How to create a marketing plan that you know will work

(I give a fair bit of background and process, if you want the step-by-step guide, scroll to the bottom middle of this post)

How I stumbled into the marketing plan spiral

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 details part.

The agency is new (I launched in November) and while I’ve been doing this kind of work in-house for the better part of a decade, a lot of the 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 to always be 2 steps ahead with checklists, SOPs and how tos for each kind of project and service that I offer.

Then we hit marketing plans.

On top of our bread and butter of 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 melt down.

There are a bajillion directions a company can take just starting out, and deciding which way to go is as much about founder 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 in 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 decision and strategy

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- 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 growing before my eyes!

So, here's the quick and dirty way I've found to pick your marketing strategy when you have fewer than 100 paying customers (the tool i built is at the end, built on this logic).

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 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 foudners
• Any you’ve seen work really well and that you have explicit step-by-step instructions for like Arnaud’s for FB group launches
• Any that are 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.

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

Then go through and add:

• The types of content that perform well -
  • Long form writing
  • Short form writing
  • Videos
  • Pictures
  • Audio
• The amount of time it takes per day to succeed on the channel, starting with the bare minimum
  • This might take some research, but I’d start with a google search of “how much time 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 content type of time required.

Now, realistically decide to yourself:

A) what kinds of content you create best

b) how much time you honestly have and want to spend on marketing daily/weekly

c) what channels you really want to use (or really dont!)

And filter to show just the channels that meet that criteria.

4. Now choose just 3 channels to focus on

#1 channel

• It is in the sweet spot of
  • The kinds of content you like to create
  • The amount of time you have per day to spend creating content and interacting on the platform
  • Is a platform you already have a basic familiarity with
  • Will give results in 1-30 days -> not something super long term like SEO
• FB groups and Cold emails fall into this group

#2 channel

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

#3 channel

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

Once you nail those channels you can always branch out!

5. Now create a daily marketing to do list

Research each of the 3 channels (~ 30-45min/ea so the rabbit hole isn’t too deep)

• How to get started and what assets you need (profile pic, background image,
• If there are templates or tools that make your life easier (cold email templates, tracking software, twitter auto-posting and scheduling tools)
  • Pick just one tool per channel
• What needs to be done on a daily basis to see growth in the channel
  • This might take several articles to pull bits from each one

Write down a to-do list of:

• What assets you need
• What tools you’re going to use
• What your daily marketing schedule needs to be for each channel

Ta da! You’re done.

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 Tangram can do it for you!

Now back to that tool I was building to do this automatically!

Over the weekend I built Tangram, a marketing plan creator (not generator!) that takes your preferences, time, and company stage and provides 3 marketing channels to start with and daily to-do lists for each one as a single Notion doc.

The MVP is available to use now, and I’m running a 1-week lifetime offer until March 8th to get validation and feedback, inspired by Arnaud of BreakCold ;).

Then I’m going to build this out into the worlds first automated marketing strategy tool! So your marketing always falls into place.

What are your thoughts and questions on marketing strategy and execution? 👇🏽