people manage their marketing plan, we can take ownership of it, or we can coach them as they implement and manage their plans. So obviously, what we're talking about today is is near and dear to my heart for it.

Prithvi Madhukar: 2:03

Yeah, same here, like I'm so excited, I can't even like contain my excitement. This is one of my favourite topics to

Tim Fitzpatrick: 2:10

win. I think one of the things that I found so interesting was when we were talking about doing this and this whole concept, and we were sharing some of our thoughts on the marketing planning process. Gosh, there's so many, there's so many different ways you can plan there's no one right way. But even though there were some differences in our planning, there were still a lot of similarities. Which I find really interesting. I think you and I both take a very simple approach to planning, which I think is really, really important because when we overcomplicate things, it's the enemy of results.

Prithvi Madhukar: 2:47

I completely agree with that. I think that, especially with marketing, it can get complicated super fast, you know, when you don't look at it, when you're not paying attention, suddenly, things can just pile up and then get overcomplicated. And then you end up messing up what you were doing right all along. And I think that it's as you said, it's very, it's difficult actually to keep it simple and yet effective. And I think that's what you know, we want to talk about in today's episode as well, you know, how do you keep it simple and yet have that same power punch? That, you know, a good marketing strategy and a good marketing plan should have?

Tim Fitzpatrick: 3:28

Do you? Um, I think one of the ways one of the reasons why so many people overcomplicate marketing is one because there are so many different marketing channels, and so many tactics within those channels today. The other thing is, I think, because there's so many so much you could do, a lot of people feel like they need to be doing all these different things. And they take on too much at once, like you do not have to be everywhere to be successful. And I think too many people have this, this myth in their head where like, oh my gosh, I've, I've got to I've got to create content, I've got to be on social media, I have to have email marketing, I have to do paid paid ads. And it's just like, no wonder we all we feel overwhelmed.

Prithvi Madhukar: 4:17

Absolutely. I also think that, you know, it's quite natural. As a business owner myself, I've definitely faced this where I see another business, and then they're doing something that works for them. And then I immediately, you know, feel that panic that that first response to seeing them do it. I was like, should I be doing that is that my business also needs to do it? You know, that's such a natural human response. And then, you know, the marketer in me has to calm myself down and say like, No, you're doing fine. You're just fine. Just keep going on your path, you know. So I get that initial reaction where you know, you have to follow what other people are doing because what's working for them. You assume that it will work for you as well.

Tim Fitzpatrick: 4:58

Yeah. All right. Well, I Think you said something really important that I want to pull off here. When you that touches on the benefits of having a plan, when you have a plan, you have you know what your priorities are. And you have clarity. And when you have those two things, your stress levels goes go down. And it allows you to have the discipline to say, You know what, next week when you know, the the next guru says, I've got to be on clubhouse or Tiktok, or I have to have a podcast or whatever. You can have the discipline to know you know what, right now, that's not one of my priorities. It doesn't mean No, forever, it just means no, right now, until I get done with this. I'm not going to focus on that, because that's where people spin their wheels, when they're like a squirrel chasing a nut and they chase the next tactic. They never, they never build momentum,

Prithvi Madhukar: 5:59

which is 100%. Like, as a business owner, I think the shiny object syndrome is definitely one of the biggest challenges. And you know, having a strategy in place, having a plan in place, allows me to keep myself on the same route that I started off with, instead of trying to run away from it. Just because something shiny came along, as you said, you know, when clubhouse first came, I think everyone wanted to be on it. And, you know, I was like, Um, no, because I already have a plan in place, I need to figure that out. Because I think when you keep hopping from, you know, strategy to strategy, without completely implementing the strategy, you have, you know, decided from, from the beginning, I think that you also don't completely see the results of the strategy that you're trying to implement in the first place. You know, you're not giving it the time it deserves you're not giving it the attention it deserves, or the effort it deserves, because your attention is just, you know, running wild all the same things. Have you seen that happening? Well, you know, with your clients or even in your business?

Tim Fitzpatrick: 7:06

Yeah. So you touch on something really important here, that touches on another benefit of having a plan. Having a plan gives you the discipline, to think long term rather than short term. There's so many people that jump like you said from tactic to tactic be and they think that they're not working, when in reality, they're just not giving them enough time to work. You know, I think there's too many people then that look, this is marketing in general is false. Because there's a lot of people out there that are like, yeah, we can get you, you know, we'll get you the top of Google in, you know, in three weeks or whatever. They're just, they're over promising and under delivering that's not reality. Most things with marketing take time. Yeah. And we need to give them that time to work. Now, that doesn't, that doesn't mean that you're not going to make slight tweaks, right? Because you're always testing. Yes. But just because something hasn't worked yet, doesn't mean that it's never going to work. It just means that you haven't found all the elements that are going to make it work. And frankly, even once something's working, doesn't mean that it's always going to work either. Right?

