Want to prepare an advertising plan for your business but don’t know where to start? I’ve got you covered. Keep reading to learn more about what an advertising plan is and how to prepare one.

Ready? Let's dive in!

What is an Advertising Plan?

An advertising plan is a blueprint of the strategy you’ll use to promote your business and reach your target audience. It contains all of the elements and information you need to enact your advertising strategies like critical messaging, budget, timelines, and channels or medium you’ll use. 

Basic Elements of an Advertising Plan

An advertising plan has the basic elements which include the following:

• Goals
• Target audience
• Advertising format and medium
• Budget and Cost
• Timeline

 This information can also be found in your business plan or marketing plan so you may want to refer to them.

How Does an Advertising Plan Work?

 The whole team is involved in creating and executing an advertising plan. 

1. First, the marketing team will create the plan in alignment with the company’s goals and objectives, this will include target audience, goals, and advertising medium/platforms.
2. Then the marketing team executes the plan through various platforms i.e social media posts, blog posts, email marketing, etc.
3. While the advertising continues, the team tracks the data, collecting and assessing metrics in real time to ensure the plan is performing well.
4. As the advertising plan moves forward, the team reviews, evaluates and makes the necessary adjustments to the plan to reach goals and metrics.
5. Finally, after the campaign, the team will analyse and will take note of lessons and takeaways for future advertising plans.

How To Prepare an Advertising Plan 

1. Define Your Overall Goals. Before you begin your advertising plan, you have to determine the end goal of your campaign. What do you want to accomplish? Are you trying to attract new customers or are you trying to encourage previous customers to come to visit?  If your goal is to create a profit, how much revenue do you want to generate? Whatever it is, make sure it is identifiable and quantifiable. Remember to be realistic and specific.
2. Establish Your Budget. Setting a budget will help you stay within your marketing budget and ensure that you gain more revenue than what you spend on advertising. Your budget should include paid ads to each of the platforms you’ll use, the cost of hiring additional staff or freelancers, copywriters etc. to help execute your advertising plan. 
3. Detail the Content of your Advertising Plan. As mentioned above, you can use the existing information from your business plan or marketing plan. The content initiatives of your advertising plan should include the following:

• Campaign Name: The campaign name doesn’t have to be complicated, just make sure it easily gives everyone in your team an idea of what it is about. 
• Description: Describe what is the purpose of your campaign, the goals and objectives, how it aligns with your company goals, what customer problems you're solving, and the final deliverables.
• Target Audience: Who is your ideal customer? What are your buyer personas, this includes age, sex, region, and location, demographics?
• Advertising Platforms/Medium: Which platforms are you going to use  to reach your potential customers? Make sure to select the ones where your audience is already consuming information. 
• Key Messaging: How will you be getting your message across? It is important to decide what marketing language you'll use that speaks and connects to your audience. Clearly communicate the benefits that your products and services and other terms that entice them to learn more or make a purchase.
• Timeline: Create a schedule and deadlines for promotional campaigns and milestone deadlines the team will need to meet to make the plan a reality.

4. Outline and Assign Responsibilities. Who are the people involved in executing the plan? Make sure to be clear on the specific roles and duties of each team and individual members.

5. Conduct a Kick-off Meeting. Hop on a meeting with the whole team and introduce the plan to them and make them aware of their group and individual responsibilities. It is crucial that everyone on the team is on board and that they are aligned with the overall goal for your advertising plan to succeed. Empower team leaders to assign day-to-day responsibilities to the team members.

6. Analyse the Results. By analysing the results of your campaign once it's over, you'll gain valuable insights into what works and what doesn’t. This is also a great opportunity to note the lessons learned so you can improve your chances of success in future advertising plans.

As a business and marketing consultant with over 14 years of experience, one of the main things I always impart to my clients is that you can have the best strategy in the world BUT it’s critical that it’s executed with precision in order to succeed. With the right planning and execution, you’re on the right track to creating a successful advertising campaign.

And if things aren't clicking and you need help from an expert to help you navigate, I’m happy to help.

Together, we can create a winning advertising plan and make sure you have a clear path towards your goals complete with the actionable steps and implementation guidance that will help them get there.

I’ll make it my mission to help you all the way from strategy to execution. If this is something you want for your business, you can book a strategy call with me or head to my Services page.