My First Marketing Plan, 11 Years Ago

I just came across a few old photos of what could possibly be my first marketing plan for a private company and though I would share. This was around summer 2004.

I had already worked 8 months as a Program Assistant with the Communication Department Coop Program at SFU, but this was my first job with a private “real” company.

See those red spikes? Those were planned direct-mail campaigns.  The blue line was a sweet visualization predicting traffic growth to our new website. What a plan for spectacular growth!

I actually designed the brochure used for the first mail campaign – a proud moment for anyone about to graduate from university. This was also the first time I had to look for and pay for an image – what a concept. And yes, of course I have a couple of copies with me! Photo below.

I was also working with the website consolidating duplicate content, better copy, formatting… Though I didn’t know it, I was already SEOing this site. You’re welcome, IMAG 🙂

 

I remember this was the first time I planned against a KPI. We had a list of around 4,000 people and my manager at the time, Doug Stevens (great guy, by the way),  told me to plan for a 2% conversion rate – i.e. people getting back to us as leads.

“What, 2%?!!” I thought this guy was really underestimating my design capabilities. I was convinced we’d get about a 30%-40% conversion rate. After all, I was pretty confident on my design abilities. We got about 1.8%.

I mean really – he says, “plan for around 2%” and we get 1.8%? I’m sure luck played a bit into it, but the lesson was clearly understood: I know nothing.

Talking about knowing nothing, perhaps the conversion rate would’ve been higher had I included a damn Call To Action somewhere in the brochure!

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