Why Share a Marketing Plan with the World?

Writing a Letter, Starting a Plan

When I was twelve, I watched a documentary on the island paradise of the Seychelles. This archipelago in the Indian Ocean is breathtaking. Filled with tropical birds, stunning waterfalls, lush vegetation, and rich traditions.

I decided that I wanted to live somewhere on this island chain. But which particular island should be my home? I pulled out the large National Geographic world atlas, and studied the island chain. After pouring over the map, I found the one particular island among thousands that I would live on. An island isolated from the rest: Boudeuse Cay. Which, to a 1980’s kid, sounded bodacious.

So, I mailed a letter from wintry Canada to the tourism board asking for details about the island, including pictures. This being long before the web. How many waterfalls are there on the island? What are the beaches like? Where can I build my house? What kind of birds and animals lived there? So many questions needed answering. I was almost packing my bags and ready for the waterfalls.

Over a month later, a package arrived in the mail. At last, my twelve-year old self could find out how I can plan my retirement!

Among the tourism brochures and travel guides was a neatly typed letter written by the head of the tourism office. He agreed that Boudeuse Cay was indeed an interesting one. A coral reef and sandstone platform, in fact, slightly poking above sea level. There were no trees, no vegetation at all. There were no animals other than a small group of seabirds.

He advised me to plan the timing of my visit well. After all, he said, for half the year the small, rugged chain of coral embankments disappears under the sea.

Always Have a Plan

You can never prepare for every possible event, some might say. So, plans aren’t really necessary. Today’s business climate is constantly changing. From technological innovation to market forces, there’s no point in planning ahead.

Of course, that kind of mindset is nonsense. Without a plan, you can’t possibly prioritize anything. You don’t fully understand the goals you are setting out to achieve. That means you can’t marshall your team and your investments to focus on what matters.

When your team doesn’t know what’s ahead, they’re likely to turn to whatever is immediately in front of them. No strategy means bumbling from one thing to the next. Scattered shots in the dark amount to nothing.

And you can’t possibly coordinate with your colleagues. In marketing, this is particularly true. Marketing collaborates with every department. From bringing in leads for sales. Helping customer success to get more value from your offer. Supporting finance’s needs to understand your operating expenses. And more. A lack of a plan means no one knows what you’re doing – no surprise since neither will you.

So, don’t arrive at the island when it’s underwater. In fact, pick a different island by planning ahead.

So, How Do You Find a Marketing Plan?

At most companies that I’ve worked at, I’ve been the first or one of the first marketers on board. There generally was a product, a sales team, and more. But rarely was there a team in place. And when there was, there sometimes wasn’t a plan ready to be used.

I knew that I wanted to have a plan. A north star guide for myself, my colleagues, and my teammates to use. Plan the work, and work the plan, as they say. But where to start?

No problem! Just search the web for how to build a marketing plan, right? Well, that never seemed to work for me. Whenever I searched for guides on how to build a marketing plan, all I ever found were blog post after blog post of well-meaning summaries. These weren’t deep resources. And they certainly weren’t unbiased. They were often pitching their own angle to sell their own software. Fair enough, but not useful for me.

The only other sources I could ever find were scattered resources that – while vital and useful – were too difficult to find to be useful. A great post on marketing metrics here. A cool template for marketing job descriptions over there. But never everything in one place. And when I could find it in one place, it was usually behind a paywall.

Some Marketing Experience

Now, here I am a few decades into my marketing career. I’ve had the chance to work with some phenomenal talent. People that have gone on to be founders, CMOs, CPOs, industry leaders, and more. The amount that I’ve learned from my teammates I can’t begin to quantify.

One thing, though, has been consistent across these teams. At every organization that I’ve worked at, we’ve always been very successful at “punching above our weight”. That is, we’ve made the companies appear to be significantly larger than we actually were.

How did that happen? Well, it happened by following a very specific approach. An approach that is unchanging at the 30,000 foot level. In fact, it’s an approach that worked for me decades ago and you can use today – and into the future. But at the tactical level, it is very adaptable to suit your industry and your market.

That’s Why There’s This Site

So, you put those two things together: a lack of a centralized place for all marketing resources and a desire to share my experiences of what works in marketing. The result, well, it’s this site.

Here you’ll find my structured approach to marketing. I’ve built a framework that, of course, is also an acronym. It’s designed around the notion of a marketing flywheel that is always spinning and helping you to grow. It’s helped me and my colleagues to organize our thoughts and plans. You’ll see that the content on this site is organized around the same 5 elements of that marketing flywheel.

I’ve also included resources like interviews with marketing colleagues, documents and templates, and even spreadsheets. I hope you find it useful. I also hope that you’ll help contribute – by being interviewed for my video series or sharing a resource you’ve found effective.

Let me know how I can help. And let me know how you want to help too.

Let’s go!

Featured image source: Tobias Alt, Tobi 87 – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0