The 1-Page Marketing Plan

Allan Dib

📚 GENRE: Business & Finance

📃 PAGES: 234

✅ COMPLETED: March 10, 2020

🧐 RATING: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

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Short Summary

Marketing is one of the most powerful forces behind any successful business. Strong marketing is focused, client-centered, and trackable. Allan Dib outlines a simple step-by-step process for designing a personalized marketing plan all in one page. 

Key Takeaways

1️⃣ Bad Marketing Is Self-Focused — Bad marketing focuses on the organization rather than the customer. Your No. 1 goal when creating content is to show how your product or service will help people. Customers really don’t care very much about when the business was founded.

2️⃣ Hit On Emotion — Humans are emotional creatures and make emotional decisions. When creating marketing content, focus on pain points. Put yourself in a customer or client’s shoes and try to understand their frustration. Then craft content that shows how your product can help alleviate any frustration. 

3️⃣ Track Performance — Tracking the performance of your advertising is really important. By tracking which ads are performing the best (and which ones are performing the worst), you’re able to see what’s working and what’s not. When you know what’s working, you can create similar marketing strategies and advertisements and maximize your return on investment (ROI).

Favorite Quote

"By far the biggest leverage point in any business is marketing. If you get 10% better at marketing, this can have an exponential or multiplying effect on your bottom line."

Book Notes 📑

Chapter 3

  • Cash is an organization’s oxygen.
    • Very few business problems cannot be solved with more money.
    • Money helps you help others.
  • 50-90% of new businesses fail and are done within 5 years.
  • Become good at the business thing you do, not just the technical thing you do.
    • Ex. Plumber quits his job to start his own plumbing company. He may be a good plumber, but will fail because he is not good at the business aspect of plumbing.
  • Never wing it. Always have a plan, especially if you’re starting a business.
    • Have a business plan!
  • Vilfredo Pareto — An Italian economist. Created the 80/20 rule after noticing 20% of Italy’s population owned 80% of Italy’s land. This rule applies to almost anything.
    • 80% of a company’s profits come from 20% of its customers.
    • 80% of wealth is owned by 20% of people.
  • Spend your time wisely. You can’t get it back.
    • Spend time on things that will benefit your business or you the most, not incrementally.
    • In terms of business, nothing benefits you more than marketing.
      • A 10% improvement in marketing can have a huge benefit to your bottom line. On the other hand, 50% improvement in negotiation skills will only improve your bottom line a little bit.
  • Marketing can make a huge difference for a business.
    • The 20% of the business plan that focused on marketing produced 80% of the author’s success.
  • Quote: “By far the biggest leverage point in any business is marketing. If you get 10% better at marketing, this can have an exponential or multiplying effect on your bottom line.”
  • Marketing is the strategy of getting customers to know you, like you, and trust you.
    • It includes promotion, advertising, publicity, public relations, and sales. These are marketing aspects.
  • The Internet has changed marketing significantly.
    • It has opened up a whole new world of competition. You can now have competition around the world.
  • Marketing strategy vs. tactics. You need both. Always start with strategy then select the tactics you need based on your strategy.
    • Strategy — Big picture planning. This comes before the tactics. 
    • Tactics — The specific things you do to execute the strategy. 
    • Ex. Building a House — The architecture plan is the strategy; the actual process of building represents the tactics. 
  • Mass Marketing — Used by large companies.
    • Very expensive. Basically, running a ton of ads so your products and brand get in a customer’s head. This is called branding. 
    • Mass marketing takes a lot of time. 
  • Direct Response Marketing — Used by medium and small companies.
    • Designed to get immediate response via direct communication with customers. Trying to get customers to take action.
      • Ex. Sign up for an email listing
      • Ex. Submit an order
    • Direct response marketing is trackable. You know which ad prompted a response.
    • Direct response marketing is measurable. You know exactly which ads are performing best.
    • Direct response marketing has compelling headlines and targets a certain niche.
    • Direct response marketing has an offer.
    • Direct response marketing has a call to action. It prompts customers to do something specific.
  • The 1-page marketing plan has 3 rows and 9 squares. There is a before, during, and after phase.
    • Before — Customer is a prospect. You’re trying to get people to know who you are and show interest.
    • During — Customer is a lead. Customer has shown some interest in might buy from you.
    • After — Customer is a customer. The customer has bought something and you try to keep them.