Prithvi Madhukar: 8:22

Absolutely. I think that, you know, I think that you're touching up very important points. I think that marketing is all about consistent efforts over a long period of time. And I'm not saying that, you know, we will win your strategy hopping, you're not going to be fixing what's already there. Because I think those are two very different things. Because when you implement a strategy, that strategy, of course, you know, as time goes, things change factors around you change, you probably have to go in and tweak something. It's different when you're tweaking rather than jumping ship onto a completely different strategy. So I think, Tim, you bring up that very, very important point over there. And I think that discipline of consistently showing up in your marketing efforts is what is one of the biggest benefits of a marketing plan.

Tim Fitzpatrick: 9:13

Let's, let's talk about our individual plants. Let's thoughts around it. I, I'm gonna say print ladies first. But if you want me to go first, I will. So I'm gonna, I'm gonna throw this out to you. And we can, we'll each talk about it.

Prithvi Madhukar: 9:30

Sure. So you know, I'm definitely very excited because when Tim and I spoke about our individual marketing plans, like before we came on this episode, you know, we realised that there were some similarities, but there were also differences. And I think that's one of the best things about marketing is that there is no one way to go about something. You know, there is no one way to plan there's no one way to implement, but you also have to recognise what are your options and that's exactly what we are doing today. In today's episode, so I will be sharing my marketing plan. And Tim also will be sharing his marketing plan. And at the end of the day, we are going to, you know, take a look at individual marketing plans and, you know, give us give our own thoughts about each of them. So I'm quite excited to get into this. And Tim, shall I start?

Tim Fitzpatrick: 10:22

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Go for it. Okay.

