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Create Your Marketing Plan
STRATEGIC MARKETING
“ When I first started my business, I was just out there pounding the pavement,
meeting with people. I was so happy for any sale I got. I’d use an old template of a
proposal for a new client. I figured it was practical, fast, and therefore why change?
One day I had a potential client share with me that my marketing materials looked
dated. She kind of whispered it to me o to the side aer a meeting. During the
meeting I said, ‘I welcome any and all feedback. Your insights are so important to
our business.’ That one sentence opened up the door to feedback, and I wanted
more. I started testing our approach with dierent clients. I made changes. Based
on the feedback, I made a quick two-page marketing plan. I sat down with a couple
advisors of mine with the plan. They gave me great feedback—and some incredible
ideas for new ways to stand out to more clients in less-expensive ways. Today, we
have lowered our customer acquisition costs, have a higher win rate, and actually
get compliments on our marketing approach—whereas before, I am wondering if
people were snickering behind our back.”
Whether the opportunity your business is pursuing is a new or enhanced product or service, or a new
market, you need a thoughtful plan that fits this opportunity.
In this tool, you’ll begin draing your five-part marketing plan. You’ll define what you’re selling and
to whom you’re selling. These facts will inform your marketing goals and the strategies and tactics
you pick to hit those goals. Finally, you’ll create metrics to see if your strategies are working and what
adjustments you may need to make. If you’ve already created your marketing plan in the past, view
this as a refresher or an exercise you can go through with your team or a marketing vendor.
— U.S.-Based Entrepreneur
JOURNEY
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My Marketing Plan
PART : THE CURRENT STATUS (A SNAPSHOT)
Begin your plan with an overview of where the product or service your company is oering stands in
the market today. Think about these guiding questions as you evaluate your position in the market:
• What product or service am I selling?
• Who else is oering similar products/services? Research your competition. If you haven’t already,
check out Competition.
• What makes my product or service unique? Show why you’re better than the competition.
• What’s my pricing strategy? If you haven’t already, check out Pricing Strategy.
• Do customers want the product/service I’m selling? Your research should reveal that your
product/service addresses a specific need or customer pain point. If you haven’t already, check
out Customer Need.
For example: An HR consulting firm, McGee & Partners, lists the benefits of their consulting services
compared to their major competitors.
Disclaimer: The business names appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to an actual
business is purely coincidental.
Customizability
Yes No NoNo Yes
Verify rumor that
Competitor 3 has
customizable features
pending.
Trial Period
Yes No No No
24/7 customer
service
Yes Yes No No
Renew exclusive deal
with online service
provider. This is #1
positive report from
customers.
Service Benefits
and Attributes
McGee &
Partners
Competitor 1:
Loya
Consulting
Competitor 2:
S&P Tax and
Consulting
Competitor 3:
The Draper
Group
Notes/Action Items
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In the space below, outline your marketing snapshot: How do your existing products or services, or a
new line you’ve developed, stand out in the marketplace?
Product or Service:
Key Benefits
My Company Competitor A Competitor B Competitor C Notes
Key Takeaways for My Product/Service and Its Place in the Market
PART : TARGET AUDIENCE
Describe your target audience. What are the demographics of customers you’re trying to sell to, such
as how old they are and where they live? What are their psychographics, such as their values, likes/
dislikes and buying habits (how, where, when and why they buy)?
Understanding your target audience will guide your marketing eorts—you’ll use marketing strategies
and create marketing content that resonates with them.
Resource: If you haven’t already, check out Demographics & Psychographics to read about the
importance of understanding your customer and target market.
In the space below, define your target audience by writing three to five traits about them.
For example: McGee & Partners define their target audience as:
1. Small to mid-sized firms in the pharmaceutical industry, with revenues between $1million
and $3 million
2. Located in California, specifically in the Los Angeles and San Diego areas
3. Majority of these firms are just starting up and therefore actively participate in industry conferences
for networking
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PART : MARKETING GOALS
At this point, you’ve laid a great foundation for the next steps—you’ve refreshed your understanding of
where your product or service stands in the market, and you’ve reexamined your target audience.
