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How To Create A Marketing Project Plan: A Step-by-Step Guide

When you think of “big marketing mistakes”, you might think of that episode of The Office where Michael accidentally gives their biggest customer a Golden Ticket for a 50% discount.

And yes, giving away too much of your value for free is bad.

But actually, one of the biggest mistakes marketers make is: failing to plan.

You can have access to the best marketing project management tools but without a clear, documented marketing plan you’re bound to fail.

According to CoSchedule, marketers who plan are three times more likely to be successful than those who don’t.

In this blog, we’ve broken down everything you need to know on how to put together a marketing plan, including examples and templates.

What is a marketing project plan?

A marketing project plan is a report or presentation in which you outline your marketing strategy. It covers your marketing goals, the steps you will take to achieve these goals, and how to measure them. This could be for a specific period, for example, the next quarter or year, or for a specific event, such as a product launch. 

We’ll get into the specifics of what’s included in a marketing plan in a minute, but their basic purpose is to outline:

• Your goals and the metrics you’ll use to measure them
• The challenges you face in reaching them
• The actions you’ll take and resources required to overcome these

It’s the document your superiors will use to understand the project, that the marketing team will work from throughout, and that you’ll use to keep the whole thing on track.

Common formats for marketing plans are:

• Microsoft Word
• Microsoft Excel
• Microsoft Powerpoint
• Equivalent products in Google Drive, e.g., Slides

We’ll show you more examples below, but here’s a quick example of an MS Word marketing plan by ProjectManager for now:

In a nutshell, a marketing plan helps you:

• Define the scope of the project (and minimize project scope creep !)
• Set out a timeline for completion and allocate resources
• Measure your success and adjust your tactics as your project evolves

Marketing strategy vs. marketing plan: what’s the difference?

The difference between a marketing strategy and a marketing plan is subtle but important. 

A marketing strategy is all about high-level thinking – that means how you’re: 

• Communicating your company values 
• Achieving your goals for long-term growth
• Securing a competitive advantage 

A marketing plan, on the other hand, is the more specific, day-to-day actions that will get you there. 

It’s a symbiotic relationship: a marketing plan needs a strong strategy to guide it, and a marketing strategy is useless if not accompanied by a good plan.

9 elements of a marketing plan

No two marketing projects are the same, so it follows that no two marketing plans will be either. However, most successful marketing plans will usually have these nine elements in common.

1. Target market 

If you’re working on an email marketing campaign, this might be which segments of the target audience you’ll be engaging. If you’re launching a new product it’ll mean outlining your ICP, or Ideal Customer Profile.

Buyer personas are useful to document your ICP. Here’s an example buyer persona template.

2. Project goals

Without goals in place, your marketing plan is dead in the water. They should be SMART – that is Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Time-bound.

In short, SMART goals are specific targets you want to hit in a defined period. Advantages for setting SMART goals include:

• Set clear, unambiguous goals for your marketing team
• Provide a way to measure progress and course correct if necessary
• Prevent your team from wasting resources on irrelevant work
• Build confidence with realistic and achievable goals
• Set clear start and end dates for your marketing projects

Here’s an example SMART goals planning template from HubSpot.

3. Competitive analysis

A competitor analysis might seem like it’s more relevant to a product launch project, but it’s equally important to your marketing efforts.

Depending on your marketing campaign, your competitive analysis can take different forms. For example, to analyze your SEO competition, you want to know:

• Who are my SEO competitors?
• How does a competitor’s content on Google?
• Am I missing any content that my competitors have?
• What kind of content drives results for my competition?

Here’s an example SEO competition analysis by Moz to include in your marketing plan:

4. Strategies

Now’s the time to define the important elements of your brand’s strategy. This will include things like:

• Your value proposition
• Your brand positioning
• Your mission statement

Here’s an example of a brand strategy slide from a brand marketing plan. It includes a brand strategy roadmap, which you can find out more about here .

The last thing you want to do when you’re outlining your big vision for brand expansion is crunched the numbers, but look at it this way: if you don’t crunch them now, they’ll come back to bite you later.

You need to budget for any costs, such as: 

• Focus groups 
• Visual assets

Here’s an example of a product marketing budget in Google Sheets:

6. Responsibilities and resource planning

A resource plan is a key component of any plan.

It involves identifying, acquiring, and assigning resources for your marketing project in order to meet the goals. Resources can be anything including people, tools, facilities, materials, or monetary budget.

The resource allocation process involves the following steps:

• Create your marketing project’s timeline.
• Identify resources you’ll need to get the project done.
• Find and book available resources.
• Create a plan for acquiring unavailable resources.

7. Metrics and measurements

Setting your metrics at the start of the project gives you the ability to track the success of the project in real-time and makes it clear to everyone on board what success would look like.

The best metrics will depend on your overall objectives.

Remember, though: beware of vanity metrics that look good on a graph but don’t give a reliable indicator of engagement, for example, social media impressions.

8. Tasks and schedule 

Do you know what we call a plan without a clear schedule attached to it? Just a nice idea.

Here’s a template to for creating a digital marketing plan in Excel .

Alternatively, you can also use a visual planning tool like Toggl Plan to plan a timeline for your marketing project.

9. Executive summary

We know what you’re thinking – doesn’t this usually go at the top of a marketing plan?

You’re absolutely right. But the reason we’ve left this part till the end of this list is that it’s actually the last thing you’ll write as part of your marketing plan.

The executive summary takes everything we’ve just discussed and boils it down into a brief overview at the start of the marketing plan.

Learn more about how to write an executive summary .

How to create a marketing plan

Now that you know the key elements of a great marketing plan, it’s time to get yours written. Here’s how to create a stellar marketing plan – in seven steps.

1. Identify stakeholders

The stakeholders are the people you need to please with this marketing plan, and you’ve got to identify them and what their needs are before you begin.

Examples of who your stakeholders might be:

Identifying which ones are the most important to this project and what their distinct needs are can guide your strategy and priorities.

For example, let’s say you’re running a campaign to generate leads for your sales team. Your sales team is a stakeholder in this campaign. You’ll need to consult them to find out their needs—not just high-level goals like “get more leads”, but things like:

• What does a qualified lead look like for them?
• What information do they need to contact these leads?
• How many leads do they need to meet their sales targets?

You can’t afford to skip this stage—only one in three organizations deliver projects that are likely to achieve stakeholder satisfaction.