Prithvi Madhukar: 10:25

So basically, my plan starts with figuring out what exactly is your entire years go? All right. So it's basically splitting your entire years goal into four different goals, one for each quarter. That's how I usually do it for my business. And that's what I recommend to my clients as well. All right. So for example, you know, I have four different goals, maybe one is lead generation. One is brand awareness, and then maybe third quarter, I want to do a little bit of testing here and there, you know, and maybe the fourth quarter, I want to focus on business growth, you know, marketing and business growth. So these are four different quarters with four different goals for each quarter. So that's how I usually started. However, my marketing plan doesn't go for the entire year at one shot, it just goes quarter by quarter. Alright, so I have a specific goal for the quarter. And then I create a marketing plan for that quarter, once that quarter is coming to a close, only then do I start planning for the next quarter, that's when I start creating the marketing plan for the next quarter. So even though you start out with a yearly goal, and then you start out with goals for each quarter, you are only attacking your marketing with one quarter in mind. Okay, so that's what I wanted to start with. So basically, the reason why I go with the whole yearly goal, and then going for each quarter is something that Tim and I just spoke about. And that is to make sure that you know, you are not going to be jumping ship or finding whatever is shiny along the way, you have a goal for that particular quarter. And your strategies have to revolve around that particular goal for that quarter. All right, so maybe, you know, like Tim said, it might not maybe there's something new that's come up, and maybe it fits quarter three, so you're gonna put it on hold until you get to that quarter and make a decision about it. So having goals for a specific quarter, having an overall goal for each quarter really helps you to focus your marketing efforts. Now another thing that I do want to point out is when we are talking about my marketing plan, we are trying to fit systems into place. Okay. So if I say lead generation, it's not that the next quarter, I'm not even going to think about lead generation, because my goal is brand awareness. That's not how I go about it. When I say that this quarter's aim is going to be lead generation, it means I'm going to be putting systems in place to enable that lead generation to take off and consistently move forward, even when I am focusing on another goal for my business. All right, so that's something important that I wanted to talk about. So it's not just like, oh, lead generations this month, and the next month, I don't have to worry about it, it doesn't work that way. You know, it means that you're setting systems in place, that it keeps moving, even without you giving that much attention to it, you have to of course, give it attention, but it's not going to take up a huge chunk of your time, you have time to focus on other aspects that you want to build with respect to your marketing efforts. Alright, so now that I have given you this overall view, my entire plan process is six steps. So I'm going to go over pretty quickly. And the first step is to figure out what are you hoping to achieve? Okay, what exactly is the point of you creating this marketing plan? Because I think that without any purpose to your marketing plan, without a specific goal, without understanding where you want to end up, it's very difficult to find a starting point. So it's not just with respect to goals, you also have to figure out your intangibles as well, you know, is it you know, is there going to be a difference in the way that you want people to view your product, you know, you have to also figure out your milestones, your metrics, so it's a mixture of both your intangible and your tangible metrics and your goals for that entire quarter. Alright, so what are you hoping to achieve is step number one. Now Step number two is to research alright, and I know that that's pretty broad way of goal going about it, but I have understood that when I have to research my audience, I just asked myself, What exactly are they thinking right now? Okay, that's it, you know, try to understand what they are thinking, you know, there are different ways to go about your research. I know people get scared when they hear the word research, because they feel that they're not inherently researchers. I don't think that's true at all, you know, I think that you can do research, because research is just all about understanding. In this case, you want to understand your target audience. So a few ways that you can go about this is talk to them, you know, ask them what it is that they think about your products, what it is that they want from your product that you are not delivering, you know, what it is that they expect from your business that you are delivering, or you're doing right, you're not doing right, the little bit of gaps that you want to put across, you can also do surveys as well send out a quick email to your email list with those surveys out there. And basically, your job in this stage is to understand their journey. How is it that they figure out why they want to choose your product? Or why they want to move forward with your business? What are those reasons why what makes them come back to your business, if it is a repeat purchase, what makes them you know, tell their friends and family how awesome your product and services are, you know, those are key things that you need to understand, not just that you also need to figure out like, for example, your goal is lead generation. Okay, and maybe you know, there are people who are not applying for your lead magnet, and you know, they're not enrolling or subscribing for your lead magnet or your email newsletter. And that is a form of lead generation for you, right? So maybe you talk to them and ask them what they're looking for in your email newsletter that you're not delivering. It's basically about understanding them. So don't get worried. But when you hear the word research, it's all about just understanding the gap between where you are and where you have to be to achieve your goal. All right, so that is step number two for you. Now, step number three that I usually recommend is competitor research. Now I have the sort of slogan that I go by, and that is find out what your competitors are doing and make sure that you are find sorry, let me rephrase that. So find out what your competitors are not doing and make sure that you are doing that. And then make sure that