If you’re getting good results from your marketing efforts without a defined plan and without foresight – in other words, marketing your business on the fly – that’s great!
But just imagine the potential for even greater results if you write a solid plan for your business marketing that’s grounded in real-time data and proven strategy. That’s gonna be even better!!
As a certified platinum HubSpot partner, we define a marketing plan as “a strategic roadmap to organize, execute, and track marketing strategy over a given period. It can include different marketing strategies for various marketing teams across a company, all working toward the same business goals.”
A marketing plan is often part of the overall enterprise business plan that outlines various marketing objectives and tactics used to support specific business goals. The strategy or strategies that your marketing plan contains describe how you’ll accomplish each goal through marketing campaigns, content, and channels, plus how you’ll track success, mostly through marketing software.
A great marketing plan typically includes this checklist:
You can craft different types of marketing plans for accomplishing different goals. Here are a few examples.
Annual or quarterly marketing plan – This roadmap is based on a specific time period for success. It’s a great “starter” marketing plan for organizing an entire year or three months of marketing efforts.
Content marketing plan – This roadmap is based on the method of accomplishment. It highlights different strategies, tactics, and campaigns for using content to promote your business, product, or service.
Social media marketing plan – This roadmap is also based on the method of accomplishment. It highlights specific social media channels, tactics, paid strategies, and campaigns for content promotion and distribution.
New product launch marketing plan – This roadmap is based on one specific product or service. It highlights the strategies and tactics for introducing something new to a new audience.
Growth marketing plan – This roadmap is based on the use of data and experimentation to drive results. It highlights ways to create accountability and strategy when experimenting with different platforms and campaigns or unfamiliar tactics.
Your marketing mission is the question you need to answer, the reason you’re initiating the plan, the primary objective of your marketing, or the assignment that’s specific to your marketing department that also serves your business’s overall mission.
It’s also a good practice to clearly explain what your marketing team will not serve with this plan, like other aspects of your business that you won’t be focused on. This helps to clarify your plan’s main mission as well as buyer personas, KPIs, and content.
Establish short- and long-term goals for your marketing mission, then decide on the specific metrics that will track the results of the various elements of your marketing campaign. KPIs are helpful when you want to communicate your progress to business leaders.
A buyer persona is shorthand for describing a person you want to attract. Each buyer persona should be based on your business's current customers and prospects and often includes details such as age, gender, location, family size, job title as well as the following:
Explain how you'll use your content and channels to accomplish your mission. Include information on the types of content, the content volume in daily, weekly, monthly, or quarterly intervals, the website pages you want to drive traffic to, the channels of distribution, the overall goals, and the KPIs that will track the progress.
Outline every potential expense required to execute your plan, whether it’s an additional hire, freelance or remote work fees, sponsorships, or something else.
By profiling the key players in your industry, you can access key challenges for your business. Here are a few questions to ask:
Clearly explain who’s doing what. Determine which teams and team leaders are responsible for the specific content types, channels, KPIs, and other elements of your marketing plan.
When you need a comprehensive and effective marketing plan that’s flexible, responsive, and gets results, connect with 11outof11. Request a complimentary call with one of 11outof11’s resident experts. Contact us to learn more.