An online to offline (O2O) marketing plan uses online channels to bring buyers to your shop, office or sales team. Base the go-to-market plan on data, because wrong assumptions make the whole marketing budget give a poor return.
Learn this skill in the course Marketing Plan (MX-MP).
Signs that your O2O plan has a gap
- You run ads and post on social media, but walk-ins and calls do not increase.
- You cannot say which online channel brought an offline sale.
- Your plan names the channels, but not the buyer personas for each channel.
- The plan is written, but nobody controls the dates and the deliverables.
Make an O2O marketing plan in five steps
1. Set the business and product strategy
Write your business and marketing goals. List your products and services, who you want to sell to, and why they will buy from you. Analyse the market, the competitors and the industry forces on your target audience. Then write a positioning statement that shows how you are different.
2. Define the target audience and the channels
Divide the target audience into clear buyer personas. For each persona, select the online channels and platforms that reach it. Decide which platform you use, when, and for what purpose.
3. Write the brand drivers and map the sales funnel
Write the messages that connect your product to each persona (brand drivers). These messages give the momentum for the audience to adopt your product. Then map the customer journey and the sales funnel from the messages and the platforms.
4. Decide how to go to market
Select the campaign types, for example events, influencers, ads, email, social media, content and search. Set the KPIs and the metrics for each campaign. This is the step where the budget is used well or wasted.
5. Execute and control the plan
A plan gives results only when you execute it well. Make an action plan with the resources and the dates. Manage the campaigns as a project: monitor the progress and control each change.
The time for these five steps depends on the scope of the work.
What to do this week
- Ask each new walk-in or caller how they found you. Record the answers for one week.
- Write one positioning statement for your main product, in one sentence.
- Name one KPI for each online channel that you pay for.