you are aligning with what the industry is doing, because that's what your customers are expecting from you as well. So during competitor research, you know, try to identify what are the strategies that they're, you know, implementing? If lead generation is your goal for the month, figure out? How are the different ways that they are going about their lead generation, if it means that you know, you have to maybe subscribe to their email list to check out what kind of content they're putting out, you know, for their email list, do a little bit of scoping, you know, that's, that's completely fine. And then check out what they're doing on their website, how are they speaking to their audience, and then when you identify what they're doing, try to figure out what they're not doing, and what your audience is expecting them to do. That's where you create a, you know, a unique position for yourself, you know, that's where you have to fit in. And it's very easy, because when once you have done your research, you know your target audience research, you understand where they're coming from. And when you do your competitor research, you can understand where that gap is that your competition is not doing. And it's not necessarily tangible items, you know, it can be absolutely intangible items, it can be something as simple as, you know, maybe they don't respond fast enough in their DMS it, you know, in their direct messages on social media, maybe they don't. Their website is a little bit confusing. Maybe the language on their website is complicated. You know, there's so many different ways that you can you that you can analyse and figure out where you can swoop in and say, hey, you know, I've got this covered, I think you guys should choose me, you know. So that is number three for you. Number four is to actually formulate the strategy. So you basically how I go about this is I do mind maps, it's a really fun way. Because there's so many things that running in my head, and there's so many different avenues to look at. So when you're jotted down, when you mind map, try to figure out different ways that you can implement. You know, for example, if lead generation is your goal, okay, and maybe you have a blog that's out there. Maybe you have social media, see how you can connect your social media to your blog, you know, maybe you can figure out lead magnets for individual blog posts that you have or social media pages, where you can ask people to hop on your email list to get a particular lead magnet. And maybe if they do Want to choose the lead magnet in the meantime, at least they're visiting your social media pages pages, or vice versa, at least you're keeping them on your platforms. Alright, so when you are formulating a strategy or multiple strategies, of course, make sure that you are intermixing each of your platforms that are already available. For me Mind Maps usually helped me in this particular stage. All right. And then another thing that I usually ask myself at this point is, how can you get to where you need to be? Okay? If, for example, lead generation is your goal. Let's take that, for example. Maybe you want to get 100 people on your email list? What are the strategies that you need to do to get there, maybe you need to actually talk about your email newsletter, this is one of the most common mistakes that I have seen businesses doing is that they want to grow their email list, but they're not talking about their email newsletter, or why people should hop on their email list, you know, so maybe you're not talking about it enough. Maybe people don't even know that they can. There's another way to get information from you. So how do you get to where you need to be? That's a very important question that I asked myself when it's number four, and that is to formulate the strategy. All right, then we have number five, which is actually implementing the strategy because just planning is not enough. And I think that one of the things, one of the most common things that I personally did when I first started as a business owner is that I was planning, planning, planning, and then I just kept planning, you know, but it actually is a step where you have to execute it, it takes time, you need to understand your resources, you need to understand your limitations, you need to understand what works for your business and what does not work. So when you are implementing the strategy, there will be a slight disconnect between what you have formulated and what you are implementing. And that's completely okay, you know, because sometimes the resources that you thought you had, you probably don't have, the limitations that you didn't know existed, actually suddenly appear when you are implementing. So little bit of disconnect, I always say that's completely fine. But it shouldn't be too drastic, a disconnect between you formulating your strategy and you executing it. So execution takes time, it takes patience, it takes effort, and that's probably the biggest part of this entire marketing plan process. Okay. So when you are, you know, implementing your strategy, you might find that you need to make a few tweaks. That's absolutely okay, as long as you're not completely jumping ship. So that is step number five for you. Now, step number six, and I think that this is probably one of the most overlooked steps in my entire marketing plan process, and that is, analyse your results, and then repeat the process again. And I think that, you know, most people, they implement, implement, implement, and you know, it's fantastic, but at the end of the day, they're not sure if it's working, they're not sure if they're doing something right, they're not sure if they should, you know, tweak it, they're not sure if they should abandon that strategy, because that happens sometime as well, you know, so analysing the results. Number six is very, very important. And of course, repeating the process, for example, a strategy is not working, go over step number one, go over the entire process, again, see where you've missed out, maybe there's, you know, some part of your research that was incomplete, or there's some part of your strategy where there's a disconnect analysing those results, and repeating the process is a huge step that I personally think determines whether you are successful with your strategy or not. So yeah, those are my my six steps. It's a process. It's definitely a process. It takes time. But you know, don't skip it. Because having a clear plan, as Tim and I talked about, it's so much more easier to sustain your efforts long term when you have a plan, and you know, where you're going, you know how to get there as well. And yeah,