2. Assemble your team

This is self-explanatory, right? To get the job done properly, you need the right people working on it.

Most project teams have only 6-10 people on them. The old saying “too many cooks spoil the broth” is as true in marketing as it is in the kitchen.

Instead, focus on getting a small group of people who have the right expertise, experience, and authority to get the job done.

For example, in a content marketing project you might need:

• A project manager (that’s you)
• An SEO expert
• A content writer
• A social media manager to promote the content

Learn more about how to assemble your team in our resource allocation guide .

3. Create a communication plan

29% of project failures are due to poor communication.

A documented project communication plan could mean a difference between success and failure.

Decide how your team will communicate with each other from the outset, for example:

• The medium you’ll use, e.g., email, Slack, Microsoft Teams
• How often you’ll meet to discuss the project 
• What the chain of command is – who should your team members go to with questions and concerns?

One great way of increasing transparency and communication in marketing projects is through effective time tracking .

Some tasks will take longer than you expected them to—that’s just life. With time tracking , you can see when this is happening and react accordingly, whether by allocating more resources or having another team member jump in to help

This can help to reduce the stress of ambitious projects because team members are all on the same page, and they can work more efficiently together and independently, too.

4. Create a task list

Creating a task list for your project seems daunting at first, but we believe it can be broken down into three easy steps: 

• Establish project scope . What’s your job in this project, and what do you not need to worry about?
• Create a work breakdown structure ( WBS ) . Divide the project into phases you can then use to bucket your tasks – for example, market research might be the first phase of a product marketing campaign.
• Break each work phase into tasks . Within the market research example, you might have tasks like “put together focus groups”, “white paper”, or “case study.”

Your project’s activities should be ranked according to stakeholder priorities. For internal tasks consider using these prioritization techniques .

5. Make a schedule for your marketing plan

We’ve already shown you what a schedule in a marketing plan can look like in Excel, but there are numerous drawbacks to scheduling your marketing plan in a static document.

One of the biggest ones is its lack of interactivity, particularly when it comes to integrating with other platforms. There are many more sophisticated project management tools out there that allow you to see not just your team’s work for this one project, but to compare this to their other priorities, including milestones and deliverables.

A visual project schedule helps you identify the milestones, gaps, risks, and resources required for your marketing campaign.

6. Generate a risk management plan

Risk management practices are widely used across most organizations – only 3% of organizations say they never use risk management practices, while 27% say they always do.

One way that you can anticipate risk is by doing a SWOT analysis. That’s an overview of your:

• Opportunities

Here’s an example of what this looks like for a local Thai restaurant:

Another important step in preparing for risk factors in your marketing project is to utilize an agile planning model .

Originally conceived by software development teams, agile planning is all about using an iterative approach where you’re constantly evaluating and re-evaluating your methods as the project goes on.

Instead of sticking to your original plan through thick and thin, if something’s not working, you change it up. This minimizes the risk of total project failure, while also building on our final point.

7. Monitoring and reporting

We’ve already spoken about the importance of project time management. Tracking and regular reporting are key to delivering projects on time and successfully, and one way of doing this is through the time tracking tools as we mentioned earlier.

These will help you flag if team members are falling behind, as well as show you how much has been done on the project to date.

Throughout your project, you should constantly monitor your key metrics. And in fact, many good marketing project plans have a space for this kind of reporting built into them.

Marketing plan examples

We’ve already seen some snippets from marketing plans but here are three marketing project plan examples.

We showed this briefly above, but this marketing project plan example from Lush in Portugal exhibits almost all of the features we’ve outlined in this blog.

2. Gantt project plan

A Gantt chart is simply a chart that illustrates a project schedule. This marketing plan template from Microsoft gives you a good idea of how it looks and is like an offline version of time management tools like Toggl.

3. Microsoft Word

This simple marketing project plan example is created in Word. In just four pages, it offers a condensed version of what we’ve discussed above.

This streamlined format is ideal for simpler or shorter-term projects, or if you only have a limited time to present an overview of your project—for example, in a company updates meeting.

Create the Perfect Marketing Project Plan

Designing a dynamite marketing project plan is only the beginning. Now you’ve got all the information you need to do it, it’s up to you to see it through. But you’re not on your own—with these tips under your belt and the right planning tools , we know you’ve got what it takes to lead an amazing marketing project.

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5 Steps To Creating A Top-Notch Marketing Project Plan

You already know that marketing is crucial to your business. A good marketing function is not only essential for strengthening brand awareness and educating customers–it can also significantly impact your bottom line. In a typical business, marketing contributes a whopping 15-30% of revenue when it comes to net-new customers. 

So how do you max out on your marketing revenue? How can you get the most out of marketing for your specific business? It all starts with creating a marketing project management plan . 

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What is a marketing project plan? 

A marketing project plan is a report that outlines your marketing strategy for the upcoming month, quarter, or year. Typically, these plans include:

An overview of your business’s marketing, advertising goals, and competitors

A description of your business’s current marketing position

A timeline of when tasks within your strategy will be completed

Key performance indicators (KPIs) you will be tracking

A description of your business’s target market and customer needs.

This may feel like a lot of moving parts to research and manage. But we’ll narrow the focus in on five essential steps that will get you moving towards those marketing goals.

Key responsibilities of a marketing project manager when creating a marketing campaign project plan

The  role of a project manager  is to set up and head up a project so that everything runs smoothly.  Project managers  are given overall responsibility for the successful initiation, planning, design , execution, monitoring, controlling, and closure of a project. 

Projects will typically have fixed time-frames and fixed costs. And project managers need to make sure that tasks are completed within the set time-frames and budgets permitted. 

While planning and  tracking  these details is an essential duty in a project manager’s day-to-day, they also must be great communicators.  One of project managers’ biggest roles is to communicate with and manage their team members, making sure that each member knows what their responsibilities are and are staying on track.

Do you really need a marketing project plan?" 

The answer, from research and professional marketers alike is a resounding “Yes!” Learning how to write a marketing project plan forces you to think through the important steps necessary for effective marketing. And a well-defined plan will help you stay focused on your overall marketing goals.

But in addition to helping you get your head in the marketing game, creating a marketing project plan yields a few other significant benefits: 

According to one study from PriceWaterhouseCoopers, only 2.5% of organizations complete 100% of their projects.

