How To Create a Marketing Plan That You Know Will Work

I own a branding and marketing agency, and the most stressful part of completing projects for me is “What are we doing for each project”? The nitty-gritty of details part.

I’ve been doing this kind of work in-house for the better part of a decade. A lot of the strategic marketing planning “process stuff” is in my head, not on a checklist for my team to see.

Since I know that freaks me out, I am very careful always to be 2 steps ahead with SOPs and how-tos for each kind of project and service that I offer.

How I Came Up With My Marketing Action Plan

On top of our bread and butter–SaaS branding–my agency specifically does marketing plans, GTM launches, and marketing management for baby companies, often solo founders pre-launch.

That means we’re doing the foundational strategy plus execution and setting the technical side up from scratch.

The blank slate part of me loves this. The control freak is having a meltdown.

There are a bajillion directions a company can take just starting out, and deciding which way to go is as much about the founder's personality and preferences as it is about solid business strategy, brand strategy, and marketing strategy.

On top of that, marketing teams work with existing information, so founder communication styles are crucial to staying within scope and delivering great work on time.

So, I started devising a way to figure out what marketing would work best for each client that would quell my internal SOP screaming.

Initially, I planned on making this an internal tool, but the more I worked on it, the more I realized that:

1. There was no marketing dashboard or tool that automatically suggested marketing decisions and strategies.
2. Just about every marketing how-to is a long blog post filled with jargon, not a clear step-by-step checklist, just a list of suggestions.
3. There’s no roadmap for narrowing down choices and channels as you grow.
4. This could work for all kinds of businesses, not just bootstrapped startups.

I’ve worked with lots of small businesses as well as start-ups and scale-ups, and the number one issue they have with their marketing is strategy + consistency. Often, they have a recognizable brand persona, but if they lack the marketing side, they don’t grow fast or consistently.

The more I built, the more excited I became. Here was my first SaaS tool growing before my eyes!

5 Steps To Build Your Marketing Strategy 

So, here's the quick and dirty way I've found to pick your marketing strategy when you have fewer than 100 paying customers

When you have 101+ paying customers, and your marketing is consistently successful in place, start by taking a look at the channels you’re already seeing success in and re-evaluate to find channels 2 and 3. Or just go straight to the daily schedule part.

If you’ve hit 101+ paying customers without any marketing or your marketing success is sporadic at best, then start like you have 0 to build your SaaS marketing plan.

1. Collect all the proven marketing channels you’ve seen work for your kind of company

This is not the time to be experimenting with TikTok. Start (like I did):

• With Darko’s 11 most common channels that work for founders
• Any you’ve seen work really well and that you have explicit step-by-step instructions for like Arnaud’s for FB group launches
• Anything that is specific to your business model - like Lenny’s suggestions for marketplaces
• Set a timer to avoid analysis paralysis. I recommend 45min, pomodoro style. This is the time for scanning and listing > deep researching.

Big note: if you haven’t already spoken with customers or potential customers 1:1 about their problems, you need to start there. Customer interviews are the foundation for deciding what content needs to be created and where to distribute it. 

2. Label and categorize the channels by content type and time required

Then go through and add:

1. The types of content that perform well -
2. Long-form writing
3. Short form writing
4. Videos
5. Pictures
6. Audio
7. The amount of time it takes per day to succeed on the channel, starting with the bare minimum.
8. This might take some research, but I’d start with a Google search of “how long does it take for Facebook/Reddit/etc.”

I recommend doing this as a Notion table so It’s easy to visualize and sort.

3. Evaluate what kind of channels you’re best for

Filter, sort, and group the channels until they’re divided by the content type and time required.

Now, realistically decide:

• What kinds of content do you create best?
• How much time do you honestly have and want to spend on marketing daily/weekly?
• What channels do you really want (or don’t want) to use?

Filter to show just the channels that meet that criteria.

4. Choose just 3 channels to focus on

Channel #1

1. It is in the sweet spot of the kind of content you like to create
2. The amount of time you have per day to spend creating content and interacting on the platform
3. It is a platform you already have a basic familiarity with
4. It’ll give results in 1-30 days – not something super long-term like SEO
5. FB groups and cold emails fall into this group

Recommended read: 4 Steps to Come Up With A Brand Name - And How We Picked “Ignore No More”

Channel #2

1. Bonus if you can repurpose content from channel #1
2. fits into your daily time window
3. falls into the type of content you like to create
4. Will give results in 30-90+ days
5. This is the channel you work on consistently over time
6. Reddit, Twitter, and content-driven SEO fall into this group

Check out how we create conversion lovin’ copy at Ignore No More.

Channel #3

1. Requires minimal effort; this is your third channel, after all!
2. Hacker News, Software Directory listings, and Immediate SEO all fall into this
3. Can give short-term and long-term results

Once you nail those channels, you can always branch out!

5. Create a daily marketing to-do list

Do your research on each of the three channels (30-45 minutes each, so the rabbit hole isn’t too deep). Here’s a roadmap for your research: 

1. How to get started and what assets you need (profile pic, background images, etc.)
2. If there are templates or tools that make your life easier (cold email templates, tracking software, X-formerly Twitter-auto-posting, and scheduling tools)
3. Pick just one tool per channel
4. What needs to be done daily to see growth in the channel
5. It might take several articles to pull bits from each one

Write down a list of:

• The assets you need
• The tools you’re going to use

And what your daily marketing schedule needs to be for each channel.

Ta-da! Your B2B SaaS marketing plan is now complete!

Now, you can block out marketing time and know exactly what to do with it to see growth and not be overwhelmed.

But, if the thought of going through all that makes you queasy, then I’m happy to walk you through it.

Here’s my Calendly. Let’s talk through your biggest marketing plan questions!

More of a DIY-er? Tangram can do it for you! It is a marketing plan creator (not a generator!) that takes your preferences, time, and company stage to provide three marketing channels to start with. What’s more? You get daily to-do lists for each one as a single Notion doc.

FAQs 

1. How do I create a simple marketing plan?

You can create a simple marketing plan by:  

1. Talking with customers or potential customers 1:1 about their problems, how they find solutions, and where they look for help
2. Deciding what kind of content (tools, guides, workbooks, blog posts, or tutorials) would solve their problems and can point to your product as a possible solution. 
3. Research distribution channels where your target audience hangs out and create the type of content that would best answer their questions and solve their problems
4. Honestly evaluate your time and resources to prioritize what kind of content you can make. Think distribution down to 3 channels and 3 content types. 
5. From that, create a list of the assets you need, the tools you will use, and the daily marketing schedule you require to start with your 3 chosen channels and content types successfully. 

This proven approach will help you build a marketing plan that is simple and effective. 

2. How to evaluate the effectiveness of a marketing plan?

The best way to evaluate the effectiveness of a marketing plan is to look at the key metrics of each marketing channel or experiment from the marketing plan. 

For each experiment, decide the key metrics (KPIs) that would tell you if the experiment was successful. It could be the number of leads, sales, or conversions. Most marketing experiments take 1-3 months to see if they are successful but check in daily or weekly to see how things are going and what needs to be tweaked. 

3. What are the steps of a marketing plan?

There are 5 steps to creating a marketing plan that works. 

1. Talking with customers or prospects 1:1 about their problems and searching for solutions
2. Deciding the kind of content that would best solve their problems
3. Research distribution channels where your target audience hangs out
4. Honestly evaluate your time and resources to prioritize the 3 channels you should start with
5. Write a list of next steps: assets, daily marketing schedule, and tools you need to automate tasks

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