3-step marketing field guide

The goal of any field guide is to lead you in a desired direction. In the late 1800’s the most popular field guides helped people identify plants and animals while hiking or living in the outdoors.

One of the elements that made them effective was their ease of use. It didn’t take you long to reference something, act on it, and keep going.

Today we’re going to talk about how to create a marketing field guide that’s also simple and easy to use.

All it takes is three steps and about 15 minutes. Let’s get started, shall we?

Step One: Mapping

The first step is to build a map from where you are now (Current location) to where you want to go (Destination).

To find out your current position, take inventory of the present.

If you could wave a magic wand and make one thing come true three months from now, what would it be? Whatever you answered is your next goal. This is your destination. Write it down.

Step Two: Routing

Great work! You have a map that gets you from point A to point B.

Let’s pick a route. List all the marketing ideas and tactics you can think of that may carry you to the goal. Some common ones include content marketing, advertising, SEO, email marketing, social media etc.

Once you’ve made a list of strategies and tactics, rank them by priority from high to low. Factors like cost, effort, speed, and impact will determine priority.

Pick your top three activities. These will be the possible routes — the ones you focus on for the next 90 days.

Step Three: Test, Measure & Adjust

For the next two weeks execute the first idea on your list. Track the results. During weeks three and four, run idea number two. And for weeks five and six implement idea number three.

From these three mini sprints, you should have an idea of which one is performing the best. Focus on the winning idea for the next six weeks, testing variations for improvement.

Using the marketing field guide helps you identify how to get to your next goal. The mini sprints allow you to test different activities and find ones that work.

By snowballing your time and energy into the winning ideas, you’ll get more mileage out of your efforts towards reaching your next goal.