A report from The Standish Group found that 90% of companies use some sort of project retrospective process to assess performance .

And Aditi Consulting says  3 in 5 projects companies execute are not relevant to their business strategy.

But, marketers who set goals have a 429 percent greater chance of reporting successful campaigns, and 81 percent of these marketers achieve their goals . 

Setting clear goals and building out a thorough marketing project plan is one of the most difficult tasks for marketers, but this work pays off. 

How to create a killer marketing project plan 

We’ve broken this process down into seven straight-forward steps. Soon you’ll be cranking out stellar marketing project plans like the pro you are! Feel free to peruse these  project management templates  as you read along.

1. Create a clear marketing strategy 

While a marketing project plan is like a  roadmap , a marketing strategy is like a destination. So, before you start walking, figure out where you want to go. Your marketing strategy will include areas of research like your business’s vision, values, and goals; your audience; and your available marketing channels. Let’s quickly examine each of these further.

First, identify and note your business’ vision, values, and goals. 

Your marketing strategy must align with your business’ overall vision, values, and goals. So identify what these are in your particular business. What is your company hoping to achieve? What makes you stand apart from your competitors? What values do your company refuse to compromise? Keep this back bone of your company in the forefront of your mind while filling out your marketing strategy.

Second, take a close look at your target audience. 

Your target audience are those people who you are gearing your services or products towards and who are most likely to purchase your products. They are the reason you’re in business. Knowing what your target audience is buying or interested in purchasing is absolutely necessary when developing a marketing strategy and plan. When quality products or services are tied to your audience’s personal preferences, you can make a big impact and a big ROI. 

Audience research and knowledge is at the core of good marketing strategies. In fact, successful marketers are 242 percent more likely to conduct frequent audience research. Additionally, 56 percent of professionals and experienced marketers say that they perform audience research at least once per month.

Lastly, your marketing strategy will include a list of your marketing channels .

Marketing channels are the venues you use to reach your customers. These channels are where you’ll publish the content that educates your buyers, generates leads , and spreads awareness of your brand. Lay out which channels you want to use during your marketing project, what you’ll use each channel for, and how you’ll measure your success on each channel.

Some of the most effective marketing channels that have been performing best this year include pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, social media, email marketing, a business website, content marketing using a blog , and word of mouth. Other marketing channels include influencer marketing, cold calling , billboards, or TV commercials.

Today, there are more online marketing platforms than ever before. As intimidating as that may sound, your overall online presence has the potential to be more connected than ever before. 

Pro tip:  Don’t give a speech to an empty auditorium. You could write the most riveting blog post, put together the most eye-catching Instagram post , or create the cleverest tweet, but if your audience isn’t on those platforms or channels, you might as well have spent that time binge-watching Netflix.

2. Set S.M.A.R.T. goals 

The next step to creating a strong marketing project plan is to start setting your  project goals . There are a number of goals you might be interested in. Maybe you want to increase brand awareness or drive more traffic to your website. Perhaps you’re hoping to increase mentions in the press, generate new leads, or funnel customers towards a new ebook or course. 

Whatever marketing agenda you have, set S.M.A.R.T. goals that are specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and timely. For example, you could have the goal of increasing traffic to your website by 15% in the next 6 months. This way, you and everyone on your team can clearly understand each goal and analyze your progress.

3. Delegate tactics to reach your goals 

The next step in building a fool-proof marketing project plan is to break down your goals into specific tactics. For example, if one of your marketing project goals is to reach 1000 followers on your company’s Instagram account, you might break down that goal into the following steps: 

Post varied content that aligns with your target audience’s interests daily.

Seek out potential partners and engage with their content daily.

Pursue new followers by engaging with competitor companies’ following.

Once you have your list of smaller steps, you can start delegating. Good delegation begins with a good team. If you have people working with you that have proven themselves to be trustworthy and hard-working, delegate portions of the marketing project to the appropriate workers. 

Routine and straightforward tasks are the best ones to delegate. Otherwise, you will end up being the bottleneck of your own marketing project. By delegating tasks to trusted employees, you’ll free up your own time to do what you do best–managing your marketing project plan.

4. Recognize parameters and resources 

Include detailed information about the available resources for your marketing project. Factors like your timeline, budget, and available team members will help you write and run through the plan smoothly.

Without specific parameters around your marketing project plan, your projects will be as real as pies in the sky. Setting parameters around your marketing project plan will actually help you turn your goals into a reality and track your progress along the way. Try to get your numbers as specific as possible so that you can accurately manage and monitor each step of the project and know when you’re getting close to your budget or time limit.

5. Get everyone on the same page 

One of the biggest responsibilities of a marketing project manager is to communicate well with the team and keep everyone working smoothly together. No matter what kind of marketing campaign you’re managing, your marketing team needs a clear plan and great execution to make it a success. 

You know your team best, so decide whether it’s necessary to meet every morning for five minutes or once a week for an hour to make sure that everyone understands the goal of the project and their upcoming tasks and responsibilities. However often you decide, here are a few tips for keeping each member of your team on the same page:

Share the big-picture. Most of us work better when we know the ultimate goal. It can be motivating and empowering to your team members and employees to feel like their work is part of a larger company objective.

Clarify specific tasks and responsibilities. In addition to sharing the big-picture, make sure to clearly explain each of the smaller tasks as well. Offer clarity for each marketing teammate on their specific roles,  tasks , and responsibilities. That way, you can ensure a smooth progression through the extent of the project.

Post a Project Calendar. Share a schedule with a set due date for every assigned task in your marketing project plan. This will help every member of your team stay on track and keep themselves accountable. 

A calendar with the approaching launch day can also be a big motivator for the whole team, and coworkers will more easily be able to see the accomplishments and successes of each other’s work. Make sure your teammates can easily access your  project calendar  and celebrate them when they hit challenging deadlines.

Pay no attention to the man(ager) behind the curtain 

Behind every project, whether it’s organizing a wedding or building a skyscraper, there is an unknown leader–the project manager who kept everything and everyone on track. 

The  role of a project manager  is to deliver the desired result, anticipate potential problems, and fix them before they occur. Good project managers can delegate work to passionate employees and teammates. They run things excellently from behind the curtain so as to eliminate any hiccups and ensure the project’s success . 

