In a past life, I was paid handsomely to write marketing plans for small businesses. I would prepare the 20-30 -page, well-designed, well thought out document for the business owner, fully expecting said owner to implement at least most of the strategies and campaigns.
Three months would pass and it was time for my “check in” call. “How is the plan coming?” I would ask. “Err. We have been so busy we have not had time to look at it.”.I thought it odd, but chalked it up to life. Three more months would pass and I would call to check in again. “You know, we signed up for Mailchimp, but we have yet to use it”.
It was the same call with nearly every business owner that received a plan. There were even many that loved the first plan so much they would ask for another knowing they hadn’t completed any strategy from the first.
Even though I was getting paid to do it, I grew tired of my work not being used. The reality was this: Business owners are too busy, too overwhelmed, and frankly too important to sit down with a 30 page document once a month.
Around year 2 I created the “Marketing Action Plan” or MAP. A Marketing Action Plan is a 1-2 page document that each marketing team member or business owner creates to outline the tasks they will complete each month for their top strategies. These MAPs, which I still use years later, are one of the most helpful marketing tools for my team and me. They take the guesswork out of what I/my team should be doing in a particular month while ensuring the chaos of marketing does not steer a given quarter.
Today you and I will build out the framework for your 2024 Marketing Action Plan. Grab your pen and paper and let’s get it started.
Step 1. On your sheet of paper label the months of the year with 3-5 spaces in between them. On the right side of your paper create a column labeled “Complete”. Leave space on the left side of your paper. Your MAP should look like this:
Step 2. Establish your 3 to 5 most important marketing strategies or to dos” for 2024. You can do this by finding out what strategies were the most profitable in the previous year or by which strategies you need to explore in 2024. In the past my strategies have ranged from “attorney marketing”, “marketing staff”, or” “motorcycle marketing”. While attorney marketing is a strategy, marketing staff was a critical task I needed to get done. More examples of strategies may be: Social media, KPIs, TV, etc. Take your time in choosing these as they will remain the same for all of 2024.
Note: If you are a CMO or marketing director that leads a team I would encourage you to have “marketing leadership” as one of your strategies. Empowering your staff, ensuring your vendors are on target, budgets, etc. are all vital to the health of your marketing and organization.
Add your marketing strategies to left column of your paper. They should repeat for each month. Right now your MAP will look like this:
Step 3. Time to fill in the middle with tasks that you will do for every strategy each month. This middle column is the meat of the MAP and where most of your time will be spent. Appreciate that these revenue generating strategies take time to decide on, build, and assess. Because I know many of you will be adding to your marketing department in 2024 let’s break down potential to dos in “marketing staff.” Assume you have an anticipated 6/1 start date. Your MAP may look like:
Jan: Speak with 5 businesses or law firms our size about marketing position salary and duties
Feb: Decide salary and list job duties
March: Post job on LinkedIn and career builder.
April: Begin interviews
May: Continue interviews. Decide on top 3 candidates
June: Make offer. Hire
July: Have marketing team member complete PILMMA’s marketing director course
Aug:————
September: 3 month assessment of new hire
October: PILMMA Digital boot camp
November: ——–
December: 6 month assessment of hire. Is she/he a long-term employee?
Notice the MAP tasks include the proper amounts of research AND assessment. The pretty task is “making an offer” but one of the most impactful is assessing if that team member is the right person for the job. You will also notice that there was no task for August or November. Every month will not have a task for each strategy. Strive for a task to be attached to a strategy 75% of the time.
Here is quick example a MAP for those looking to build your client services strategy:
Step 4: Go through each task and better define them. “Send email to database” can be better defined as “Send a 9 article newsletter to database with community theme”. Remember, the goal is to take the guess work out of what you will need to do for your top marketing strategies.
You can also use this step to customize your MAP. I have seen business owners create additional columns for budget or which team member would be responsible for the task. As long as this remains a concise document that you can access easily, go for it.
Step 5: At the start of the year set a reoccurring date on your calendar for you to look at your MAP, cross off what was completed and prepare for the next month. This may be the first Monday of every month at 9:00 am. The MAP is useless if you do not look at regularly.
After doing these for several years, I have learned that some of the tasks I begin and I end up completing the full years’ work by June. This document just forced me to get started and I kept the momentum up. Other strategies I underestimated and had to reconfigure mid-year. More than anything, these MAPs have ensured my focus on strategies that would take much longer to do without the tool. The most gratifying use of this document is to sit down with it at the end of year and look at how much work you have completed.
My hope is that the Marketing Action Plan becomes a useful tool within your marketing department. If you have any questions about the document feel free to email me at clewis@cooperhurley.com . I hope to see you at the next marketing roundtable!
