Why you should have a personal marketing plan?

A marketing plan and marketing strategy is something that associates with businesses. We are used to thinking that in order to sell – we need to promote and for that, we need a plan – a marketing plan or marketing strategy if we want to fancy it up. But personal marketing plan? Do you have one for yourself or have you ever considered it?

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What is a marketing plan?

What is a marketing plan at all – well it’s a plan yes, but the marketing part? I try to simplify for readers who aren’t good friends with marketing. A marketing plan involves analyzing your situation and what you want to achieve. For products it’s mostly easy and straightforward – we need to sell products as much as possible. So marketing finds the sparks of products and visualizes these to potential clients – creates an ad and starts to share this. Marketing also identifies what kind of people are these product buyers and finds a way to get the ad to them.

Creating a marketing plan is hard!

Well yes and no. Again identify your goals – we can make it simple or really complex depending on goals and time period. Businesses usually have yearly plans so they might look complex and confusing, but in reality, they are just a collection of many small ones in one place.

If you are just starting to take it step by step – weekly, monthly, quarterly, and then yearly. This way it won’t become overwhelming and is easier to manage. And sometimes we actually don’t need to make a new plan for every period. For a smaller business or personal use, I would recommend creating one continuous plan. It can be as simple as setting a goal or two, figuring out what kind of actions are needed to achieve this goal, and how you measure these. And then stick to that.

Why I would need it?

So we got some kind of picture of what a marketing plan is – a little scary, but not a complete monster. But why would one need a personal marketing plan? If to be honest we all have a personal brand – whether we acknowledge this or not. Anyone who is active on social media or the internet in any way – has an image. But do we think what kind of picture our activity paints from us? We share pictures, thoughts, and articles we like or hate with comments and write comments on others’ posts. All this will create our personal image. And does it shows us as the people we want to be seen? Creating a personal marketing plan means taking control of your image.

5 points marketing plan

There are several aspects that need to be thought of while starting to consciously manage your personal online image. You need to think about how are you representing yourself now and do you like it?

Also in today’s world, an online image may play a crucial role in your career. It doesn’t matter are you young and just starting out or already have a career path in place. Does your online image support your profession? I have created a simple personal marketing plan template to help get started. There are just a few guiding questions to walk you through and set the first basic guidelines.

Think about the questions and answers truthfully – no one else but you need to see these answers so there isn’t any reason to lie. You would be just lying to yourself. You need to look and see – what is your current image. And you need to think what is your ultimate life goal. Does and how your image helps you get there?

What information do you share in your profile?

Check out all of your online profiles, yes all of them. If they are related to your real name – they matter, because this is the information strange (including potential employers) can find and it can either help you or hurt you. And not only profiles – everything attached with your profile – what information do you share, what and how you comment.

It might be tempting to vocalize your passions and beliefs. And yes, we have freedom of speech. But no right comes without obligations and we pay price for each right we have. In this case, the price is our reputation.

We all have seen memes about how Twitter makes us like strangers and Facebook makes us hate people we know. There are some invisible boundaries that are in place when we talk with each other in real life. And they disappear being online. A false feeling of anonymity gives us the courage to say things we normally wouldn’t. And that’s how we find out people’s beliefs and mostly in an ugly way. And they are our friends so Facebook makes sure we see them. But have you ever wondered – that someone may dislike and even start to hate you based on your online engagement? The personal marketing plan will help you to figure it out and prevent it – at least among the people you need to leave a positive impression.

What about you?

I personally have been very closed with mine. My closest see my posts and profile and not so close friends or strangers are mainly left with just my name and picture. But lately, I have started to think more, that I need to share more and publicly my professional knowledge – so this simple personal marketing plan was created to help me make my profile better. And how could I just keep it to myself? Of course, I have to share this with you – for free!

Have you knowingly monitored and edited your personal social profiles? Or maybe you have some story to share where your social profile helped? Or vice versa?