How to Write a Marketing Plan:

A Comprehensive Guide with Templates

written by: sarah brady

 Preparation is key.

Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I

will spend the first four sharpening the axe.
A B R A H A M LIN C O LN

W HET HER YO U ARE CHO P P IN G D O WN A TR E E O R E X E C U TIN G A N IN T E G RAT E D M A RK E T I N G P L A N ,

the steps you take ahead of time are crucial to your marketing success.
The Digital Marketing Plan
Your marketing department might encompass digital
marketing, print advertisement, paid search, website
optimization, visual identity/branding, event marketing, etc.

Since we are a digital marketing agency, this marketing plan discussion will focus heavily on
digital marketing (what we call inbound marketing) but the strategies and concepts discussed
can be expanded to encompass your entire marketing department.
 How to Structure
Your Marketing Plan
 HOW TO STRUCTURE YOUR MARKE TI NG P L AN

M A RK ET ING PLA N

STE P ONE

List Your Goals First

While developing goals may not be the first step you actually take when

forming your marketing plan,listing them first on your final marketing

plan document sets the stage for everything to come.

Put your goals on Page 1.

 HOW TO STRUCTURE YOUR MARKE TI NG P L AN

M A RK ET ING PLA N

STE P TW O

Explain Your Research

Research will be the foundation of your marketing plan and should include:

1. Competitive Analysis

2. SWOT Analysis (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats)

3. Buyer Personas
4. Buyers Buying Cycle
 HOW TO STRUCTURE YOUR MARKE TI NG P L AN

M A RK ET ING PLA N
STE P THRE E

Explain Your Strategy

Once youve outlined the landscape, its time to explain the strategy.
This phase includes:

1. Defining Your Goals

2. Knowing Your USP (unique selling proposition)

3. Ensuring You Have a Strong Brand

4. Making Sure You Have an Optimized Website

5. Creating Kick-Ass Content

6. Defining Your Distribution Channels (email, social, etc.)

7. Implementing an SEO Strategy

 HOW TO STRUCTURE YOUR MARKE TI NG P L AN

M A RK ET ING PLA N

STE P FOUR

Define KPIs and

Measurement Methods
Before you have implemented your strategy you should be measuring to estab-
lish your baseline. What have you done in the past and what were the results?
How can those strategies shift to improve ROI?

Measurement should be done before, during and after throughout the year,
on a monthly or even weekly basis to ensure your plans are showing positive
results and to shift them if theyre not.

 HOW TO STRUCTURE YOUR MARKE TI NG P L AN

M A RK ET ING PLA N

STE P FI VE

List Overarching Strategy

and Tactical Plans
Having tactical plans and calendars gives life to your ideas and strategy. Try focusing
on four or five main tactics for the year and create execution plans around these tac-
tics. Keep in mind that your tactics may or may not be the same as your goals. If your
goals are high-level, i.e. to increase traffic by 50%, then your tactic would drill down
more on how to get that result and be as the name implies, more tactical.
Its a Guide,
Not a Bible.
Nobody can predict the future,
which is why it is vital to remember
that your marketing plan should be
a living, working document.
This is not a style book, a brand handbook or a book on company policy. A marketing
plan left to collect dust is useless. Whats not useless is a fluid marketing plan that allows
for change and is looked upon as a guide, not as a bible.
Do Your Research
D O YO UR RE SEA RC H

If you dont know who you are, what youre selling or who youre selling to, youre
going to have a pretty hard time convincing people to buy your product or service,
never mind figuring out what tactical initiatives you should be working on.

So do your homework.
D O YO UR RE SEA RC H

Feel out the competition

In order to determine the likelihood of success and
define your marketing strategy, you need to understand
the competition. (This will also help you through your
next step: creating a SWOT analysis.)

The world of inbound marketing includes some really important

strategies that can also be useful when researching
competitors. Here are three to get you started:

Subscribe to your competitors (or those you perceive to be

your competitors) email lists.

Follow your competitors on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn,

Instagram any social site you can find them on.

Examine what content your competitors are creating who

it is aimed at, how often is it produced, who is writing it, what
the content topics are, etc.
D O YO UR RE SEA RC H

Perform a SWOT Analysis

Standard to any business or marketing plan is the
SWOT analysis. The SWOT analysis should help you
clearly define your strengths, weaknesses, opportu-
nities and threats so that you can develop goals and
objectives that are on point and tied to your overall
mission.

Brutal honesty is imperative to a truly insightful SWOT. Use

bullets and aim for four to five in each section. Limiting your lists will
help you to focus on the most critical points and help retain focus.