Chapter 4

  • The Before Phase — Identify your target market, create a message aimed at the target market, and decide which media to use to reach the target market.
    • Goal of this phase is to get prospects to know you and respond to your message.
    • Never target everybody. Pick a target market. Find a niche to target.
      • Targeting a niche makes price irrelevant.
      • Become a specialist by targeting a niche. Once you do really well in one area, we can infiltrate another.
    • Get in the mind of your target customer.
      • What keeps them up at night? What angers them? What does your day look like?

Chapter 5

  • Have a single purpose for each piece of advertising. Don’t try to do a bunch of different things with a piece of advertising.
    • One ad, one objective.
    • Focus on the message.
  • Make sure there is a clear call to action.
    • Offer multiple options and ways of getting in touch with your business.
  • Focus on the needs of your target prospect. Don’t self-bloviate in your ad. 
  • You need to clarify in your mind why your business exists and why people should buy from you and not your competition.
    • Then you can craft your message and make good ads.
    • If you haven’t clarified this, it’s going to be tough.
  • A good Unique Selling Proposition will attract prospects before they’ve made a purchasing decision.
    • This will position you differently, and prevent you from being judged by prospects using price alone.
  • Developing a good USP:
    • Why should the prospect buy? Why should they buy for me?
      • Be very detailed, clear about these answers.
      • Find something unique about your business. What is the unique advantage you were offering?
        • Could be the product, the way its packaged, the way it’s sold.
  • Get in the mind of your customer. What do they really want?
    • It’s usually not the thing you’re selling. It’s usually the result of what you’re selling.
      • Craft your USP and overall message around this answer.
  • Be remarkable with how you deliver your product. Set yourself apart in this way.
    • Go above Andy beyond with your delivery.
      • Ex. Coffee — Some coffee houses deliver their coffee with whip cream designs. 
    • This also allows you to charge a little extra.
    • Focus on making it a remarkable experience for the customer.
  • Great example of a marketing message:
    • Apple — “1000 songs in your pocket. “
      • This message was used to promote and market the iPod. Rather than list all of the boring details like 5 GB of storage, Apple came up with this slogan.
      • This answers why you should buy the iPod.
  • Don’t try to be the lowest price on the market.
  • Bad marketing is highly product and self-focused. Good marketing is customer and solution focused.
    • This is the key. 
  • An elevator pitch is a good way to on your message.
    • “You know how < insert problem>? Well, what we do is <insert solution>. In fact, <insert proof>.”
      • Ex. “Do you know how most company websites are out of date? Well what I do is install software that makes it easy. In fact, I installed the software for a client recently and they saved $2,000.”
  • The offer is one of the most crucial points in marketing. Some elements:
    • Determine what your customers want.
    • What is the most valuable thing I could do for my customer? What takes them from point A to point B?
    • Learn the language of your target customer.
      • Ex. Golf — Hook, slice, handicap. 
    • Pack in bonuses to supplement the main offer.
    • Add a complementary product or service.
    • Offer a payment plan, especially for high-priced items.
    • Offer a guarantee. This is to alleviate the customers feeling at risk.
    • Take advantage of scarcity. The offer needs to have a reason why the customer should respond quickly.
      • We are all loss averse. We respond to the prospect of losing something much more intensely than the prospect of gaining something. 
  • Don’t be lazy and just offer “10% off. “Take the time to craft a good offer.
  • A good offer also targets a customer’s pain point. You’re not just offering features and benefits.
    • Ex. Televisions — Go above and beyond by offering to set up and install the TV that a customer just bought. The customer is most concerned with how to set it up in their house, so offering a service like this sets you apart.
      • By doing this, you also get the customer to tell others about your company and how you helped prevent hassle.
      • This all helps you set yourself apart as a business, which allows you to keep your price point. It’s all about creating value and going above and beyond.
  • Writing compelling copy is a huge skill to have in marketing.
    • You can’t get people to buy with boring words.
    • Getting people to act and buy using emotional and compelling words is so key.
      • Ex. Exciting headlines, strong sales copy, and compelling call to action.
  • Humans are emotional and make decisions based on emotion.
    • Try to tap into this when marketing and creating copy.
  • People are interested in what other people are doing and saying. This is why Facebook is so successful.
    • Add a video of you talking about the business on your website.
    • Use social media to directly communicate with prospects and consumers.
  • Be yourself and add personality to your marketing. Stand out. Entertain.
  • People buy with emotions first, and look to justify with logic later.
  • Five major motivators of human behavior and buying behavior:
      1. Fear and fear of loss
      2. Love
      3. Greed
      4. Guilt
      5. Pride
    • Make sure your copy and headlines are hitting on at least one of these.
  • Headlines are designed to get a person’s attention so they read the copy.
  • Get in the mind of your target audience and try to see which of the five motivators is most likely to work on them.
  • The prospect is always weighing the risk of buying from you.
    • Remove the elephant in the room — state who the product is for and who it’s not for.
  • People never blame themselves, they blame other things.
    • If you can identify who and what they blame then tie your product in as a solution, that’s big. 
      • Blame the identified pan point in your copy to create a bond with the prospect.
  • If you confuse them you lose them. Be clear in your copy and headlines.