Better Marketing Project Management: The Key to Successful Marketing Campaigns

It’s a challenging role for marketers, but when done well, marketing project management leads to incredible business success. Solid  project management  and communication with your team is even more important and challenging with everyone working from home this year. But we’re not about to leave you hanging. Check out  our guide  for working through the six biggest challenges you might encounter while managing your team from afar. 

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Free Marketing Project Plan Templates

By Joe Weller | July 10, 2020

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We’ve compiled the most useful free marketing project plan templates for marketers, enterprises, small businesses, startups, and others, as well as tips for getting started.

Included on this page, you'll find many helpful marketing project plan templates, including a simple marketing project plan template , a marketing project plan checklist template , a marketing plan example , and tips for planning and managing marketing projects .

Marketing Project Plan Template

This marketing project plan template helps guide you through the steps needed for the successful planning, execution, and evaluation of a marketing project. The customizable template serves as an all-purpose marketing project plan that you can use for single marketing project plans or as a record of multiple marketing projects’ details. 

Rows for planning, milestones, creative deliverables, and results intersect with columns for assignee, due date, and priority. Use the selectable drop-down options to stay on track. Keep the members of your marketing team apprised of project details by leveraging the dashboard view and flexibility that this template offers. 

Download Marketing Project Plan Template - Excel

Gain valuable insight on how to keep your marketing project on time and budget by reading about the micro and macro marketing project manager skills to master now .

Marketing Project Plan Checklist Template

Keep your project moving with this marketing project plan checklist template. You’ll find all major and minor steps in the marketing project plan process, along with columns for task name, team member (assigned to), deadline, and completion status with related drop-down options for each step. Regardless of your industry, this marketing project plan checklist template is an excellent tool to accurately record your project’s progress.

Download Marketing Project Plan Checklist Template - Excel

Marketing Project Management Calendar (2024) Template

This simple marketing project management calendar template offers week-by-week and month-by-month dashboard views. Universal in its application (regardless of marketing project plan type), the calendar template can be customized to fit the particulars of your unique marketing plan. Stay informed on the progress of all project tasks with this printable calendar template.

Download 2024 Marketing Project Management Calendar Template

Excel  | Google Sheets

Marketing Plan Template

Keep tabs on your marketing plan with this distinctive template that guides you through your strategic objectives, ensuring that your marketing plan aligns with your organization’s business objectives. This fully customizable marketing plan template allows you to enter or update info related to your plan’s core capabilities, goals, target information, marketing strategy, performance standards, measurement methods, financial summary, and other project-specific details. This marketing plan template is useful for determining the next course of action to ensure your project’s success.

Download Marketing Plan Template

Word | PDF | Smartsheet

One-Page Marketing Project Plan Template

Designed with accessibility in mind, this one-page template provides you with a streamlined method to plan, implement, and track your marketing project plan. 

You’ll find ample space for a business summary, business objectives, the problem, solution, competitive advantage, target market, marketing strategy and objects, and financial requirements. You can include details about product, price, place, promotion, marketing channels, performance standards, results measurement methods, and review in the project plan section. There’s even room to add customized steps for your marketing plan. You’re never far from the big-picture vision of your marketing project plan with this efficient one-page marketing project plan template.

Download One-Page Marketing Project Plan Template

Excel | Word | PDF

Business Marketing Project Plan Template

This comprehensive business marketing project plan template provides everything you need for to run a successful marketing campaign. Business-specific marketing project plan components include sections for a business summary, situational analysis, marketing capabilities, buyer persona, and a financial summary. A section for performance standards and measurement methods assures team members and managers that benchmarks are being met and you’re providing quantifiable metrics to gauge the project’s success.

Download Business Marketing Project Plan Template

Small-Business Marketing Project Plan Template

This template provides the big picture on actionable items for your marketing project. This fully customizable, small-business-specific template guides you in documenting the specifics on marketing goals; strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) analysis; target market; marketing strategy; and research results. You can save this small-business marketing project plan template as an individual file with customized entries or as a template for other marketing project plans.

For more on conducting a SWOT analysis, see “ 14 Free SWOT Analysis Templates .” 

Download Small-Business Marketing Project Plan Template

Marketing Project Plan Template for Startups

Designed specifically for startup businesses, this template uses a pre-built, all-inclusive marketing plan to provide guidance for new ventures. This template is completely customizable, with space to enter an executive summary, your vision statement, details of your marketing project plan’s situational analysis, your goals, your target market, your marketing strategy, and a financial summary. Take the guesswork out of creating a plan from scratch, and leverage the advantages that this startup-specific marketing project plan can offer you and your team. 

Find more useful solutions and tools for startups by reading “ Free Startup Plan, Budget & Cost Templates .” 

Download Marketing Project Plan Template for Startups

Strategic Marketing Project Plan Template

Manage the entirety of your marketing project plan with this comprehensive strategic marketing project plan template. A column for campaign types provides section-by-section rows for national marketing, local marketing, public relations, content marketing, social media, advertising, web, market research, and sales campaigns. These rows intersect with columns for target audience, clicks/response, notes, weight, and projected and actual cost. This template also comes with a quarter-by-quarter calendar, so you can plan in advance for upcoming strategic action, as well as gauge the effectiveness of the marketing strategies you already have in place.

For more on strategic marketing, read “ The Definitive Guide to Strategic Marketing Planning .”

‌Download Strategic Marketing Project Plan Template

Excel | Smartsheet

Marketing Project Plan Example

It’s crucial to have a marketing project plan that guides marketing teams through the entire process, from planning to implementation to retrospective assessment. Use this pre-filled template with step-by-step details as an example of a marketing project management plan.

By using an example for guidance, you can focus on delivering superb marketing project campaigns. This completed marketing project template includes the following detailed sections (we’ve provided instructions for reference): 

• Marketing Project Plan Background Creative Brief : Who will benefit from your marketing project, and what does the project entail? 
• Marketing Project Plan Performance Standards: What are your project’s timeline specifications? Are there opportunities for automation to eliminate redundancies? What are this project’s performance standards? 
• Marketing Project Plan Scope: What is the scope of your marketing project? Can you break up the project into sprints, stories, and tasks? What is the project’s delivery date? What are its milestones? 
• Marketing Project Plan Meetings: How will you keep apprised of your plan’s progress? Do you need daily meetings, sprint reviews, and a retrospective meeting once the project has been completed? 

