What should a marketing plan include?

The first part of the plan is a plain list of everything you already do to bring in customers, and how each piece is doing. Without it, a new plan tends to add work on top of old work, and nobody can say which parts were working.

For each thing you do, write down four points.

• What it is. Ads, your website, your Google Business Profile, social media, email, print, events, sponsorships, and referral programs all count.
• What it costs each month, including software, subscriptions, and outside help.
• Who handles it, and about how much of their time it takes.
• What it has produced. That means calls, form submissions, bookings, store visits, or sales you can trace back to it.

You may not have an answer for that last point. That usually means nobody set up a way to track it, and it doesn't tell you the channel is failing. A few simple sources can fill in the gaps.

• Ask every new customer how they heard about you, and keep a running list that anyone who takes calls can add to.
• Check your Google Business Profile. Its performance section can show owners and managers how many calls, website clicks, and direction requests came from your profile on Google Search and Maps.
• Check whether your website counts form submissions and calls. If it doesn't, fixing that goes near the top of the plan.

The audit ends with three short lists: what to keep, what to fix, and what to stop. It's the step we start with when we write a plan with a client, because it shows where the budget goes now before anyone decides where it should go next.

This part describes the customers you want more of and how they reach you. Stick to details that would change what you do.

• Who buys from you, and who makes the decision. A homeowner, an office manager, and a purchasing department each look for help in different places.
• Where your best customers came from. Look back at your best recent jobs or orders and note how each one first found you.
• What they're trying to get done, and the words they use when they search or ask someone for a recommendation.
• When they buy. A seasonal business needs its marketing to start before the busy season does.

How customers find you shapes the rest of the plan. If most of your good work comes through referrals and repeat customers, the plan should look after those first. If it comes through search, your website and Google Business Profile matter more, and our post on getting found in AI search explains how businesses show up in Google and in AI answers.

How a marketing strategy differs from a marketing plan

The two words get used as if they mean the same thing. The strategy is the handful of decisions in this section: who you're trying to reach, and why they'd choose you over the next option. The plan is the work that carries those decisions out, with a budget, an owner, and a date for each piece. A plan written without those decisions tends to become a list of tactics with no way to choose between them.

Choose a small number of channels that match where your customers already look. Most channels work best when someone keeps them up every month, so spreading the same time and budget across more of them leaves each one with too little.

For each channel you're considering, ask four questions.

• Are your customers there when they're ready to buy? Search ads and a Google Business Profile reach people who are already looking. Social media and print mostly reach people before they need you, so they take longer to show results.
• Can you tell whether it's working? If a channel can't be tied to calls, forms, or sales, decide before you start what you'll look at instead.
• Can someone keep it up? Social media and email need regular time from someone, every week or every month.
• Does it depend on something else being fixed first? Ads and social posts send people to your website, so a slow or confusing site wastes part of what you paid to get them there. If the site needs work first, our post on what a website costs walks through what moves the price.

If search ads are one of your channels, our post on what Google Ads management costs explains the monthly work involved, and our digital advertising page shows how we set up and run campaigns.

The budget section lists what you'll spend on each piece of the plan, with a reason next to every line. There's no right amount that fits every business, which is why this post doesn't suggest one.

Marketing spending usually falls into four groups.

• Running costs. Hosting, software, subscriptions, and listings that renew whether or not anyone is using them.
• Channel spend. Money that goes straight to the channel, like ad spend or a print run.
• People's time. Hours from your own staff count, even though they never show up as a separate bill. So does outside help.
• One-time projects. A new website, a photo shoot, or a set of brochures that the rest of the plan relies on.

Put money first where the audit showed results, then fund the fixes the rest of the plan depends on, like tracking or a slow website. If you want to try something new, set aside a fixed amount for it and a date to decide whether it stays.

Seasonal businesses should also decide ahead of time what happens to spending in slow months, so any change to the budget is one you chose.

Measure the things that lead to customers: calls, form submissions, bookings, quote requests, store visits, and sales, along with where each one came from. Views, likes, and clicks show whether a channel is reaching people, but they can't tell you whether it's bringing in work.

For each channel in the plan, pick one or two numbers that show it's doing its job, and write them down next to the channel.

• Search ads: calls and form submissions from the ads, and what each one cost.
• Google Business Profile: calls, website clicks, and direction requests.
• Website: form submissions and calls, and which pages people arrived on.
• Email: replies, bookings, or orders that follow each send.
• Referrals and repeat work: how many new customers named a referral, and how many past customers came back.
• Social media and print: what new customers say when you ask how they heard about you, plus any calls to a phone number or offer used only there.

Tracking needs checking too. A form can stop sending, or a tracking code can come off the site during an update, and nothing looks wrong until the numbers drop. Keep the numbers in one place, in the same format each month, so you can compare one month with the next.

Every piece of the plan needs a person's name next to it. A task with no owner waits until someone has spare time, and in a busy week that rarely happens.

Do you need a marketing manager?

You need someone whose job includes the marketing, with time set aside for it each week. That can be someone already on your staff, a new hire, an outside partner who runs the work, or a mix where your team handles some pieces and someone outside handles the rest.

In a mix, the people who know your customers best stay involved, and the parts that need specialist time, like the ad account and the reporting, go to someone who does that work every day. We work both ways. Some clients want us to run the work we agreed on. Others want a plan and a second opinion while they run it themselves. Either way, the plan says who does what.

How often to review the plan

• Monthly: a short check of the numbers, what ran, what slipped, and what's next.
• Quarterly: a longer look at whether the budget is in the right places, and what to shift.
• Once a year: go back to the audit and write the next plan from what you learned.

Change the plan between reviews when something in the business changes, like a new service, a new location, or a slow season.

What keeps a plan in use

A written plan stays in use when it has four things.

• Dates on a shared calendar for each piece of work
• A person's name next to every task
• A review meeting that's already scheduled
• Numbers that someone pulls together before that meeting

Without them, the plan becomes something you wrote once. That's why we keep reviewing progress with clients after a plan is written, and adjust it as the business changes. Across a year, running it can mean coordinating a campaign, a print run, an event, or a few months of social posts.

1. 01Will you start by looking at what we already run, and what do you need from us for that?
2. 02What will the finished plan include, and how long will it be?
3. 03Will it name who does each piece, including the parts our own team keeps?
4. 04What will you measure, and how will we see the numbers?
5. 05How often will we review the plan together, and what happens when something isn't working?
6. 06Can you run some pieces and advise on the rest?
7. 07Whose name are the ad, social, and analytics accounts in, and do we keep the plan and the data if we stop working together?

Our marketing strategy page explains how we audit, plan, run, and review this work, either for you or alongside your team. The FAQ covers how getting started works. If you'd like a second opinion on the marketing you already run, send us a few details and we'll take a look.