Chapter 6

  • Track your advertising. Know where your leads and sales are coming from.
    • Track your return on investment by knowing which ads are performing best.
      • Analytics, toll-free numbers, coupon codes are some great ways.
  • Media vehicles like television, radio, social media, email, direct mail, and the web get your offers to the prospect.
    • Hire experts in these media marketing fields because they’ll know what they’re doing to maximize your ad presence.
  • Track Return on Investment (ROI) and make sure you’re making profits on your ad campaigns.
  • Frontend and backend = lifetime value of a customer. 
    • Front End — What you make up front on a campaign from a customer
    • Back End — What you make on follow up purchases by the customer.
  • Use response rates and conversion rates to help you see how much money you’re making on ads.
    • Constantly test, measure, improve your numbers to increase effectiveness of your marketing.
  • Social media marketing is good, but you should use it to drive traffic to your own website.
  • Have an email opt-in option on your website to acquire interested prospect emails.
  • Your database of email subscribers is still one of the best tools in marketing.
    • It allows you to keep in close, direct contact and test response to new products.
  • Don’t spam with your emails. And make sure they have opted into your email subscription.
  • Use commercial email software like mail chimp not one on one email software like Gmail.
  • Make sure your emails aren’t just offers. Have value and information in the email.
  • If your marketing is working, keep throwing money at it. Don’t limit the budget.
  • Be versatile in how you market. Use multiple vehicles.
    • This protects you if one strategy begins to fail or outside factors hurt you.

Chapter 7

  • In the ‘During Phase’, you’re dealing with leads.
    • Leads know you and have expressed interest by responding to your marketing and messaging.
      • The goal is to nurture them, inform them, convert them to customers.
  • The goal of direct response marketing is to find people who are interested in what you do, rather than make an immediate sale on the ad.
    • When interested leads respond, you put them in your database so you can build value with them and gain their trust. Follow up with them.
      • A sale will come as a result, if it’s right for the customer.
  • Ethical Bribe — Offer something for free to identify prospects most interested in your business.
    • By doing this, you at least get their email and phone number and can put them in your database to follow up with.
    • You also give them a taste of your business.
    • If you get enough of these leads, you’ll build a database with a high conversion potential that you can target your marketing at.
  • Remember, you’re trying to develop leads in the early stages. You’re not trying to sell directly off of your ad. 