With its built-in best practices, this marketing project management plan template is a useful tool for planning, strategizing, applying tactics, and gauging the project’s results. 

Download Marketing Project Management Plan Template Example - Word

Tips for Planning and Managing Marketing Projects

A marketing project plan provides an easy-to-follow design to guide you through the planning, execution, and evaluation stages for implementing a successful marketing campaign. 

It’s essential to keep tabs on your plan’s objectives by defining your offerings’ core capabilities, goals, strategy, performance standards, and measurement methods. 

Use a template to stay apprised of your marketing project’s status and follow these tips to help ensure success: 

• Who will benefit from your marketing project plan? 
• What does your marketing project entail? 
• How does your marketing project benefit your defined audience? 
• What resources do you need to complete this marketing project?
• What challenges or anticipated roadblocks should you define prior to project initiation? 
• Are there ways to automate some of the project’s processes? 
• Are there ways to eliminate redundancies (e.g., leverage efforts from another department or project)? 
• How can you execute your project successfully and reduce the amount of maintenance it otherwise might require? 
• What are your marketing plan’s performance standards? 
• What do you expect it to achieve? 
• How can you quantify your project’s success? 
• What is your marketing project’s delivery date? 
• Do you need to meet with team members to stay in sync with your project plan’s deliverables? 
• Are daily marketing project meetings needed? 
• Are review meetings and itineraries required? 
• Do you need a defined project retrospective meeting itinerary to gauge the success of your marketing project plan’s implementation? 

Regardless of your line of business, the templates offered in this article can help guide you through the steps of your marketing project’s planning, execution, and evaluation of project success. 

For more useful information about marketing plans, read our comprehensive guide on marketing project management .

Improve Project Planning with Smartsheet for Marketing

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The Smartsheet platform makes it easy to plan, capture, manage, and report on work from anywhere, helping your team be more effective and get more done. Report on key metrics and get real-time visibility into work as it happens with roll-up reports, dashboards, and automated workflows built to keep your team connected and informed.

When teams have clarity into the work getting done, there’s no telling how much more they can accomplish in the same amount of time. Try Smartsheet for free, today.

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Project Management

Marketing project management: a project manager’s guide.

Erica Golightly

Senior Writer

August 21, 2023

Marketing is really important.

It’s an obvious statement but did you know 72% of industry marketers said the importance of marketing in their organizations increased since February 2020—pressuring digital transformation? Marketers continue to push forward quality content amid all the noise.

But more importantly, their product/service makes a positive difference in consumers’ lives.

The marketing request dial is turning, increasing the amount of content creation and opportunities for companies. One destructive result of this increase is something that’s not talked about openly enough (and honestly) in the workplace: We are struggling. Like, a lot. 😮‍💨

Unclear goals, broken marketing workflows , and awkward communication cues could be avoided if we prioritized a better marketing project management process .

Whether you’re a freelancer or part of an in-house marketing department, there’s a possibility you’re overworked and under pressure to get deliverables across a finish line that keeps moving farther away. 

In this guide, we’ll cover the ins and outs of marketing project management and how to create the best systems for your team and collaborators.

What is Marketing Project Management?

Key differences between waterfall and agile in the marketing project management process, 9 steps to healthy and successful marketing projects, how modern marketing teams use project management software, must-have clickup features for every marketing organization type  , optimize your marketing efforts with clickup.

Marketing project management is a specialized function that focuses on planning, executing, and controlling marketing initiatives and campaigns. It covers the process of effectively coordinating and leading all marketing-related activities to achieve specific goals and objectives within the allocated time, budget, and resources.

For project managers, marketing project management involves overseeing the entire lifecycle of marketing projects, from ideation and strategy development to implementation, monitoring, and evaluation. Key responsibilities include:

• Project planning : Defining the project scope, objectives, and deliverables in alignment with the marketing strategy in a detailed project plan
• Resource management : Applying the right marketing talents, tools, and technologies available to execute the project successfully. This includes coordinating with various teams, such as creative, content, design, and digital marketing
• Budget control : Managing the project budget and expenses to maximize the return on investment while adhering to financial constraints
• Cross-functional collaboration : Facilitating collaboration and communication between marketing teams and other departments for seamless integration and alignment with overall organizational goals
• Risk management : Identifying potential risks and developing contingency plans to mitigate their impact on the project’s progress and outcomes
• Timely execution : Monitoring project progress, identifying potential bottlenecks, and proactively addressing issues to ensure timely delivery of marketing campaigns
• Quality assurance : Implementing measures to maintain the quality and effectiveness of marketing activities, ensuring they meet predefined standards and objectives
• Performance measurement : Defining relevant key performance indicators (KPIs) to evaluate the success of marketing projects. Analyzing marketing data and providing insights to enhance future marketing efforts
• Stakeholder management : Use stakeholder management software to engage with stakeholders, including clients, marketing teams, senior management, and external partners, to keep them informed about project progress and answer questions
• Continuous improvement : Conducting post-project reviews to identify lessons learned and areas for improvement in future marketing initiatives

Let’s explore two notable marketing project management methodologies: waterfall and agile .

This isn’t to persuade that one method is better because not all projects are suitable for agile, and not all projects are suitable for waterfall. Some projects could be predictable and routine, while others are risky and elaborate. If you carefully consider the project size and complexity, you will save time and money. 

What is waterfall marketing? 🤔

Waterfall marketing is predictable

The waterfall method is a strict and linear process. Tasks are interdependent and carried out sequentially. The logical flow starts at the top and moves toward the bottom, achieving critical phases along the way. In waterfall, a phase cannot begin until the one before is complete.

Waterfall method characteristics:

• High levels of project governance
• Careful planning for each step so nothing is left to chance
• Comprehensive documentation
• Stakeholder and user expectations are supported by detailed planning and documentation
• Clear audit trail for knowledge management

Waterfall method red flags:

• Less room for error
• Changes are problematic and expensive
• Difficult to forecast
• Potentially lengthy timelines

Is agile project management a wild card then? Not necessarily. 

Agile marketing adapts to changes

Unlike the waterfall method that locks in requirements and tasks in advance, agile marketing favors responding to changes over what it says in the project plan.

There are two popular frameworks of agile marketing : scrum and Kanban.

