When you're preparing to lead a retreat, you're responsible for creating a schedule, preparing activities and even healthy food and refreshments. You're probably also at least partially in charge of the "when, where and how."

There's one important aspect that you may not have considered as strongly: marketing. Regardless of the situation, most of the promotion of your retreat -- the marketing -- will be up to you.

Why a Marketing Plan Matters

Marketing is important for many reasons, not the least of which is attracting attendees to your event. The right marketing approach will help you completely book your next retreat, with far less effort on your part.

It's not enough just to put information on your website or to share a social media post or two. By preparing a full marketing plan, you can bring more focus and organization to your marketing, along with better use of your financial resources.

The Focus and Organization of a Detailed Plan

The options available for sharing your event can be overwhelming -- from flyers and in-person networking to digital strategies like Facebook ads and website content. Jumping from one tactic to another will take up a lot of time and leave you feeling frazzled.

A detailed plan gives you a much greater degree of focus on using the right strategies to market your retreat. It will also help you better organize your efforts on each platform so that you don't miss out on reaching your audience.

Improving Your Marketing Systems

The foundation of a strategic marketing plan saves you time in translating your goals into materials -- flyers, brochures, digital ads and even marketing videos. It also allows you to turn that broader plan into a specific strategy for every platform you intend to use, improving the likelihood that you will reach your marketing goals.

Efficient Use of Your Financial Resources

The preparation of a plan also ensures that you are making the best use of your finances. With other financial concerns in play, such as the cost of venues, materials and more for your program, you'll want to be confident you're not wasting money on ineffective marketing. A plan strategizes not only your marketing efforts but also the appropriate funding of these efforts.

Creating a Marketing Strategy for Your Retreat

Now that you know some of the many benefits of a marketing plan, you may be wondering just how to begin creating the right plan for your unique event. By starting with your overall goals and research and creating a relevant, actionable task list, you can set up a marketing plan that perfectly fits you and your retreat.

The Path to a Marketing Strategy

The steps to creating your marketing plan are critical as they set the foundation for all of your marketing efforts -- and they set you up for success.

1. Establish clear goals - Before you begin crafting a marketing plan, you need to know exactly what you want to accomplish. This can include your goal for the event itself, like providing professionals a relaxing escape - but it should also include specific strategic goals, such as how many participants you want for your retreat.

2. Study your audience - If you haven't already done so, you need to research your ideal clients, learning about their interests and needs, understanding what appeals to them, and discovering what marketing channels are going to reach them.

3. Choose your marketing channels - Based on the knowledge you have of your audience, you can then select the websites and social sites and even physical places where you will focus your marketing efforts.

4. Design the content - Depending on your marketing strategies, this can include physical flyers, blog posts that highlight the benefits of a retreat, and social media content promoting your event.

5. Create an email campaign - Hopefully, you already have an email list you've been building as part of your business and overall marketing efforts. You can use this list, as well as any new specific interest in the retreat, to market your event.

6. Schedule the marketing - Create a calendar of the posts and marketing touches you want to make, detailing what you will share or post and when you will do it.

Actionable Task List

One of the most important elements of using a marketing plan to promote your retreat is to create an actionable task list. This list should include all of the specific steps you will take to share your event with potential clients, including things like "share your event on Facebook on Monday, Wednesday and Friday" and "design a flyer for handout at a local fitness center." This actionable task list will keep you on track, as well as organized with your marketing efforts.

Real-Time Evaluation

Ideally, you are planning in advance so that you have several weeks or even months before the retreat begins (ideally, 12 months before the retreat start date). This time will allow you to create, use and review your marketing plan before the event. Review or evaluation of the results of your marketing efforts is important to making it as effective as it can be. With enough time, you can review your marketing tactics and, for example, see that Instagram posts are getting the most signups while your Facebook posts haven't seen much interest -- and adjust your methods to focus on the effective tactics.

Reaching out to potential participants for your retreat is one of the most critical elements in making your event a success. By starting with a marketing plan, you can ensure that all of your work is effective in reaching your audience and building up your event to meet your goals.

Do you still need some guidance? I can help you with a 12-months Marketing Strategy, plan and budget for your business, or a marketing strategy, plan and budget for your retreat. Click here for more information.