Step-by-Step Guide for Writing Your Marketing Plan

Thanks to modern technology, marketing offers more diverse opportunities than ever before. Multichannel marketing is now the norm. While this gives businesses many ways to reach consumers, it also adds complexity. Staying on top of diverse marketing platforms and tapping into their maximum potential to extend reach and boost engagement is an immense task.

To stay organized, a comprehensive, streamlined marketing plan is a must. This document provides a guiding vision for your marketing goals, allowing your team to collaborate in implementing a coherent, effective strategy. It’s essentially a road map for how you will communicate about your product or service to consumers.

Putting in the work to craft a marketing plan now avoids bottlenecks later and ensures an efficient path to market. A well-prepared marketing plan will often get the buzz going about a product before it’s even available to consumers, for example.  

This step-by-step guide provides practical tips for writing a marketing plan that takes into account your unique business goals, whether that’s diversifying your customer base or ramping up revenue. With this information, you can determine your needs in terms of marketing expertise—and then find the expert talent you need via Upwork.

1. Identify and define your business goals

Your marketing plan is supposed to support your business goals. Before you create a strategy, define these goals. Consider a one-year, three-year, or five-year outlook. Possibilities could range from growing your percentage of sales of new products to increasing your market share.

If you aren’t sure which direction to go in, take a look at the competition. Other companies can offer inspiration and examples of what you hope to achieve. You should also collaborate internally on business goals. Still at a loss? An independent business consultant can help put you on the right path toward growth.

2. Set SMART marketing objectives

With your business objectives in mind, you can start setting marketing goals. These should be SMART:

• Specific: Don’t just say you want to increase online sales. Say you want to increase online sales via social media leads by 20%.
• Measurable: Figure out how to measure your progress toward that goal. In this example, tracking can show which consumers are directed to your website via social media and which ones end up buying.
• Achievable: Determine what concrete steps will be needed to realize the goal. Are these steps achievable? In this case, you may not have a dedicated social media marketing professional, for example, but the goal is still achievable. You just have to find independent talent.
• Relevant: A business consultant can help determine whether your goal is relevant. Looking at case studies about businesses similar to yours is also handy.
• Time-Bound: Set a time frame for when you want that 20% increase, such as within two years.

Write down your objectives and put each one to the SMART test. This will save you time and effort by allowing you to figure out early on whether these goals are reasonable.‍

3. Define your buyer personas

Who do you want to reach with your marketing? Knowing and describing your different buyer personas lets you craft marketing content that they will identify and engage with. Your end user should always be at the top of your mind. Define specific characteristics to establish tangible personas. Consider details like age, relationship status, income, and career. You can then use these personas to design a customer journey. What media and platforms would such a person engage with? How can they find their way to you? And how can your marketing make sure that happens?‍

4. Analyze the competition

Look at marketing initiatives that you find compelling. What draws you to them? Is it the visuals, the tone, or the messaging? Pinpointing where the competition is succeeding offers valuable inspiration. A comprehensive market or customer research study is one way to get even more information about the market.

This can be a time-consuming job, so you may want to work with an agency to get it done. An agency can also support your marketing team with other projects, like creating interactive infographics, rebranding, or launching a multichannel awareness campaign.

5. Choose your tactics

Defining your target audience allows you to craft a strategy that fits that audience. Different channels are better suited to different types of clientele, for example. If you’re targeting teenagers, a social media platform like TikTok may be ideal. If you’re targeting seniors, email marketing is likely a better option.

Possible marketing strategies include:

• Paid online advertising like Facebook or Instagram, YouTube, or pay-per-click ads on Google
• Search engine optimization like keyword/topic research or on-page optimization or inbound linking
• Content marketing like blogs, resources, linkable content, podcasts, or videos
• Social media marketing via Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, etc.
• Email marketing sent directly to people’s inboxes
  

Each of these avenues has unique needs in terms of how to craft compelling content. You can find individuals or agencies via Upwork who specialize in these niche areas. The skills needed to create and implement a search engine optimization campaign are different from those needed to create viral social media videos, for example.

6. Decide which metrics will define success

Marketing budgets aren’t limitless. When you spend money on campaigns, you want to know how well they’re doing (or where they could be doing better). This also provides you with the information needed to adapt your efforts and improve them. In the case of content marketing analytics, there are many metrics possible, including:

• Email open rates
• Click-throughs
• Impressions
• Form submissions

Do those words read like another language to you? No sweat. An independent content marketing professional can create, implement, and measure the success of your campaigns. They’ll also know what analytics tools you can use, like Marketo, Crazy Egg, or Localytics.

7. Determine a distribution strategy

Great marketing content isn’t just about creation. Distribution is also a consideration. Say you want to launch a content strategy with independent talent, for example. You opt to have a variety of content created, from ebooks to blogs. How will these be disseminated to potential consumers? Social media, email marketing, and paid internet ads are just a few options.

Another element of distribution refers to how customers will buy your product or service. Presumably, the marketing points them in the right direction—toward your business website. But what happens when they get there? Will they buy directly from your e-commerce platform? Do you want to collaborate with a major retailer like Amazon?

8. Create a timeline for implementation

With the above details figured out, you can create a timeline. This is especially important if your marketing plan is tied to a specific event, like a product launch. Take into account the following:

• Creation: How long do you need to create marketing materials in question?
• Recurrence: Is ongoing creativity needed, or is this a one-off action?
• Rollout: What prep time is needed to roll out the strategy?

9. Consider your budget

There’s no point in creating a marketing plan that you can’t afford to implement. Once you have your proposed tactics written down, create an Excel sheet tallying up the costs. Make a note of one-off versus recurring costs (like regular social media management).

If you aren’t sure what various initiatives cost, you can get an idea of industry averages by browsing independent professionals on Upwork. Most pros will also provide a quote upfront, continue searching until you find someone in your price range. This also ensures you don’t go over budget.

10. Monitor results and identify areas of improvement

A marketing plan isn’t set in stone. Growth marketing emphasizes the importance of experimenting and pivoting, depending on what works and what doesn’t. Constantly analyzing your marketing efforts allows you to see what’s working. Technology makes it easy. For example, Mixpanel can track events on your website, while Kissmetrics lets you create A/B tests to see what effect website changes have.

Create and execute your plan with independent marketing experts

Once you have your strategy in place, you can start looking for the appropriate talent to get the job done. Upwork gives you access to a diverse pool of independent marketing experts covering an array of specialties, from SEO to email marketing.