4 Steps to Create an Actionable Quarterly Marketing Plan [Template]
Sarah Noel Block, MS
I help B2B consultants, fractionals, and service pros shrink the sales cycle and grow their pipeline with an organic growth engine ?? Build yours in 60 minutes with me ?? Top 100 Marketing Pod / Tiny Marketing
Easily Meet Your Annual Marketing Goals with Quarterly Planning
Fifty percent of small businesses don’t have a marketing plan, according to Outbound Engine.
Right now, you fall into one of two camps. Camp one: “I’m in good company! I don’t either.” Camp two: “What are they thinking?”?
When you don’t have a marketing plan, you are at risk of running in place.
Quarterly Marketing Plan vs Annual Marketing Plan
Featuring Michelle Tresemer of TGroup Marketing Method!
We understand why you might not have a marketing plan when you’re a small business. Creating a marketing plan is time-consuming. And, if you need to pivot quickly, it’s hard to be agile when you have a structured annual plan. But there’s a solution.
Introducing the actionable quarterly plan.
With a quarterly marketing plan you set and review goals every 90 days. This makes completing tasks and checking progress more manageable for a small team. By moving to this planning system, you have a defined list of goals to accomplish each quarter. And it doesn’t have to be a case of quarterly planning vs annual planning. Having an overall strategy for the year sets your direction and complements the more adaptable quarterly approach. Each 90-day goal will lead you closer to achieving your annual marketing goals, but with the ability to be flexible.
4 Simple Steps to Build an Actionable Quarterly Plan
If you feel aimless when it comes to reaching your marketing goals – you try this and that, but you have no true plan in place – creating an actionable quarterly plan will help you proactively move forward on your annual goals by breaking them down into doable tasks. All it takes is four steps, and a quarterly meeting in the books, and you will start to see your revenue rise.
Step 1: Build the Foundation
You will need to identify a few things before you can start building your actionable tasks.
Not all customers are the same.? Think about the customer personas that you want to target this quarter so you can customize your approach.?
Identify the tasks that you want to try this quarter. Put these tasks in order from high priority to low. Mark the most doable tasks (doable = right time investment + right budget) with an asterisk. Choose a select number of these tasks to tackle this quarter.
To help you choose these tasks, review analytics and key performance indicators (KPIs) from the previous quarter. Did anything not meet your benchmarks? Cut it. Focus on what works and eliminate the rest.
Ensure you have the tools and budget needed to tackle your tasks and measure your performance.
From here, you will dive deeper into reaching your ideal customer.
Step 2: Identify Your Ideal Customer
Your customers are the heroes of your business, and they need to be the center of your marketing campaigns. With that in mind, you’ll want to do a deep dive into who they are.
Meet with your team and answer these questions:
If this is the first time you’re doing this, we recommend taking the time to interview select customers and send surveys to the rest. This will help to give you a true picture of who they are and how they talk about you.
Step 3: Brainstorm Your Activities
This is where you really start to gain traction! Meet with your team and get ready for a productive brainstorming session.
领英推荐
Review the following action list for each of these digital marketing tools.
Website
Social Media
Email/Text
Paid Media
SEO
Digital PR
Content Marketing
Step 4: Track Your Impact?
Be sure to identify what KPIs matter to meet your goals. For example, do you want increased sales volume, leads, or organic traffic? Once you establish these KPIs, make sure they’re trackable so you can tell if your strategy is working or not. Determine what tools and systems you need in place so you can track each KPI.?
An actionable quarterly plan will make it easier to respond to the data and adjust your activities accordingly.?
Next Steps to Implement Your Actionable Quarterly Plan
Now that you have a framework that shows you how to build your actionable quarterly plan, take the first steps. For a small business especially, prioritizing is key – you can’t do everything. Identify three big goals for 2022, and develop your quarterly action plan to meet those goals by the end of the year.
Find out how Tiny Marketing can help you build your marketing plan with this action-packed workshop.
Originally published on sarahnoelblock.com.
I help B2B consultants, fractionals, and service pros shrink the sales cycle and grow their pipeline with an organic growth engine ?? Build yours in 60 minutes with me ?? Top 100 Marketing Pod / Tiny Marketing
1 年Grab your template here: https://tinymarketing.me/quarterly
Co-Founder + Principal @ Radiant Data | Data Strategist at the intersection of tech + economic equity, with a healthy dose of humanity
2 年This is so helpful and such a great article. Step 4 is clutch, in my opinion :)
Bachelor of Commerce - BCom from Nizam College at Hyderabad Public School
2 年????
Career Coach + Consultant ? Resume Writer ?? Job Search Strategist ?? Host, Careers at the End of the World ?? Helping you navigate career transitions that align your work, life and values ??
2 年There are some great insights and reminders here, Sarah! Time to update my quarterly marketing plan. Thank you for sharing!
I help historically-excluded authors, entrepreneurs, and leaders get the recognition for the work they've done quietly for years.
2 年Love the questions you offer in this article! I'm definitely in the 'don't have a marketing plan' camp, but this format is so easy to follow that I can definitely see myself creating one now.