Chapter 8

  • Nurturing Leads — Taking people from mild interest in you to buying.
  • Greatest car salesman ever (he’s in the record books) — Every month, he sent personalized cards to his prospects as a follow up, knowing they would eventually need a car. When the customer did eventually need a car, he was the guy they always chose to buy from.
    • Always follow up. Follow up many, many times. Be persistent.
  • Once you capture a lead, follow up. Put the leads in a database.
    • Build a relationship. Most customers are not ready to buy right away. Mail and email every so often. Don’t bug them too much though.
  • Become a Marketing Farmer:
    • Advertise with the goal of getting interested leads.
      1. Offer a free report, video, etc. Something of value that provides a solution.
      2. Add them to the database.
      3. Continuously nurture and follow up, providing value in your emails and mail.
        • Important not to make these follow ups a sales pitch every time. For every three value follow ups, offer a sales pitch follow up.
  • Use a CRM system for your database. This is an extremely helpful automated system.
  • Consider a monthly newsletter to build value and relationship.
  • The key point is not to push hard for a sale, rather identify leads and nurture them until they are ready to buy.
    • By building a relationship, you’ll be their first choice.
  • Some marketing assets to consider using:
    • Lead capture websites
    • Blogs
    • Email sequences
    • Podcasts
    • Free reports
    • Social media
    • Print ads
    • Newsletters
    • Direct mail sequences
    • Online videos and DVDs
    • Hand written notes
  • Lumpy Mail — An extremely effective way of performing a direct mail campaign.
    • You put an object of value in your envelope. This almost guarantees the prospect will open your mail and not just discard it.
      • Ex. CD, book, etc. 
  • Shock and Awe Package — One of the most effective direct response marketing follow up strategies ever.
    • It’s a physical box or package filled with unique and beneficial assets related to your business or industry that you mail or deliver to an interested customer.
      • Ex. Books, DVD, CD, testimonials, media clippings of your business, brochures, reports, sample of your product/service, coupon and gift card to your business, entertaining items, a nice hand-written note.
    • This makes a huge impression.
    • Don’t necessarily do this with every prospect. Try to do it for a prospect that has requested more information about you.
    • Make sure your numbers make sense before doing this. You obviously don’t want to lose money on these packages.
  • There are three types of people needed to make a business work:
      1. Entrepreneur —The ideas person. The visionary.
      2. Specialist —Executes the entrepreneur’s vision.
        • Ex. Engineer, graphic designer, copy writer
      1. Manager —Ensures that the vision is on track. Makes sure everything is running smoothly.
      • You need these three types of people in your marketing department as well.
  • Have a marketing calendar that details things you need to get done daily, weekly, monthly, yearly.
    • You should also have a plan for certain events and circumstances.
    • Ex. You meet a new prospect, you get a complaint, etc.

Chapter 9

  • Sales Conversion — Sealing the deal to gain a customer. 
    • Do not position yourself as a commodity. The only strategy from there is to compete by offering the lowest price, which is not good.
  • No matter what you’re selling, the way you market yourself has a big impact on the customers you can acquire and price you can set.
    • This is called positioning.
  • Again, educate prospects and show them how your product is better than your competition.
  • Make your website awesome. This is one of the first places prospects will look.
    • Name your email after your website’s domain name, not some random name.
    • Have a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system. 
    • Have a ticketing system that allows a prospect to track the progress of their request. 
  • Make detailed offers. Include some kind of guarantee. The more detailed you are, the more you ease the prospect’s fear of doing business with you. Strong guarantees attract customers. 
    • Ex. Don’t say something lame like “Money Backed Guarantee!”. Make it specific. Really put something on the line. The guarantee should ease the prospect’s worry about something in particular.
  • Offering too many levels or choices of products can actually hurt sales. When customers have too many options, they end up not knowing what to decide, so they move on. 
    • Offer a standard and premium option for a service. 
      • The premium option should be priced at 50% more than the standard price. Make sure the premium option is a good amount more than the other options.
    • Also consider offering unlimited and ultra-high-ticket item variants in your lineup. Among several benefits, these make your cheaper option look better.
  • Try to avoid discounting your prices.
    • Instead, increase the value of your offerings. This is usually at a low cost to you without lowering your margins, which comes with several downsides.
  • Setting the right price is a huge component of marketing. Take this seriously.
  • A free trial option is a good thing to offer. It gives the customer incentive to try your product.
  • Make it as convenient as possible for a customer to buy.

Chapter 10

  • After Phase — You’ve secured the customer and now it’s time to retain them.
  • You should be trying to create a world class customer experience that turns customers in the big fans.
    • Wow the customer. Take great care of them.
    • Apple is an example.
  • To keep customers coming back, you need to help the customer accomplish their goal in addition to selling them your products. 
    • You must help them get the results that they bought the product for. 
    • Don’t just sell them your product, do things to help them get the results they want. This gets them coming back.
    • One way you can do this is through packaging.
      • Ex. Tiege Hanley Skin Care Bundle — The company puts a little instruction card in the bundle that shows customers exactly how much product to use and how to apply it.
  • Tell the customer, in copy and packaging, how you made the product.
    • Ex. Shower Gel — “49 bee mills helped make one nourishing bottle of this product.”
  • There are four main types of business systems and processes you need to create:
      1. Marketing System — Generating leads into the business
      2. Sales System —Lead nurturing and conversion
      3. Fulfillment System —The thing you need in exchange for a customer’s money.
      4. Administration System —Accounts, reception, HR, etc. 
  • Business System — Start with documented procedures and processes that allow your business to run without you. Items such as check lists, audio, video materials and guidelines.
    • Ex. McDonald’s — Teenagers basically run their restaurants. This can happen because of McDonald’s detailed systems.
    • Business systems are like a manual that tell you exactly what to do.
    • Business systems increase the value of your business. They also allow you to make several of your businesses if you want.
      • They also make your business very consistent and lower labor costs.
  • Identify roles in your business, then identify the tasks each role performs.
    • Then list how each role should go about their task. Use checklists to do this. Break down each task.
      • This is how you create your business systems.
  • Think about how you get out of your business. Who will buy from you? Think about the endgame.
    • This helps you shape how you go about your business. It shapes your decisions. 

