How to Write a Strategic Marketing Plan That Gets Results

Strategic marketing plans are not a new concept. Many businesses have been using them for years as a way to map out and track their progress towards specific goals.

However, with the ever-changing digital marketing landscape, it’s important to keep your strategic marketing plan up-to-date to stay ahead of the competition.

And remember: when it comes to marketing, there is no one-size-fits-all approach. The best way to create and implement a successful marketing plan is to tailor it specifically to your business and goals.

(Below is a transcript of today’s featured video, “How to Write a Strategic Marketing Plan That Gets Results.”)

The marketing plan is not supposed to be just a plan. It's like a GPS - Predictable Profits

Over the years, I’ve received many questions about the best way to create an effective marketing plan. So in today’s video, I’ll let you know how to create a marketing plan for driving the best results for you and your business.

When most people create a marketing plan, it’s typical to have a revenue goal, and then put a whole bunch of action items in a document and call that the marketing plan.

Now, doing it this way, quite frankly, is better than doing nothing because at least you have some direction and some focus. However, it often doesn’t produce the best results for you or your team. 

So over the last decade of creating different marketing plans, we found that the best marketing plan is a byproduct of reverse engineering your vision.

So here’s how we do it. 

First, we start with our vision. And then we identify what we’re looking to achieve.

Then we open a Google spreadsheet and add in columns for every month: January, February, March, April, May, etc., all through December.

Once we have our vision and the spreadsheet is broken down per month, we then determine how much revenue we want to make per month. 

So what we don’t do is we don’t say, “Okay, I want to make $12 million this year.” Instead, I’m gonna say, “I’m gonna make a million dollars a month.”

If we’re a seasonal business, we say, “Okay, what do we make in January last year?” And then, based on that factor– what would we like to make this January?

And if you don’t have a seasonal business, then we’d look at the month prior and say, “Okay, we did X amount of dollars in December– what’s a reasonable increase in January?”

And then, we plan out our income goals month after month after month. 

This next step is where it gets to be a little more fun. So we continue to have to reverse engineer our marketing plan.

And so we’ll say. “Okay, for us to hit X amount of dollars in revenue in January, what needs to happen?”

In other words, how many leads do you need? Or how many strategy sessions do you have to hold? Or how many proposals go out? How many deals do you have to close? 

Then you might want to consider your average deal size, etc.

Go through each one of these elements and variables and be as granular as possible. Because at the end of each month, you’re going to compare your actual results with your projected results so that you can go back and see what’s working and what’s not. 

So okay, we have a vision, we broke down our revenue by month, then we continue to reverse engineer by adding how many leads, proposals, deal sizes, etc.

And now that we have all those numbers, what we do is one quarter at a time, we start to say, “what action steps need to happen in order for us to achieve X?” And then, we write down all those action items for the quarter.

Like for example, maybe you want to create a scalable outbound marketing system. 

And then you ask yourself the opposite question. You’d say, “what would stop us from actually achieving this goal?”

Then write everything down that would stop you.

Once you have a list, and you’ve seen what needs to happen, and then what stops you, then you create a list of priorities, who’s assigned to complete the responsibilities, and the date by which they’re completed. 

And then you go through the same exercise each quarter, comparing the results from the prior quarter, looking at what worked and what didn’t work, etc. 

See, the marketing plan is not supposed to be just a plan. It’s like a GPS. It identifies what needs to happen to be on the right track. And then, when you’re off course, it lets you know what you need to do to correct course by focusing on the data. 

So take the time to do this. And now, if you’re like me, you might be the type of person that likes to follow the “ready-fire-aim” type of mentality.

However, a marketing plan is important. Taking the time to do this will help you become more focused and more intentional and will drive home bigger results.

So again, take the time to make this happen.

How to build your strategic marketing plan step-by-step - Predictable Profits
Take time to do your marketing plan - Predictable Profits

Be part of our ever-growing community of seven- and eight-figure business owners:

  • And if you haven’t already, sign up for our daily business coaching video series (by entering your email address above).

Would you like to know how to take your business to the next level? Predictable Profits is dedicated to helping top entrepreneurs (just like yourself) build best-in-class business strategies.

Schedule a complimentary coaching session with the Predictable Profits team today.

UNLOCK PREDICTABLE GROWTH:

Empower Your Team & Diversify Your Strategy Today