Based on this information, you can define your marketing goals. Set goals that will stretch you and help
you grow your business, but that are attainable. Reviewing your growth and sales numbers over the
past years and your financial projections for the next three to five years will give you some indication of
what’s financially doable and help you put some healthy constraints around your marketing goals.
Check out Financial Projections to see what the next three to five years could look like for your
business.
Tip: Do your own search for “SMART goals framework + marketing” for further insights on setting goals.
In the space below, write one or two marketing goals. If you want to get the most bang for your
marketing buck, have your goals tie directly to sales or profit growth.
For example:
McGee & Partners sets a goal to generate $50K in sales in the next two months, with an average of $5K per
consulting engagement, targeting firms in the pharmaceutical industry.
• Win 10 new clients at target project size or greater.
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PART : STRATEGIES AND TACTICS
You’ve set your marketing goals. But how do you plan to
meet them? That’s where marketing strategies and tactics
come in. For instance, social media marketing is a strategy
(what), and within that, an #IWD [International Women’s
Day] campaign featuring your clients is a tactic (how).
Marketing strategies and tactics relate directly to your
marketing goal.
The marketing/sales funnel is a popular way to depict the
manner in which target buyers interact with your marketing eorts and ultimately become customers.
Stages in the funnel can vary depending on your business, but here is an example:
• Awareness: This is the first stage, at the top of the funnel. Here, you’ll focus on strategies and
tactics that bring awareness about your company’s product/service to as many people as
possible. This is the “widest” part of the funnel, reaching the most people.
- A strategy may be events, and within that a tactic could be encouraging product or service trials.
- A strategy could be press, and within that a tactic could be targeting industry publications while
also taking out an ad for a free trial.
• Interest: In this stage, a percentage of people who became aware of your product/service show
more specific interest in how your product/service can benefit them.
- A strategy example is e-mail and text marketing, and a tactic could be targeted campaigns to
individuals who participated in a trial.
• Decision: At this stage, potential customers have moved past exploring your product/service
and are actively considering making a purchase. Here, you should do what you can to remove
unnecessary steps from the potential buyers’ journey to making a purchase.
- A strategy example is video and audio greetings on social media, and a tactic could be oering a
“friends join free”promotion to encourage a decision in your favor.
• Action: This final stage, at the bottom of the funnel, is where you make a sale and potential
buyers become customers!
- At this stage, many companies think “the decision is made,” but marketing can continue in the
form of encouraging action sooner through a time-limited oer, creating excitement about the
product/service, linking the buyer with a community, and other creative strategies and tactics.
Tip: Concerned it will cost too much? Examine your marketing budget (more about this in Part 5) as
you reach your target audience.
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In the space below, write your strategies and tactics for meeting your goal(s).
For example: To meet their marketing/sales goal, McGee & Partners decide to generate awareness about
their consulting services through two marketing strategies. Let’s look at them one by one.
Oline (In-Person) Marketing Strategy
McGee & Partners opts for in-person networking. As part of their marketing plan, they’ve decided to focus
on the pharmaceutical industry. They register for and arrange to do a presentation at a pharmaceutical
industry event (tactic). They study the list of likely attendees and select their top 10 prospects. They invite
those select prospects to attend their presentation and arrange to meet for deeper follow-up discussions.
They also set up an inviting dropbox where interested parties can leave their business cards for follow-up
discussions (tactics).
Web (E-mail) Marketing Strategy
• Awareness: The firm also decides to generate awareness through e-mail marketing. The business
owner, Madison McGee, who is a senior consultant and an HR expert, has written a book on this
subject matter. She provides a free sample of her e-book on the firm’s website (tactic).
• Interest: There is a signup link to download the free e-book (tactic). Potential customers who are
interested in the e-book sign up by providing their names and e-mail addresses to have the e-book
delivered to their inbox. This helps McGee & Partners build an e-mail list of interested customers.
