The 1-Page Marketing Plan: Get New Customers, Make More Money, And Stand out From The Crowd

Here’s the simplest, most jargon-free, definition of marketing you’re ever likely to come across: If the circus is coming to town and you paint a sign saying “Circus Coming to the Showground Saturday,” that’s advertising. If you put the sign on the back of an elephant and walk it into town, that’s promotion. If the elephant walks through the mayor’s flower bed and the local newspaper writes a story about it, that’s publicity. And if you get the mayor to laugh about it, that’s public relations. If the town’s citizens go to the circus, you show them the many entertainment booths, explain how much fun they’ll have spending money at the booths, answer their questions and ultimately, they spend a lot at the circus, that’s sales. And if you planned the whole thing, that’s marketing.

You have only twenty-four hours a day, so the only way you can get more achieved in a day is by using other people’s time.

Your job as an entrepreneur is to be an innovator and a builder of systems.

I’ll reiterate—knowing and not doing is the same as not knowing. You need to make the mistakes, risk looking foolish and invest in yourself and your business.

no one knows how good your products or services are until after the sale. Before they buy, they only know how good your marketing is. Put simply, the best marketer wins every time.

Uber, the world’s largest taxi company, owns no vehicles. Facebook, the world’s most popular media owner, creates no content. Alibaba, the most valuable retailer, owns no inventory. Airbnb, the world’s largest accommodation provider, owns no real estate.

A customer won on price will be lost on price.

If you look at wealth distribution statistics from the last century you’ll notice that the top 4% own about 64% of wealth and the top 20% own about 80% of the wealth. This is despite this being the “information age.” You’d imagine that a hundred years ago only the wealthy had good access to information, hence it’s understandable why they held 80% of the wealth. Yet this wealth distribution statistic still holds up today, an age where information has been democratized and where even the poorest people have pretty much the same access to information as the wealthiest people. This proves that lack of information isn’t the issue holding back the bottom 80% of business owners—it’s human behavior and mindset. That certainly hasn’t changed in the last 100 years.

customer who buys a product or service and doesn’t use it or implement it correctly is highly likely to write it off as something that doesn’t work and that’s the last thing we want.

Your social media page and profile is actually the property of the social network. So, spending huge amounts of time and money building up a profile and audience on these networks ends up building up their assets rather than your own. My preference, as much as possible, is to build and own my own marketing assets, such as websites, blogs, email lists and so on. I then use social media simply as a way to drive traffic to these marketing assets.

For the entrepreneur, time is not money. Value is money.

people are much more willing to pay for a cure than for prevention. Targeting existing pain rather than promising future pleasure

They get caught up with tools and tactics and never figure out the big picture of what they’re actually trying to do and why.

marketing is the strategy you use for getting your ideal target market to know you, like you and trust you enough to become a customer. All the stuff you usually associate with marketing are tactics.

The owner of the business may have excellent technical skills but it’s his lack of business skills that causes his business to fail.

Some people have the perception that social media marketing is “free.” It’s only truly free if your time is worth nothing.

word of mouth. However, before customer retention, we need to think about customer acquisition (AKA marketing). The most successful entrepreneurs always start with marketing.

You’ve got to think winter in the summer. It’s just too easy to get faked out when the sky is blue, and the clouds are fleecy. You’ve got to prepare for winter because it’s coming, it always does.

As entrepreneurs we have a “can do” mindset. This often means that when something needs to be done, we are tempted to just roll up our sleeves and just do it. However, spending a lot of time doing things that aren’t your area of expertise or aren’t a good use of your time can quickly become a very expensive exercise. Remember, money is a renewable resource—you can always get more money but you can never get more time.

Business is a team sport, one in which you’re never going to win on your own.

Focusing on the cause (value) rather than the effect (making money) will lead to much greater long-term success.

This would be a good time to share with you my definition of an entrepreneur: “someone who solves people’s problems at a profit.

The marketing plan ended up being the 20% part of the business planning process that produced 80% of the result.

The Answers Have Changed Albert Einstein was once giving an exam paper to his graduating class. It turned out that it was the exact same exam paper he had given them the previous year. His teaching assistant, alarmed at what he saw and thinking it to be the result of the professor’s absentmindedness, alerted Einstein. “Excuse me, sir,” said the shy assistant, not quite sure how to tell the great man about his blunder. “Yes?” said Einstein. “Um, eh, it’s about the test you just handed out.” Einstein waited patiently. “I’m not sure if you realize it, but this is the same test you gave out last year. In fact, it’s identical.” Einstein paused to think for a moment, then said, “Yes, it is the same test but the answers have changed.” Just as the answers in physics change as new discoveries are made, so too do the answers in business and in marketing.

Struggling business owners will spend time to save money, whereas successful business owners will spend money to save time. Why is that an important distinction? Because you can always get more money, but you can never get more time. So you need to ensure the stuff you spend your time on makes the biggest impact.

What Is Marketing? Some people think marketing is advertising or branding or some other vague concept. While all these are associated with marketing, they are not one and the same. Here’s the simplest, most jargon-free definition of marketing you’re ever likely to come across: If the circus is coming to town and you paint a sign saying “Circus Coming to the Showground Saturday,” that’s advertising. If you put the sign on the back of an elephant and walk it into town, that’s promotion. If the elephant walks through the mayor’s flower bed and the local newspaper writes a story about it, that’s publicity. And if you get the mayor to laugh about it, that’s public relations. If the town’s citizens go to the circus, you show them the many entertainment booths, explain how much fun they’ll have spending money at the booths, answer their questions and, ultimately, they spend a lot at the circus, that’s sales. And if you planned the whole thing, that’s marketing.

The Power of Systems—The Ability to Fire Yourself

to develop a unique selling proposition. Something that positions you differently, so that prospects are forced to make an apples-to-oranges comparison when comparing you with your competitor. If they can do an apples-to-apples comparison of you and your competitors, then it comes down to price, and you’re toast.

Everyone wants to hear from an authoritative source. By being a content creator, you position yourself as an authority and expert in your niche.

Direct response marketing focuses heavily on the needs, thoughts, and emotions of the target market. By doing this, you enter the conversation already going on in the mind of your ideal prospect.