• Scrum : the scrum framework is purposeful for speed , with project lengths lasting from one week to four weeks. Closely-knit marketing teams are assigned easily consumable, actionable tasks during a sprint —a short, time-boxed interval to complete a set amount of work
• Kanban : alternatively, the Kanban framework centers around workflow visualization . On a Kanban board, task cards are dragged from one status column to the next. It’s loosely structured and enables continuous improvement without massive change

It’s worth mentioning that the agile method requires an added level of development training so teams are successful. Becoming an agile marketing organization involves a transformation effort to be fast in response times and reduce risks. There will be project disruptions if there’s no time for getting teams (especially remote teams ) trained to understand scope and workflow. 

Planning for the future is exciting but also stressful. You won’t see results if a marketing strategy doesn’t back up your marketing plan . 📈

The marketing plan is the roadmap of tactical steps to execute the strategy. It describes what, when, and how you will implement the strategy.

The marketing strategy is the why behind an organization’s marketing efforts and how the marketing goals will achieve the business goals. The four Ps of marketing concept:

• P roduct: What you sell (digital or physical products/services)
• P rice: How much you charge and the impact of how prospects and customers view your brand
• P lace: Where you promote your product/service for ideal customers to find information about you and your industry
• P romotion: What strategies you use for customers to find out about you

Bonus: Marketing Tools for Small Businesses

Before you assign tasks to the first available graphic designer, do you have a deep understanding of the challenge you’re solving, how you’re going to get there, and the target audience? The campaign budget?

We’ll take this one step at a time! Here’s how to plan for healthy and successful marketing projects. ✨

Step 1: Outline deliverables, required resources, timelines, budgets, KPIs (Key Performance Indicators)

Here’s the scenario: you are a marketing project manager tasked with leading a campaign launch to build brand awareness. Your project scope would include:

• Project Goals : achieve a 30% increase in brand lift metrics ( KPIs )
• Project Deliverables : 15 educational video reels about the product, 30 seconds to a minute long each; distributed on Instagram, driving traffic to product landing pages
• Project Resources : content, creative, and social teams; marketing project management software
• Project Timeline : Final creative assets due by October 1, launch campaign October 8
• Project Budget : $10,000 (for video software, any contractors needed)

Step 2: Collect data and input from stakeholders and teams

Speak to stakeholders or partners working on the project to collect input and important information needed to complete a task. Don’t wait until after your graphic designers have turned over assets to mention something new! 

As a marketing project manager, it’s not expected to know off the cuff how long it takes each team member to execute their deliverables. Get estimates on how much time and effort they’re forecasting to get the work done. They’ll address issues or conflicts that could comprise the timeline, which is valuable for managing projects.

Step 3: Include research

Research is the crux of every marketing project. Is there any existing research that could apply to this project? Will the social team need any tasks to conduct any new research? Following the project scope example we used above, this is necessary information for productive project conversations.  

👉 One sec—if you need help organizing your project plans or task lists, check out ClickUp’s Template Center for campaign tracking , budgets , deliverables lists , and more! 

Step 4: Assemble tasks and milestones

At this point, you have the project scope, stakeholder input, and research. It’s time to assign tasks using your marketing project management software . 

Remember the time estimates you collected earlier? Be sure to include them in the tasks so team members can see their daily workload and adjust if they are over-allocated. Their workweek should be both manageable and realistic. 

Step 5: Prep the team

It’s essential to hold a kickoff meeting to hear any questions or concerns directly from the teams after they’ve had a chance to assess their tasks. It’s also a great opportunity to remove any burdens the team could be feeling right away. 

After the meeting, send a recap of key discussion points and takeaways. If any team members have action items, assign them right away so nothing falls through the cracks. 

👉 Check out how Toyin Olasenhinde, a product manager uses the assigned comments feature in ClickUp when action items don’t warrant an entire task!

Step 6: Perform team check-ins and reviews

Schedule check-ins and reviews on the marketing calendar . As a marketing project manager, you should be aware of the team and project health. The frequency of check-ins and reviews depends on the project timeline and team capacity.

👉 Managing a virtual team? Learn seven ways to boost your virtual team communication strategy here !

Step 7: Track progress with a project dashboard

Dashboards are used by stakeholders, clients, and the project team to monitor progress. Stakeholders and clients need a high-level overview while the project team needs detailed dashboards that break down chunks of work. 

If your marketing project management software has a dashboard feature, tap into the tool so you have different versions of a project dashboard made for each audience. Instead of going directly to you for updates, they’ll view the project dashboard first! 

👉 Learn how to create powerful Dashboards in ClickUp with an easy step-by-step tutorial!

Step 8: Close the digital paperwork in the project management tool

Ring the bell! You and the team have crushed the project goals , so it’s time to let everyone know and review the end product. Ensure the final deliverables are wrapped in a virtual bow, lingering files are archived or deleted, and all open tasks are closed out in the project management tool.

Step 9: Reflect on the project journey as a team

This step is often overlooked because a new marketing campaign is on the horizon or teams have stepped out to recoup and recharge. Reflecting right away on a project’s wins and inaccuracies is a great learning opportunity for marketing project managers to fix processes for future marketing related projects. 

If your team members are not comfortable going on a call to reflect on the project (or if there’s simply not enough time), the easiest way to collect this data is to send a digital form. 

Here are questions to consider when organizing your form: 

• If you could change a part of the process, what would it be?
• Did our marketing analysis identify the deliverable components we had to create at the beginning?
• Is our project management tool helping or hindering your productivity? 
• What was the single frustrating event?
• Were you supplied with the information and resources to carry out your tasks?
• What was the most satisfying part of the project?
• Did the check-ins and reviews hurt or help your workflow?
• Are you proud of your finished deliverables?

Each marketing team has a different goal, role, and strategic value within the overall business. 

Before you make a commitment to a marketing campaign request, get to know what information, resources, and project tools each marketing team needs to be successful. Add good communication, quick decision-making, and clearly-defined goals…and you’re gold! 🌟

Search Engine Optimization 

SEO professionals are consistently implementing strategies and facilitating SEO workflows to complete deliverables. Backlink building, increasing organic traffic, and keyword research tasks on top of data insights sound like a recipe for overwhelm. They use interactive dashboards with real-time data. Consistent and automated reporting guards their time. As a result, efforts are spent in prioritizing ranking improvements!

Design 

Graphic designers are approached by internal departments to lend their expertise (and sometimes blessing) to strengthen an asset’s design and messaging. A simple yet powerful project management feature to save time and inbox space is a digital request form.