• Decision: Along with the free e-book, the firm also shares other helpful and interesting information
about their services to show value and strengthen their relationship with potential customers
(tactic). For customers who would like more information, there are clear and easy steps in the e-mail
to connect with a business representative. Also, using the e-mail addresses that people provided
for the free e-book, the firm contacts targeted companies—companies with revenues between
$1 million and $3 million that are just developing their own HR departments and are looking for
guidance (tactic).
• Action: Ten percent of the companies that talked to McGee & Partners’ business representatives
signed up for their services.
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PART : BUDGET AND MEASUREMENT
Marketing your product/service is absolutely necessary, but implementing marketing strategies and
tactics comes with its own costs. So, it’s important that you allocate a portion of your revenue to
marketing.
Let’s say your revenue is just under $5 million. How much do you think you could set aside for
marketing?
Marketing budgets can vary widely, from 2 percent of sales to 20 percent (while gearing up a new
product or service). As a general rule, small businesses with revenues less than $5 million should
allocate 7–8 percent of their revenues to marketing.¹ This budget should be split between 1) brand
development costs (which includes all the channels you use to promote your brand, such as your
website, blogs, sales collateral, etc.), and 2) the costs of promoting your business (campaigns,
advertising, events, etc.). This percentage also assumes you have margins in the range of 10–12 percent
(aer you’ve covered your other expenses, including marketing).
Tip: Want to find the right marketing budget level for your business? Search for “how to set a marketing
budget” or “calculating marketing budget.”
What about measurement?
Review the dierent steps in your funnel and study the numbers—How many people did you reach?
What level of media impressions did you obtain with your social media campaign? How many clicked?
How many purchased?
For example: Here’s a walk-through of metrics for McGee & Partners’ marketing eorts.
Oline (In-Person) Marketing Metrics
Below are the metrics for where customers are at each stage in McGee & Partners’ sales/marketing funnel:
• Awareness: At the industry event, McGee & Partners was able to present to 50 people.
• Interest: In addition to the 10 preselected potential customers, five more people were interested in
what they shared. McGee greeted each one of these interested potential customers and personally
collected their business cards.
• Decision: McGee then followed up the next day with a personal call to encourage a decision in the
firm’s favor.
• Action: As a result of this follow-up, five people decided to sign up for consultancy services.
McGee & Partners used this data—presenting to 50 people resulted in five conversions (that is, turning
prospects into clients)—to figure out how many people they need to connect to in order to get closer to
their marketing goal. The industry event plus the time invested in follow-up cost approximately $2,500. So
the cost of customer acquisition is $500 per customer ($2,500 / 5 clients each purchasing $5K).
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Online (E-mail) Marketing Metrics
McGee & Partners measured the following metrics for their e-mail marketing strategy:
• Click-through rate (CTR): How many people clicked the signup link for the free e-book on their
website and provided their email addresses
• Conversion rate: How many people signed up for their consulting services
McGee & Partners performed the following calculations based on the number of people on their e-mail
list, the click-through rate, and the conversion rate to see which marketing approach is most eective to
reach their sales goal of $50K.
Using E-mail Marketing Metrics (CTR and Conversion Rate) to Measure Marketing/Sales Goal
The email list of 10,000 was partially curated over time at a very low cost. Creating the e-mail, and sta
time following up on it, cost approximately $1,000. The cost of customer acquisition is approximately $143
per customer ($1,000 / 7 clients each purchasing $5K).
$50,000
10,000 2.80% 2.60%2.60% $5,000 $35,000
280 7
Sales Goal E-mail List
Click-through
Rate
Conversion Rate
Service Sign-up
Price
Total Sales
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Resource
Want more on marketing planning? Check out this marketing plan guide from SCORE. It includes a list
of marketing strategies and tactics and a template for calculating cost of customer acquisition.
The numbers are telling you a story—what is it they’re saying? What strategies and tactics are most
eective? Do you have the right target audience? If, aer measuring the activities in your marketing/
sales funnel, you find that you aren’t quite meeting your goals, consider tweaking one or more of these:
your product/service pricing, your marketing strategies and tactics, or even your goals.
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