In addition to completing a SWOT for your overall marketing plan,

it is often helpful to do a SWOT analysis for the different segments
within your marketing plan.
D O YO UR RE SEA RC H

Create Your Buyer Personas

Honing in on the segments of target audiences is a
crucial step in developing an inbound marketing plan.
Creating buyer personas will help you focus on who you
are marketing to, what their pain points are, where they
live online and a number of other demographic traits. Itll
help you to personalize your marketing materials so they
are targeted and highly relevant to your audience
segments.

And remember, you arent trying to catch every fish in the sea. You
are only trying to catch the ones you want, the ones you are targeting
because they have the strongest potential to turn into leads. Your net
doesnt need to be wide it needs to be precise.
D O YO UR RE SEA RC H

Learn Your Buyers Buying Cycle

According to Hubspot (and adopted by all those who believe in the
inbound marketing methodology) there are three steps in the buyers journey:

AWAR ENES S CONSI DERAT I ON D EC I S I ON

Each of these stages are major opportunities for you as a marketer

to nurture your potential customer by providing valuable content about the
product and or problem they are trying to solve for at their stage in the
buyers journey.
D O YO UR RE SEA RC H

F U N F ACTS

7 0-90% 11.4 5X
of the buyers journey is A consumer engages with 11.4 Consumers are 5x more
complete prior to engaging pieces of content prior to making dependent on content than they
a vendor (Forrester) a purchase (Forrester) were 5 years ago (Nielsen)

W ANT TO LEARN MORE?

Check out: B2B Lead Generation Starts with Mapping the Buyers Journey
 Create a Strategy
Now that youve done your research, youre ready to
start formulating a marketing strategy for your plan.
C R EAT E A S T R AT EGY

Whittle Down Your Goals

Goals are the most important part of your plan. Setting both quantitative and
qualitative goals around these findings, as well as developing KPIs, will
be essential.

Goals should be obtainable, but not easy. You want to make sure you are
reaching for growth but not shooting for the stars and ending up discouraged
and overwhelmed.
WH I T T L E D OWN YO U R GOA LS

Here are some general tips to keep

in mind when developing marketing
goals and objectives:

Evaluate your current position in the market and set realistic goals

Understand your growth year-to-date and set attainable but

challenging goals accordingly

Tie your goals to your businesses overall mission and vision

Dont overwhelm yourself. Pick no more than 2 main goals

and 3-5 supporting goals

Accept that sometimes you will fail and not reach all of your goals. Be
OK with that and learn from your failures.

Create goal milestones to make reaching the goal more digestible

Remember, we are marketers, not heart surgeons. Have fun,

get creative and dont take yourself or your marketing too seriously.
C R EAT E A S T R AT EGY

Know What Makes You Unique

Knowing your unique selling proposition (USP) and marketing that USP is essential
to beating the competition and solidifying your companys value in the marketplace.
Communication is key. Clearly state your USP and do it often, on your website, in
your emails, through your ads etc.

WANT S O ME TIP S ON FORM UL AT I NG YOUR USP?

Read The Ultimate Guide to Finding Your Unique Selling Proposition.
C R EAT E A S T R AT EGY

Ensure You Have A

Strong Brand
A brand can be one of the strongest assets a
company possesses and if done right will attract
the buyer loyalty every business dreams of.

Brand consistency is key. Is your brand consistently represented

across all channels, including your logo, website design, trade-
show booth, print marketing materials, business cards and email
signatures, advertisements, packaging design, social media
profiles and sales collateral?

Take a look at all the places that your audience comes in con-
tact with your brand, and ask yourself what each piece is saying
about your brand as a whole.

If your brand encompasses several sub-brands or subsidiaries,

have you strategically audited your brand architecture to leverage
maximum brand equity? Not only will a well-designed, cohesive
brand architecture benefit you in brand value and recognition,
but an online brand strategy will benefit your SEO/search ranking
position as well.
C R EAT E A S T R AT EGY

Optimize Your Website

Your website has to be more than pretty (although that helps), it needs to be
clear and functional.

B AD GOOD
cluttered clear messaging
hard to navigate easily found information

There is an entire science and methodology behind website design including where
to place buttons on the page, what content works best where, what colors convey
certain feelings and so on. Check out 4 Examples of Fantastic Web Design for
inspiration, and consider hiring a web designer who specializes in Inbound
Marketing and SEO to ensure your website is reaching its full potential.
C R EAT E A S T R AT EGY

Create Kick Ass Content

Content is the meat that will attract your buyers. Its what Google uses to search for
keywords and drive users to your site and what buyers use to glean information and
knowledge about their problem as they move through the buyers journey. Its all of
the written words used to convey your brand, from the copy on your site to the
landing page users arrive at, to the blog posts, newsletters and emails you write.

But its not just having content that matters, its having quality
content that is published on a consistent basis.

Content marketing is about providing useful information to your customer base. Its
not about selling but about informing. Its about building trust and demonstrating
expertise. And buyers arent the only ones that like helpful content. Google does too.
Creating solid content is hugely important for your SEO strategy.