Digital request forms remove the guesswork and back and forth between the graphic designer and requestor. By asking the right questions and requiring context to a request, graphic designers can focus their time and energy on actual work. 

Editorial and Content Marketing 

Content professionals are in the trenches with every marketing role. They are often accidental project managers” in concurrent campaigns and one-off requests. A typical affair they tend to find themselves in is spending large amounts of time on administrative tasks. 

👉 Watch how ClickUp’s Content team automates current manual processes to maximize productivity here . 

ClickUp is a free project management solution that allows every team to manage projects, collaborate smarter, and bring all their work under one tool. Whether you’re new to project management apps or a total power user, ClickUp’s customization can stretch to any team size—remote or in-office—for the best productivity of your life.

We understand (and love!) that your team has different types of skill sets, personalities, and workflows. So in ClickUp, each member can customize their views and tasks however they need to while simultaneously working towards the same project goals as everyone else. 

Here are ClickUp features for every type of marketing organization: 

Team collaboration features for a marketing agency

• Guest permissions for team collaboration with your contractors and external clients
• Marketing project templates in the ClickUp Template Center for simplifying workflows
• Email in ClickUp to switch between sending a comment to internal teammates and sending an email to anyone outside of your Workspace

Task management features for an in-house marketing team

• ClickUp Views to look at projects, tasks, subtasks , and their unique characteristics in a meaningful way
• ClickUp Dashboards to view data and activities next to ClickUp Goals across all teams
• Time estimates and time tracking for resource allocation and billing 

Time management features for freelancers and solopreneurs

• ClickUp Automations for client and team onboarding , assigning tasks, updating statuses, and more
• Time Tracking in ClickUp to categorize time spent on specific tasks and track billable hours
• ClickUp Recurring Tasks to set repeating schedules and administrative tasks

“Job burnout is a special type of work-related stress—a state of physical or emotional exhaustion that also involves a sense of reduced accomplishment and loss of personal identity,” according to the Mayo Clinic .

What if we recognize that we could carry out our campaigns and product launches without compromising team health? Change starts by getting our marketing project management system clear. 💎

Honestly, we get that you’re up against time (and maybe even leadership buy-in) to put in the work and improve your team’s project management process. If you feel a responsibility to yourself and your team to make things better, you are not alone!

That’s why ClickUp has free, 24/7 support via email, phone, and online chat to help with organizing your Workspace and setting up your team for success. 

Get started in ClickUp and soon you’ll have stand-ups that will be the highlight of everyone’s day! ☀️

Questions? Comments? Visit our Help Center for support.

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A Modern Approach to Marketing: How Project Management Streamlines Success

In an era where marketing campaigns are multifaceted and the digital landscape is ever-evolving, efficiency has become critical. By integrating project management principles into marketing strategies, businesses can ensure that campaigns are executed seamlessly, resources are allocated optimally, and objectives are met consistently.

This article delves into the transformative power of project management in modern marketing, offering insights into how its methodologies can be the linchpin for marketing success.

What Is Marketing Project Management?

Project management is a systematic approach to planning, organizing, and managing resources to achieve specific objectives within a defined timeframe and budget. It involves breaking down complex tasks into smaller, manageable parts, assigning responsibilities, and coordinating efforts to reach the desired outcome.

In the context of marketing, a project-managed approach would entail applying project management principles to marketing initiatives and campaigns. It involves treating marketing campaigns as projects with clear goals, timelines, and deliverables, and using project management tools and methodologies to ensure successful execution.

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The Benefits of a Project-Managed Approach to Marketing

Integrating project management into marketing isn't just about staying organized; it's about optimizing every facet of a campaign for maximum impact. Let's explore the tangible advantages this approach offers.

Improved Efficiency

One of the most significant advantages of adopting a project management  approach in marketing is the improved efficiency it brings to your campaigns. With a well-structured marketing plan and clearly defined roles, your marketing projects progress seamlessly. As a result, you minimize wasted time and resources, optimizing productivity and ensuring that every effort contributes meaningfully to your marketing objectives.

Enhanced Collaboration

A project-managed approach cultivates a culture of open dialogue and seamless cooperation among team members. As everyone works together towards a common goal, team cohesion strengthens, fostering a sense of camaraderie that translates into higher-quality deliverables. When minds align, creative ideas flow freely, leading to marketing campaigns that resonate deeply with your audience and drive brand success.

Better Resource Allocation

Making the most of your resources is critical to achieving a solid return on investment (ROI) . Project management allows marketers to allocate resources efficiently, ensuring that each marketing initiative receives the necessary attention and support. By optimizing resource allocation, you can minimize wastage and focus on what truly matters - creating impactful and compelling marketing content that captures the hearts of your target audience. The result? A cost-effective approach that yields impressive results.

Related: Read out guide to marketing budget allocation that provides a roadmap to making effective and cost-effective marketing decisions.

Proactive Issue Resolution

No marketing campaign is without its share of challenges, but a project-managed approach equips you to navigate them with grace and agility. Project managers act as vigilant navigators, identifying potential roadblocks before they escalate and prompt proactive issue resolution. Addressing challenges promptly minimizes the risk of project delays and failures, ensuring that your marketing endeavors stay firmly on track. This proactive stance strengthens your marketing team's adaptability, enabling them to tackle any obstacle that comes their way with confidence.

Data-Driven Decision Making

Data is the compass that guides successful marketing decisions, and project management emphasizes its analysis and interpretation. A data-driven approach empowers your marketing team with actionable insights, enabling them to make informed decisions backed by robust analytics. By leveraging data to its full potential, you can refine your marketing strategies, optimize your campaigns, and resonate with your audience on a deeper level. Data-driven marketing is not just a buzzword; it's the key to unlocking the full potential of your marketing efforts.

Scalability: Empowering Growth and Expansion

Scalability is essential to staying ahead in the market. Marketing project management provides the framework needed to handle larger and more complex marketing endeavors as your enterprise grows. The adaptable nature of project management ensures that your marketing team can rise to the occasion, accommodating expanding objectives and an ever-evolving landscape. Scalability opens doors to new opportunities, allowing your brand to leave a lasting impact on a broader stage.

