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Marketing Plan Template

Write a short marketing plan in an afternoon: who you sell to, what you say, which channels, who owns each one, what it costs a month and how you will know it worked. The plan lays itself out as you type, adds up the budget and prints to one or two pages. Load the example to see a finished one.

What goes in a marketing plan

  • Goals with numbers

    Three goals at most, each with a target and a date. "More leads" is a wish; "130 leads a month by June" is a goal the rest of the plan can serve.

  • Target customers

    Who buys, the problem that makes them buy, and where you can reach them. One row per type of customer, so each channel has someone in mind.

  • Positioning and message

    One sentence that says who it is for and why you, three messages you repeat everywhere, and the proof behind them: reviews, numbers, years in business.

  • Situation and competitors

    A one-line SWOT and the two or three competitors you lose deals to. Enough to make the channel choices make sense; link to the full templates when you need more.

  • Channels, owner, budget, cadence

    The core of the plan: each channel with the person responsible, a monthly budget, how often it runs and what it is supposed to bring. The template totals the budget for you.

  • Calendar, KPIs and review

    Twelve months of campaigns on one grid, the numbers you will watch, and the date of the first review. A plan with a review date gets used; one without gets filed.

How to write a marketing plan in an afternoon

  1. 1. Start from the goals

    Write the revenue or customer goal first, then work backwards: how many leads, at what close rate, from which customers. Everything below the goals exists to hit them.

  2. 2. Describe two or three customers, not everyone

    Each persona row should name a real problem you have heard in a sales call. If you cannot say where to reach them, you do not know them yet.

  3. 3. Pick channels you can staff

    A channel without an owner does not run. Give each one a name, a monthly amount and a rhythm; five channels run well beat twelve run badly.

  4. 4. Put it on the calendar

    Seasonal pushes, trade shows, mailers and the things that run every month go on the grid. Gaps and pile-ups show up at a glance.

  5. 5. Set the KPIs and the review date

    Pick five numbers you can actually get each month, write down today's value and the target, and book the first 30-minute review before you print.

Selling to other businesses? Start with what B2B sales is and how it differs.

Trade shows on the calendar? Use the trade show checklist so the booth pays off.

The plan feeds the sales playbook: positioning and messages belong in both.

Marketing plan, go-to-market plan or sales and marketing plan?

Same template, different horizon and emphasis. Fill in what fits and leave the rest.

  • Marketing plan

    A year (or a half) for the whole business: goals, customers, message, channels, budget, KPIs. The default use of this template.

  • Go-to-market plan

    One launch: a new product, a new region or a new segment. Shorter period, one or two personas, a tighter calendar around the launch date, KPIs for the first 90 days.

  • Sales and marketing plan

    Marketing and sales in one document: goals in revenue, channels that include outbound and referrals with sales owners, KPIs that run from lead to closed deal.

More on selling and planning: what B2B sales is, writing a sales playbook, the trade show checklist.

The plan gets discussed all year. Keep the decisions.

The plan comes up in the Monday meeting, the quarterly review and the call with the agency, and the decisions made there are what change it. ParrotNotes records those meetings and gives you the summary, the decisions and the action items, so the plan gets updated instead of forgotten. Free for 100 minutes of recording a month.

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