Chapter 11

  • Increasing the value of your retained customers is where the big money is at.
    • AKA — Getting repeat customers.
  • Five major ways to increase the value of a continued or existing customer:
      1. Raising Prices
      • If your positioning well and creating a great experience for your customer, they normally won’t mind a price raise.
      • If you keep your prices the same for a long time, you’re going to lose money due to inflation.
      1. Upselling
      • Bundling add-ons to the main product being sold.
        • Ex. Do you want fries with that?
      • The Contrast Principle — When you buy one big thing, prices of smaller things seem less than they really are. This makes the customer more likely to buy cheaper add-on.
        • Ex. Weight Lifting — If you lift really heavy weight compared to your normal weight then drop the weight back into your normal range, the weight you usually lift will seem way lighter than if you didn’t lift the heavy weight first.
        • Ex. Baseball — This principle is essentially the bat donut in action. 
      1. Ascension
      • Process of moving existing customers to your higher-priced products.
        • Ex. Apple — Tries to sell you its new iPhone every year.
      • Doing this also helps prevent existing customers from leaving to a competitor.
      • Have multiple products and prices for every category.
        • At least have a standard and premium option.
      • Having multiple, ascending options gives the customer an upgrade path and something to shoot for it.
      1. Frequency
      • Increasing the frequency that customers buy from you.
      • Reminders, vouchers to come back, subscriptions. 
        • Ex. Kohls Cash
        • Ex. Dollar Shave Club 
        • Subscriptions are also great because the customer doesn’t look into competitors or price changes because their “radar” is off. They know they’ll have their monthly product at their doorstep each month. There’s no need to look elsewhere.
      1. Reactivation Campaign
      • List of past customers. Trying to get them to buy again.
      • Shoot past customers a good offer with coupons, vouchers, gift cards to get them to buy again.
      • Contact customer. Try to see why they haven’t bought again.
  • Just like weightlifting, you need to constantly track, measure, and improve your numbers in your business.
    • This is how your business grows. Just like a muscle.
  • Key numbers to track (track by month, week, or day):
    • Leads
    • Conversion rate
    • Average transaction amount or value
    • Breakeven point
  • Improving leads, conversion rate, average transaction value by 10% can have a huge impact on the entire business’s bottom line.
  • Principle of the Unequal Dollar — Income from “fan” customers are more valuable than “one-off” customers.
  • Your customer base can be defined by four types of customers:
    1. The Tribe — Huge fans. Think Apple customers.
    2. The Churners — These customers can’t really afford your products, but got in on a coupon or gift card. They end up leaving.
    3. The Vampires
    4. The Snow Leopards — Your biggest customers. Very rare.
  • Don’t treat all customers and revenue the same. Some customers are more valuable than others.
    • Focus a lot on your returning, good customers. Make them happy.

Chapter 12

  • Attack referrals. Try to get people to refer you to others. Don’t just hope.
  • Follow up and ask for referrals after selling to a customer.
    • Some will, some won’t. Just ask. This goes for everything in life.

Chapter 13

  • Don’t procrastinate by striving for perfection on the first go around.
    • Try, fail, and adjust to mistakes. This is how you grow in business and in life.
      • This is talked about at length in several other books, including Atomic Habits. 
  • Make sure you delegate well. You can’t do it all yourself.
  • Work hard. Stay focused. Don’t get distracted.
  • Marketing is the key to good business. It is the company‘s ultimate weapon.
  • People don’t know your product at first. They only know how good your marketing is.