What to Include In Your 1st-Year Marketing Plan?

Your marketing effort in a B2B startup is critical in so many aspects. When done right, it will improve your ability to:?

1. Raise funds
2. Generate leads
3. Recruit talent

And this is all you need in order to start growing your company, assuming you have a great product, to begin with.

You better start with recruiting someone to manage the marketing. Even though you feel like you can/should do it yourself, it’s too much to handle, and you already have quite a lot on your plate.

Whether recruiting someone or hiring a marketing agency, you need to understand what should be included in your 1st-year marketing plan. I would divide it as follows:

• H1 - Build the infrastructure of your demand generation machine
• H2 - Ignite your demand generation machine, test it and optimize

H1 - Build the infrastructure of your demand generation machine

This stage is so exciting. It’s the creation stage, in which you are shaping your company’s identity. Make sure you do it right - you can be agile but avoid shortcuts. Here’s what you need to complete during this stage:

Research & Planning - Your GTM Plan

• Understand your customers' problems/pains/needs?
• Segment the market?and prioritize the segments
• Define the buyer personas
• Analyze the competitive landscape
• Define your competitive edge

Goals & Budget

• Determine the Sales goals and targets
• Analyze conversions or make assumptions (Lead:MQL, MQL:SQL, SQL:ARR)
• Set the Marketing goals and targets
• Build a monthly Marketing budget?

Messaging

• Run a keywords research
• Build a glossary?
• Define the brand promise
• Create the position statement
• Define the Unique Value Proposition (UVP)
• Gather the reasons to believe for each message
• Define the call for action
• Decide on your tone of voice

Re-Branding

• Analyze the competitors
• Get inspiration
• Keep your stakeholders involved in the process
• Get a great designer to do the design work
• Apply the new brand across the board

Website

• Create the specification doc
• Create content
• Create the metadata
• Design
• Photo shooting (if needed)
• Develop & QA
• Launch

Work Processes & Operations

• Implement a Marketing Automation (MA) platform
• Define the marketing-sales work processes
• Define the product-marketing work processes
• Apply work processes in your MA platform and other digital tools

Sales Tool Kit

• Define the initial sales tool kit – Sales deck, case studies, customer testimonials, explainer video, ROI calculator, etc.
• Create content
• Design
• Publish

Content

• Identify your subject matter experts
• Map your content based on keywords, trends, competitive landscape and marketing goals
• Create a 6-months content plan
• Start with blog posts

If you made it to complete all the above in 6 months, give your team a big hug and move on to ignite your demand generation machine.

"Talent wins games, but teamwork and intelligence win championships." – Michael Jordan

H2 - Ignite your demand generation machine, test it and optimize

If building the infrastructure was exciting, this is when the adrenalin rush really starts. Keep in mind that you will make tons of mistakes, but this is part of the game. So, here’s what you need to complete during this stage:

• Set goals & KPIs
• Start your social media marketing and include employer brand positioning
• Set up your first campaign and kick-off performance marketing
• Schedule your first email blast
• Align your marketing plan with the product roadmap
• Schedule your 1st virtual events
• Create your 1st press release and pitch it to relevant reporters
• Find your top 3 trade magazines and kick-off your 1st campaign
• Create advanced content such as videos, eBooks, whitepapers, infographics, etc.
• Expand the sales tool kit

Now, optimize :)

"It’s fine to celebrate success, but it is more important to heed the lessons of failure." - Bill Gates

Once your demand generation machine is on, there is no way back - In a good way. You must be consistent in feeding the content beast. It’s the fuel of your machine. Do not be afraid to make mistakes; there’s no other way to learn what works.

Good luck!