Tim Fitzpatrick: 24:06

I love it. So, this is this is really interesting. So six steps. I'm, I'm going to I'm going to share my thoughts and then maybe we can get in and ask each other some questions here. I think people will understand there's a lot of similarities in what we do. Your plan has a few steps that mine does not. But there's a really big reason why, because our plan is six steps. It is 90 days, but it's it's a little bit more tactical, yours is I think is a little bit more strategic. Yeah, ours is very tactical, because the process that we use when we work with clients, has a tonne of similarities to your plan. So we when we first work with clients First we identify where they are to get a baseline, you can't create a plan to get where you want to go until you know where you're starting from. Then we focus on the fundamentals, target market, which you touched on, and messaging, then we actually create the plan and I'll walk, walk you guys through that plan in just a minute. Once you have the plan, then you have to implement what you touch, execute, it's one thing to have a plan. But if you don't execute, then nothing's ever going to happen. And then it's management. It's ongoing management and optimization. But like you touched on, you're never done. You're just constantly making tweaks, making adjustments and getting it better and better and better. One of the things about planning that always stuck with me, and I believe I got this from The Slight Edge, which was written by Jeff Olson, he said, the plan you start with is not the plan you're going to end with, there is no perfect plan. But you got to just put a plan together and take action. It's from the actions that we learn, and how we can improve. So there's our process has some crossover with your plan, which is why you don't see some of those things in our plan. So here's, here's our plan. And I'm going to tell anybody that's watching or listening. There's a distinct reason why both of us have 90 Day plans. Oh, yeah, right. Whether you want to call 80 days, or when you whether you want to call it quarterly water, yes. It keeps plans simple. Yes. And 90 days is long enough to start seeing traction doesn't mean that you're gonna see the exact results you want. But it is long enough to see traction. And but it's short enough where you can start to make course corrections. Like I have always felt planning for a year is a joke, like it's too long. The market is changing, our businesses are changing. When you try to plan for a year at a time, things become far too complex. And most people that put together a year long plans, they're changing them frickin three months in anyways. Absolutely. Why waste the time? Okay, so here's, here's our six steps. First target market, I want to see at least a paragraph of your about each of your ideal clients. Who are your ideal clients? What do those people look like? This is demographics. It's psychographics, you know, so there's numbers in there that start to paint a picture of what they're like, but then the psychographics start to dig into their problems, the results they're looking for, you know, their thoughts, feelings, the aspirations that they have all of those things start to paint a picture. The reason this is the first step in the plan is everything from a marketing standpoint starts with your who, you know, you, you've talked about this in the research phase of your plan, print, who's your target audience, we got to know who the heck they are. So we're not talking about the research part of it. Because we're before we're we've already done that before we got before we've gotten to this stage in the planning process. But so one to three ideal client types, you should not have more than that you need to hone in the second step is your goal. nother dissimilarity similarity to your plan, What's my goal for the next 90 days, in our case, this is this is a specific, measurable goal. You know, I intend to bring on five new clients in the next 90 days. This goal is one step closer to getting you one step closer to your year long goal, right, you have longer term goals. This is just a shorter term step to get you one step closer to your longer term goal. But one thing I do like to point out with a goal like this as it is, it was just the way it was described to me and it's always stuck with me is it's an outcome based goal, an outcome based goal, there are a lot of things that can get in your way of accomplishing that, even if you do everything that you can. The pandemic is a perfect example. Maybe you did everything you could in the pandemic hit and the wheels came off, right. So it's important to have a goal. But I think it's important also to not get so attached to something that you can't completely control. I think it's more important to focus on the actions you can take to help you get to that goal. Third step, what is my budget? And what are my resources? What this step is doing is it's helping give us an idea of what we have to work with. If you don't know what you have to work with, you may take on too much or too little in your plan. Either one of those is not a good thing. So do I have $500 a month? Do I have$50,000 a month and then from a resources standpoint, this is staff? Do I have time as the business owner to invest to take some of my time and put towards marketing? Or do I have staff that can do it? How much time do they have? And what capabilities do they have? If I, you know, want Joe to do LinkedIn for me, and he's got five hours a week and Joe's like, What the hell is LinkedIn? Well, then there's a problem there, we either need to level up Joe's skills, or we need to find somebody else to do that. But that's all we're doing here in this third step is what do I have to work with? The fourth step is what's my current plan? This is just giving us that baseline of hey, what have we put in place? And what do we continue to do from a marketing standpoint, so that we have an idea of where we're starting from, okay, and that's all we're doing here. So you and I both know that a lot of people may not even have a current plan, that's okay. If you're, if you're using this template, for yourself, all I want you to do is just write down all the things that you're currently doing that you continue to do or that, you know, once you put in place, they're now active. The fifth step is what's your next 90 days look like? What are my priorities for the next 90 days? This is what's going to help you give you clarity, and it's what's going to help you eliminate all the noise and the distraction that comes at you over the next 90 days. These are the things that you're going to take action on. The sixth step is metrics. What metrics am I going to track? People don't know whether things are working in their marketing, because they have not outlined metrics. They either haven't outlined metrics. Or they're tracking the wrong metrics. But the metrics are what's going to tell you what's working or what's not. Now I'll give people just a quick tip here with metrics because you and I both know this, there are so many metrics with marketing. But there's also vanity metrics that don't mean anything. And people also I think, trying to track too many metrics, yes, if you are not, this, I think this is the easiest place to start. How many leads Am I generating? Where are they coming from? And how many of those are converting to customers, if you start to track those three metrics, once you got those dialled in, you're in the habit, you will, and you'll be armed with those three metrics with a lot of different stuff, you're going to know what your conversion rates are, you're going to know how many leads, you need to generate one customer, you're going to know where they're coming from. So it's going to give you an indication of what marketing channels are actually working for you. And then from there, there are metrics you can track by marketing channel or tactic, you can start to I think the ones that make the most sense after those three are lifetime value of a customer and your cost to acquire a customer. Because though I think those five metrics are key, and then you can start to go out from there. But that's our 90 Day marketing plan. So you can see it's a little bit more tactical, in what you use print. But there's a reason for that. What Yeah, all the stuff that you're talking about in your plan. We do in our identify, and our focus steps in our in our proven process. So it's not that we're not doing what we're what you're doing. We're just doing them slightly differently, but they're all still there, which should be telling people that all of these things are incredibly important.

Prithvi Madhukar: 33:37

Yes. I also agree that, you know, I also one thing that I think there's a fundamental difference between our marketing plans is that yours is more focused on solving a problem and correct me if I'm wrong, you know, when you say, you know, figuring out what is a specific measurable goal, it usually indicates that there's a problem there, and you want a specific, measurable goal to you know, either figure out your position, or where you want to be. Whereas in my plan, I think it's more about the ongoing strategy, there's not a particular problem that, you know, my customer or my clients are, you know, looking to fix, but it's more about getting those systems in place. So that, you know, in the long term, they can figure out what's going right, keep it going and, you know, give them a starting point, to have something that's ongoing. So I think that's a fundamental difference between my plan and your plan, but at the same time, I will acknowledge that in certain situations, where, you know, I have had to consult with my clients and stuff like that. I have actually used your method I will be Yeah, you know, because when there was a specific problem that I was brought on to fix, then yes, I definitely have used your plan. So I think that's a really interesting way to, to let people know that it's there. So one way to go about it.