R ECO MMEN DED READI N G

Is Youtility the Future of Marketing

C R EAT E K I C K A S S C O NT ENT

Your content is essential in nurturing your customers as

they move through the buyers journey,
but in order to do this successfully you need to know what types of content to
use and when. Here are the recommended content types for each stage of
the buyers journey.

AWARENESS STAGE CONSIDERATION STAGE DECISION STAGE

eBooks Webinars/Webcasts Product Comparisons

eGuides Podcasts Case Studies
White Papers Video Free Trials/Downloads
Editorial Content Expert and Solution Product Focused Content
Reports Oriented Guides
Blog Posts and White Papers
C R EAT E A S T R AT EGY

Define Your Distribution Channels

So if content is the meat, your distribution channels are the arms that feed that meat.
As important as content is, without distribution your content goes to waste. It is
useless. So it is essential to have a clear understanding of how each channel
works and to use a mix of paid, owned and earned media.

SO CIAL M ED IA

It pays to have an overall strategy that is customized for each social channel
you are working in. For example, the way you market on Twitter will differ from
the way you market on LinkedIn or Facebook. PRO TIP: A tactic that works well
across all platforms is using images. Posts with pictures get higher clicks and
engagement across the board. And because social media is all about getting
your content and your messaging seen, timing is important (check out sumall.
com for platform-specific recommendations around timing).

Weve got more social media recommendations on the companion blog post
that goes along with this SlideShare.
D E F I N E D I ST R IB U T IO N C HA NNELS

EMA I L

Email is used most effectively as a lead nurturing tool, in that it is used to engage with
potential customers based on their interaction with specific content on your website.
For example, if a prospect visits downloads an eBook from your website, theyll begin
to receive a set of triggered emails related to the eBook topic. But dont overdo it
too many emails and you could risk losing potential buyers.

P RO TI P
When creating your emails, keep the content short, include one main call to action
(CTA), have links back to your website, use images and make sure the subject line is
catchy. And when it comes to email, you can never test or measure too much.

R ECO MMEN DED READI N G

The Definitive Guide to B2B Email Marketing: Best Email Service Providers
for Salesforce:MailChimp vs Constant Contact vs Native Apps.
D E F I N E D I ST R IB U T IO N C HA NNELS

Get Found
SEO is what Google and other search engines use to index your pages and allow your content to be found
by your prospective customers. Its hugely important. You could think about it as another distribution channel
with a whole different set of rules.

In order to use SEO affectively, you need to optimize your content all of
your content from your blogs to your landing pages to your social tags.
Youll need to create a keyword list based on thorough SEO research, which will then allow you to create
messaging around the words and phrases you are targeting. But SEO is much more than just targeting
keywords. Link building, content and social media all play key roles in a successful SEO strategy.

W E W R O TE A BOUT T HI S MORE EXT ENSI VEL Y I N OU R EB OOK :

How to Rank Higher in Search Engines
 Measure
This is the phase of your plan that should be ongoing.
As soon as you put your marketing plan into action
start tracking, measuring and reporting.
M E A SU R E

The ability to measure your inbound marketing efforts is one of the most
valuable parts of your plan and the beauty of inbound marketing.

The amount of things to measure and test are endless. And thats a good thing because when you
are able to test and measure you are able to improve areas of weakness, report quantitative results
and prove the value of your marketing efforts to the broader organization.

You should be measuring, reporting and testing your inbound marketing on a monthly basis to see
what is working and what isnt and to learn more about your buyer base. It might sound like overkill,
but this actually can be the really fun part!
M E A SU R E

C R E ATIN G TACTICAL PLAN S

Once you have your strategy in place its time to decide

what tactics are most important to the success of that
strategy. For example, you might decide to focus on four
main tactics for the year: blog creation, a website
re-vamp, SEO improvement and custom list develop-
ment for email campaigns. While you may still want to
work on your social media strategy and PR, for the year
in question, youll devote the majority of your budget
towards the four main tactics that are top priority for
growth, while allocating smaller budgets towards social
media and PR to maintain baseline execution.

Tactical calendars will help lay out the specifics of each

tactic. For example, an editorial calendar will be needed
for the content blogging strategy.

Theres a lot that goes into creating an inbound market-

ing plan. But when its done right it can be one of the
most valuable assets your marketing department has.
 A S WE LIK E TO SAY AT V ITA L

Plan the work; Work the plan.

To help get you started we have created a marketing plan template with
an accompanying excel calendar to help you plan and track your
marketing strategy throughout the year:

M A R K E T I N G P L A N T E M P L AT E S
At Vital Design we believe in inbound
marketing,
because we have seen the results first hand. It is how we market
our business and how we market our clients businesses. If you
would like help in developing your inbound marketing plan give us
a shout.

wearevital.com // @Vital_Design