Marketing Planning and Execution
Converting theory into reality with hands-on delivery of marketing plans.
You’ve got your brand new marketing strategy – or maybe it’s been around for a while! Either way, it’s only as good as the marketing planning you do to make it a reality.
Converting strategies into detailed plans is essential for maintaining clarity and consistency. You will achieve your marketing goals and ultimately business growth faster and more cost-efficiently..
Believe me when I say that you’ve done the hard work by getting to the point of having a marketing strategy. Now, you have all the information you need to make your strategy a reality. Moreover, taking time to create the plan that delivers it really pays off.
However, it can be difficult to do when you have lots of demands on your time. Which is why I offer a simple marketing planning framework that can be adapted to your business.
Note: We love to have lots of similar sounding names for different things in marketing: marketing plan, planner, campaign planning etc. Personally, I prefer to use the active terms marketing planning and marketing planner (a bit like a diary) because they deliver what you’ve defined in your strategy.
You can now create a marketing planner that will list all the actions you need to take to achieve your strategy. From my experience, a marketing planner should be designed to be amended and updated according to circumstances. For example, something may have worked well that you want to continue doing or a new opportunity arises that you should explore.
When I create a planner I’m always considering what is both sensible and sustainable for you and your business. In general, it’s best to do less, but of higher quality, than multiple new actions all the time. Also, keep in mind how long it takes for a brand’s message to resonate with you. It could be weeks, months or even years and changing all the time can affect the impact of your core message.
Step 1: Making friends with excel
You do not need fancy software to create your marketing planner. If you have it and choose to use it that’s ok, but basic excel will absolutely do for what you will need.
In my experience, the following basic structure works well and can be easily adapted to suit you and your business.
If you are pursuing a content strategy you may want a separate file for content production. Otherwise I would keep everything in one place. As your marketing activity grows you can review and move to specific planners if this is best for you.
Step 2: Thinking ahead
Having an outline of what you want to do throughout a year can be helpful, however you don’t have to rigidly stick to it. It’s about achieving the right balance of consistency to build brand recognition and adapting to maximise your return on investment.
My approach is to start with key dates and build from there. Do you have a product / service launch or a conference you are exhibiting at? If so you can plan all the different activities required such as:
- Messages
- Web pages
- Printed collateral
- Social media posts
- Exhibition equipment
- Press releases
- Blog, case study, testimonial
Already you can see there are a number of potential actions you need to complete. Therefore, having them in one place that you review at least weekly will keep you on track. It’s also very satisfying when you look at the status column and see ‘complete’, knowing you’ve made the time to deliver on your strategy!
Step 3: Analysing, amending, executing (on repeat)
It is essential for a small business, often with limited time and budgets, to build in time to review what you have done and its impact. Everything you’ve planned to do and executed should be linked to supporting the goals and objectives you outlined in your marketing strategy.
I’ll be honest though, it can be difficult to measure everything and see a linked return to every action. Usually it’s a cumulative effect of activity that will finally generate that enquiry or order. Sometimes it can be long after you’ve run a campaign, especially if you have a long sales cycle.
Instead, what we’re aiming to do is create a picture of all the steps you’ve taken, as part of a campaign. For example, looking at where you started compared to where you are now. It could be webpage visits, likes and shares on social media in addition to whether you’ve generated an immediate sale or lead.
Consequently, this ‘picture’ allows you to test different elements rather than become disheartened by something you perceive as ‘not working’.
Marketing planning and execution made easy
With so many demands on your or your team’s time, investing in me to to create and execute your plan will achieve the clarity and consistency needed. I’ve got the practical experience to execute the plan and realise both your marketing and commercial goals.
You can find out more about ways of working with me on a fractional or consultant basis.
Smart, sensible and sustainable marketing
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