Tim Fitzpatrick: 35:07

Yeah, no, there's not. But there's I think, after going through this, I think there's more similarities than differences between our plans, which I think is really interesting. You also just touched on something that I think I want to pull out here, because it's easy to, I think overlook both of our plans it, this is an ongoing process, like you are not done. At the end of the 90 days with either one of these plans. You are you're evaluating and looking at what happened, you're doing, you're doing a debrief, you know, or, or a download of what happened with the plan? What course corrections do we need to make moving forward? You update the plan, and then you go at another 90 day sprint? Yes, absolutely. Um, so I want to ask you a question that I get often when I start to talk about planning, which is where I'm like, How do I know what to focus on? As I put my first plan together? What are your What are your thoughts on that print?

Prithvi Madhukar: 36:17

So what to focus on so when you are putting your plans in place, and I think Tim also brought up a very important point that most most people you know, who are not inherently marketers, they don't probably know that they already have some strategy in place. You know, even setting up a social media account and posting on those accounts, you know, talking about your products, even those are many strategies you might not consider them to be. So I think, a good starting point when it comes to marketing, because like I said, it gets complicated very, very fast. And, you know, when I'm talking to my clients, there's just one thing that I tell them, and that is, how are people going to find you? That's it. Keep asking yourself this question. And the answer to that always is, you know, about creating paths for people to find you at the end of the day, I really think that that is what marketing is all about. We want people to find our product, we want people to find our services, find our business. So how is it that you are going to achieve that? Yes, we have fancy names for that. Yes, you know, there are high level things that go into that, yes, there are complex processes. But at the end of the day, if you watch every single step that our marketer does, or a business owner does, it's all about creating paths for people to find you and your product. So I think just keeping that in your mind, when you feel a little overwhelmed that things are getting complicated, or you don't have a starting point, then I think it's just important to note that just it's all about figuring your path. That's it, figuring different paths for people to find you.

Tim Fitzpatrick: 37:54

I I love that. And I will all add on to that. I think when you are looking at your first plan, I think it makes a tonne of sense to focus, you need to focus on target market first, if you don't know who your ideal clients are, and really understand them. That has to be in your first plan because everything from a marketing standpoint starts there. And then from there your message if you don't, if you don't gotta get them the market down, then you have to have a message that is in their words, that is going to gain their attention and their interest. Then from a tactical standpoint, the easiest place to start in your plan is looking at what is already working in your business. If you've been in business for a while something is working. But odds are you have not completely optimised that process and or you have gaps. So look at that process. If if all your business is coming from referral, look at your referral process. A lot of people are like oh my gosh, oh, my business coming from referral, but I don't even have a referral system. I'm not asking for referrals. So let's let's put a a system in place. Let's oh my gosh, I have a gap here. Let's fill that gap. Let's do more of what's already working. That's the lowest hanging fruit, I think for any business is getting that dialled in, then you can start to expand out into other marketing channels or other tactics. You know, one of the things we touched on in the beginning here was like you don't have to be everywhere. But the reality is, if you want to scale your business, and you want to have diversity in your lead gen channels, which you should want, otherwise, you're going to go through peaks and valleys. You do at some point need to start to expand and generate leads from more than just one marketing channel. But why jump into something new when you haven't already optimised what's already working. So those are just my thoughts on that.

Prithvi Madhukar: 40:03

Absolutely. And I, Tim, I just want to add upon that, you know, when I, when I mentioned creating paths, I didn't mean creating new paths, you know, I mean, it's not always about creating new paths. Because sometimes you have a website, you have a blog, and you have a social media platform, but you've never interlinked them both all three of them together. So people who are coming on your website, have no idea where to go next to find out more information. And it's all about creating different paths interlinking, the paths that already exist, so that they can find you and they can stay on your, you know, platforms or your online platforms, of course, a little bit longer than they would because when they're on your platform, it means they're not on someone else's. Yeah, it's just as simple as that.

Tim Fitzpatrick: 40:47

Absolutely. I print this has been so much fun. Do you? Do you have any last minute, you know, thoughts you want to leave people with today?

Prithvi Madhukar: 40:56

Um, yes. I mean, I definitely wanted to ask you, because I think that research is a little bit of, you know, a shaky ground for a lot of business owners, because as marketers, we've definitely had a lot of training. I know that half of my MBA was spent in teachers teaching me how to do proper research. But when it comes to business owners, I feel like they are a little hesitant when it comes to research. So what are you know, maybe some of your thoughts on how to go about doing research the right way? And what are some of the common mistakes that you see business business owners making with their research process?

