Today, we’re answering another frequently asked question: How do you write a marketing plan? In this post, we’re looking at how to create a marketing plan once you have your marketing strategy in place. There are 5 key steps to success we’ve identified that a lot of business leaders miss or don’t get around to doing. Read the post and follow the steps to successfully implement your marketing plan.
What is a marketing plan?
A marketing plan is the instructions for how you’re going to implement your marketing strategy. If you want more information about the benefits of a marketing strategy, check out this post.
It tells you and anyone supporting your business exactly who you’re targeting, what marketing activities you’re going to do, where you’re going to share your marketing messages and when you’re going to do everything.
We’re going to cover all the steps to creating a marketing plan below. Once you’ve learned all the steps, head over to our blog post on Creating a Marketing Plan on a Budget for additional tips on creating a cost-effective marketing plan.
A marketing plan is often focused around your channels and outlines when, where and what you’re going to distribute to get your brand in front of your audience.
Step 1: Summarise your key messages. You should have these from your marketing strategy but it’s always worth including them in your marketing plan too to make sure anyone who’s accessing your plan to implement it (you or other suppliers) can easily refer back to your key messages.
Step 2: Identify each key channel – you’ll write out specific actions for each of these (this makes up the bulk of the plan). This is what you might hear referred to as the ‘marketing mix’. It can include digital channels like your website, social media, blogging and email marketing, as well as offline channels like events, postal campaigns and outdoor advertising.
Step 3: Write specific actions for each channel, including:
- Any updates to copy e.g. descriptions, bios, calls to action, links
- Any updates to visuals e.g. colours, visual branding, cover images
- Posting/publishing frequency (e.g. how many times are you going to use this channel per week/month/quarter)
- Details about engagement – are you going to be engaging on social media or only posting? How often are you going to do this?
- Any features you want to take advantage of e.g. Instagram reels and specifics about quantity/frequency
Step 4: Assign responsibility and cost to each item – someone needs to own each area if you want to make sure it’s going to be implemented consistently. At this stage you’ll see if you need to outsource and if so, how much investment it needs from your business.
Step 5: Create a timeline of when you’re going to achieve each action you’ve identified for each channel. This is really important to keep you on track. Plus, it’ll give you an indication of whether or not your timelines are realistic compared to your resources (money, people and time).
Step 6: review your plan and budget – is it realistic? If not, you’ll need to update your plan and manage your expectations to ensure you’ll be able to follow through with your marketing plan. You might be trying to do too much all at once so need to spread things out. Or perhaps you don’t have the expertise in house so you’ll need to find a supplier to help out. Either way, it’s best to know at this stage rather than launching head first into an unachievable plan!
Step 7: Decide how you’re going to measure your marketing. We always recommend reporting and optimising monthly as part of our Worry-Free Marketing System because it keeps your finger on the pulse without being too time-consuming. Decide how you’re going to monitor activities and stick to it. If you’re doing it yourself, schedule a diary invite and stick to it – no excuses!
About us
We’re Freshbat – a strategic communications agency providing integrated marketing services to business leaders who embrace change and value marketing in a proactive and trustworthy environment.
Our goal is to give you more headspace, help you to make stuff happen and build better relationships by taking a fresh approach to marketing. We know you’re the kind of person who wants to be considered an inspiring and empowering leader for your business.
In order to be that way, you need to be in control of your marketing. The problem is you feel your marketing isn’t good enough, which in turn makes you feel confused and frustrated that you don’t have the resources, creativity or expertise to solve the issue.
We believe it’s just plain wrong that business leaders are tasked with keeping up with the rapidly changing marketing landscape on their own. That’s why we provide integrated marketing solutions through our worry-free marketing process.
Here’s how it works: we have an initial call to find out the things holding you back, we then create a bespoke strategy to reach your ideal clients and finally we implement your marketing plan for you so you can worry less and achieve more. We create tailored and integrated marketing solutions that bring order, strategy and results while having fun in the process (yes, it’s possible!).
Our core services include: 📈 Content marketing strategy 📱 Social media management 📧 Email marketing 👩💻 Blogging and web content
Contact us to see how we can help you take a fresh approach to marketing. Email hello@freshbat.com to book your discovery call 📧