Tim Fitzpatrick: 41:35

This is a great question. And thank you for following up on this. Because you touched on this in your in your plans? Yes. Um, I think that research is so much, it's not easy. But I think it is a lot simpler than it used to be. Like Google is your friend, when it comes to this stuff. Print you touched on where we start, which is client interviews, you need to figure out who your ideal clients are, and interview those people. Like that is the like, easiest place to start. Because as business owners, sometimes like we're too close to the fire, we can't see the forest through the trees. We do not think objectively about our business, but our clients can communicate our value and how we help in a way where like, when you hear them say it, you're like, Oh, my God, why didn't I see that? Well, it's because you're too close to the fire. So yes, interviewing clients is the first place that we recommend, just like what you said in your plan. From there, I think there are a lot of different places online that you can go. And you touched on some of these social media groups, Facebook groups, LinkedIn groups, there are groups for for every darn industry, every darn niche, yes. If you get into those groups, and start interacting, look at the questions that they're asking you ask questions, you can gather all kinds of information that way. You have answer sites, places like Reddit, go on to Reddit or Quora, there are all kinds of threads for any topic. And you can see what people are asking and talking about. So that's a great place. You can just do Google searches, start doing Google searches, all kinds of information will pop up there. You know, so if I'm trying to find, you know, problems that marketing problems that management consultants are having, I gotta Google on and just go management, consulting, marketing problems, or marketing, common marketing problems. For management consultants, just start tweaking that and playing with it. When you do Google searches, Google will tell you, it'll give you suggested keywords as you start to type in and down at the bottom. It'll also show you other common or related searches as well. Associations in your target market associations do a lot oftentimes will create like yearly surveys, things like that. So there's tonnes of information there. Online reviews, if you're just starting out, you don't you won't have any reviews. But guess what you got a tonne of competitors, go to editors and look at their online reviews. Because what do people talk about in online reviews, they talk about the problem they had, how the company helped the benefits or results that they're experiencing so you can get so much information from there. So is that a good enough list to start?

Prithvi Madhukar: 44:41

Oh my god, I was just gonna tell everyone who's listening. I don't know about you, but I was definitely taking down notes. I think we got like 10 or 12 of them. You know, that is an amazing and comprehensive list. I think that is it. Definitely you know, it's going to make anyone listening to this podcast episode feel calm. To vote like, hey, there are actually these many places that I can go to. So that's super awesome.

Tim Fitzpatrick: 45:05

So many. And you don't you don't have to go to all of those either, right? Yes. You don't have to go to all of those. But you can I mean, the information is there. And it's at our fingertips. Like it was not, you know, 1520 years ago. Yes. Like, can you imagine having to do this type of research?

Prithvi Madhukar: 45:26

That's, I can't, I was not even like, there during that time. And I can't imagine how it was, it must have been really, really hard at that point.

Tim Fitzpatrick: 45:36

Gosh, so, so, so hard. It's not nearly that hard. It takes time. Which is why it goes back to that distinction where it is simple. But it's not easy, right? When I look at when I think of easy, I'm like, It's not work. Simple is it's easy to understand, but it does take work to get it done.

Prithvi Madhukar: 45:56

True. So I absolutely 100% agree.

Tim Fitzpatrick: 46:00

Yeah, thank you for asking that question. Because I was going to touch on that, when you I'm just gonna follow up with you on that. Because research is such an important part of it, that's, that's how you're going to really get into the heads of your ideal clients, is by doing that research, having those conversations, and a big hurdle for a lot of people that are just starting out as well, like, I don't have clients that I can talk to. That's okay. Now, I will say you can interview people in your target market. But gosh, it's so much, it's a lot harder to get conversations with people that don't know you. So it does take quite a bit more work. But if you know people in the market, or you can have people make introductions, and you can get a warm introduction, just have an initial conversation. These conversations don't they're not long, you know, when you talk to people, it's 10 or 15 minutes, with the right questions, you can gather a lot of really helpful information.

Prithvi Madhukar: 47:02

So yeah, I think, Tim, you bring up a very, very important point there that even if you may not have clients at the moment, you know, it's understandable sometimes the stage that you are in, you know, you might not have had a substantial amount of customers. But you know, there are other people that you can talk to, there are different avenues that you can find out there, there are associations as Tim brought out a very, very valid point, there are groups that you can go to, and post questions, research questions, as long as you follow the community guidelines and stuff like that. So

Tim Fitzpatrick: 47:35

So I want to, we got a comment that came in that I want to just pull up here. So thank you. This is from cool, David. I'm just gonna try and pronounce his his initial name, and I'm gonna totally botch it. So, David, thanks for bringing this in the idea of quarterly 90 day plan. Planning resonates so much. I'm curious though, if this is for a certain company size thoughts. So I'll tell you mine and then print certainly jump in. But to me, I think the the plant the way, the way I have structured planning, frankly, I think the way print has structured planning, I don't think it matters how big you are like you can make this as simple or as complex as you want. It's just, you know, for example, in the plan I use, if you have$100,000 A month budget and a team of 10 people, well, then what goes into step five of the current marketing plan and your prior or in the next 90 days is going to be a whole lot more stuff. So it's just to me, if you're a larger company have a larger budget than more is going to go into your plan. But the general framework can scale to a much larger company if if you choose to do so. What are your thoughts on that?

Prithvi Madhukar: 48:57

I 100% agree because I have definitely, like I said, I think that the only difference between our plans is yours is tactical, and mine is strategy. But at the same time, if you factor in company size, or even if it's a solopreneur one person working out a marketing plan, I think both of our plans can actually be implemented. So I think that while you're working through the marketing plan, you will have to factor in your company size. You know, figure out your limitations figure out your resources, as Tim said, but the plan both the plans are not specific to the company size. Yeah.

Unknown: 49:35

Cool. I love that. David, if

Prithvi Madhukar: 49:37

you're still listening, David, that's such an awesome question.

Tim Fitzpatrick: 49:40

Yeah, that was a great question. So um, any any last minute thoughts before we close things out here print?

Prithvi Madhukar: 49:47

Well, I think you know, to wrap up this entire episode, I think I do want to mention that you know, you have to find a marketing plan that works for your business you have to similar Yet a little bit different marketing plants that you've heard today, but what applies to your business is something that you have to figure it out, you need to understand where you are at, you need to figure out, you know, different ways of how you can go about it low. So there's no one way to go about a marketing plan, even though many of our, I think steps kind of related to each other, because those are really, really key and important. But at the same time, you know, if you want to do it by yourself, understanding the marketing plan that works for your business, is a really, really important step. Because, you know, marketing plans, like I'm sure, Tim, so sorry for that noise. Yeah, so I'm sure Tim will agree is that, you know, we have, even though Tim's structure is six steps. And my structure is six steps. There have been times where I'm sure Tim and I have had to tweak it according to our clients needs, you know, figure out add additional steps and bring in more things because there were more factors in play. And that's what we do as marketing consultants, you know, so there's a generic marketing plan, and then we come in as marketing consultants, figure out how to modify it to your business. But of course, you know, when you are listening to this episode, you know, one of the key steps that you have to recognise is, whatever marketing plans that you hear either from this episode, or anything that's out there, make sure that it actually applies to your business. So I think that is my, you know, last message. I mean, there's no one right way, there's no one way we can't tell you that until, you know, we actually take a look at your business and figure out where you are at. And, yeah,

Tim Fitzpatrick: 51:46

I'll piggyback off of that. There is no perfect plan. The right plan for you is the one that you can understand and you'll actually use an implement. So this comes up all the time with your what's the best email marketing software, or you know, whatever it may be the one you'll use, okay? Because if you if I tell you and you don't use it, then it's not serving you. So I totally agree with you print, there's no one right way. You just have to pick the way that makes sense to you that resonates with you that you actually use you know, there are different paths to get to the same destination. So print this has been so much fun.

Prithvi Madhukar: 52:26

Yeah, Tim, sorry. Just one last sentence, I have to mention that you have to work to your strengths. I think one thing that most businesses forget that you have a set, you know set of strengths work to it, tweak the plan, according to your strengths. Yes. So yeah, that's that's my final sentence there.

Tim Fitzpatrick: 52:43

That's your final final word. Yes, I love it. Awesome print where, um, where can people learn more about you?

Prithvi Madhukar: 52:52

All right, so you can definitely visit my website. It's the marketing nomad.co and you can catch me on Instagram. I'm more informal there. I'm usually showing behind the scenes of my life as an entrepreneur. So it's the marketing Nomad, of course as Tim talks about in the beginning of the show, my podcast is the marketing Nomad show where I give business marketing and mindset tips to business owners. So one of the few places that you can find me you can find me as the marketing Nomad probably everywhere.

Tim Fitzpatrick: 53:22

Awesome. And I am Tim Fitzpatrick with realtor marketing. Just want to give people a quick tip if you go to growth marketing plan.com If you want to download the 90 day marketing plan template that I talked about in this episode, with sample plans all the all the tools downloads resources you need are right there so go to growth marketing plan.com You can find me at realtor marketing.com r i a l to marketing.com print. This was so much fun. This combined episode The reality Marketing Podcast marketing now. We may have to do this again.

Prithvi Madhukar: 54:05

Yes, definitely. Yes. So till next time you guys were listening all the way up until here.

Tim Fitzpatrick: 54:12

Yes, we appreciate you you guys. Take care. Bye guys.