5 Phases of the Marketing Project Management Process

The fusion of project management principles with marketing strategies has given rise to a structured approach that ensures marketing campaigns are executed seamlessly. This approach breaks down the marketing process into five distinct phases, each contributing to the overall success of a campaign. Here's a closer look at each phase.

Phase 1: Ilitiation

This phase is all about laying the groundwork. It's the stage where the marketing team identifies market needs, opportunities, or problems that a campaign can address. It sets the direction and purpose of the entire project.

Key Activities: Conducting preliminary market research , holding stakeholder meetings to gather input, defining the project scope, setting preliminary objectives, and drafting a project charter or brief.

Phase 2: Planning & Building the Blueprint

With a clear direction set, the planning phase is dedicated to detailing the roadmap. It's about setting clear, actionable steps, allocating resources, and establishing timelines.

Key Activities : Detailed budgeting , assigning roles and responsibilities, setting milestones, risk assessment, and developing a comprehensive marketing strategy that encompasses target audience, channels, and messaging.

Phase 3: Execution - Bringing the Vision to Life

This is the action phase. All the planning is put into practice, and the campaign comes to life. It's crucial to ensure that every team member is aligned and clear on their responsibilities.

Key Activities : Content creation, campaign launches across various channels, ongoing coordination meetings, monitoring real-time progress, and adjusting strategies based on real-time feedback.

Phase 4: Monitoring & Control

As the campaign unfolds, it's vital to keep a close eye on its progress. This phase ensures that the campaign remains aligned with the objectives and that any deviations are promptly addressed.

Key Activities : Regular performance check-ins, tracking against set KPIs , analyzing feedback, making necessary adjustments to strategies, and ensuring that resources are being used efficiently.

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Phase 5: Delivery

After the campaign concludes, it's time to wrap up, evaluate, and reflect. This phase ensures that the team captures learnings, celebrates successes, and identifies areas for improvement. These critical assessments measure the project's success against the predefined KPIs. It's a performance review that guides future marketing efforts, celebrating accomplishments and identifying areas for even greater achievements.

Key Activities : Comprehensive performance review, gathering team and stakeholder feedback, documenting lessons learned, analyzing ROI, and holding a project debrief.

Ensuring Every Project Hits the Mark with Improvado

Every marketing project is an opportunity for growth, not just in terms of ROI but in refining processes, strategies, and execution. Improvado is a robust marketing analytics solution. Utilizing the platform, teams can dive deep into the performance metrics of each campaign, understanding what worked and what didn't. 

This data-driven feedback loop ensures that with every new project, the team is better equipped, more informed, and more aligned with the audience's needs. It's not just about managing projects; it's about continuously optimizing them. 

Frequently Asked Questions

What is marketing project management.

Marketing project management is the application of project management principles to marketing initiatives and campaigns. It involves treating marketing efforts as projects with clear goals, timelines, and deliverables, ensuring successful execution.

How does a project-managed approach benefit marketing?

This approach improves efficiency, enhances collaboration, maximizes resource allocation, proactively resolves issues, emphasizes data-driven decision-making, and supports scalability. It helps align marketing strategies to the goals and objectives of the business.

What are the five phases of the marketing project management process?

The five phases are Planning, Organization, Execution, Control, and Delivery. Each phase has specific tasks and objectives that contribute to the successful completion of the marketing project.

How does project management contribute to scalability in marketing?

Marketing project management provides the framework to handle more complex and larger marketing endeavors as your enterprise grows. Its adaptable nature ensures that marketing strategies can evolve with the business, accommodating new opportunities.

How does data-driven decision-making enhance marketing project management?

A data-driven approach provides actionable insights, enabling marketing teams to make informed decisions backed by robust analytics. This helps in refining strategies, optimizing campaigns, and resonating with the target audience more effectively.

How can my team begin implementing a project-managed approach to marketing?

Begin by understanding your specific marketing goals and objectives. Break down complex tasks into manageable parts and use project management methodologies and tools to plan, organize, and manage your marketing efforts. Collaboration, clear communication, and ongoing monitoring and control are key factors for success.

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Project Management for Marketing Teams: Definitive Guide

Lucija Bakić

March 10, 2024

Welcome to the complete guide to project management for marketing teams .

Key Takeaways

• Marketing project management includes processes such as creating a project charter, developing a marketing strategy, identifying and managing risk, and analyzing key performance indicators.
• Some of the biggest challenges that marketing project managers need to address include: aligning projects with agency goals, keeping projects on time, and maintaining efficient resource management while managing resources across multiple projects .
• Key strategies for project success include getting stakeholder buy-in, keeping your workforce competitive, and switching from multiple tools to a single solution.
• Marketing agency software like Productive supports agencies with real-time data, workflow automation, and improved collaboration.

The Importance of Project Management for Marketing Teams

According to research, organized marketers are almost 7 times (or 649%) more likely to report success than their peers (CoSchedule). But what is it specifically about project management for marketing that contributes to this success? Good project management includes a mixture of factors such as:

• More efficient workflows
• Improved employee engagement
• Better control of financials and potential risks
• Reliable and real-time data
• Increased project transparency and collaboration

Challenges of Project Management in Marketing Agencies

A skilled marketing project manager, supported by reliable marketing project management software, is essential to achieving the benefits described above. As a middleman between internal and external stakeholders, a project manager uses their expertise to keep projects on track and drive successful results. Managerial roles also include various challenges that appear during the marketing project management process, such as:

Maximizing Resource Efficiency

For a service-providing business, people are everything. Managing your resources correctly means that employee workloads are balanced and tasks are assigned according to seniority and skill sets. Marketing projects can pose a specific challenge due to how cross-functional project teams are: from designers, copywriters, and web experts to analysts of various kinds. All of this means you must put extra care into handling your allocation. Always consider the utilization rate as one of the leading indicators of efficiency — rates that are too high can have adverse effects. Still, if they are too low, it can point to scope creep or inefficient workflows. Find out more about managing your agency’s utilization rate:

Aligning Projects with Business Goals

Whether it’s improving brand awareness, increasing customer engagement, or driving sales, your marketing projects need to be aligned with your agency’s strategic goals. Some main tips for internal projects include:

• Involving marketing in high-level processes from the get-go in order to ensure that projects contribute directly to agency growth.
• Identifying and tracking meaningful metrics to track if your initiatives are progressing according to plan.
• Being realistic about the expected results and the time needed to achieve them.

Agency and project alignment is equally important when working with clients. In a multi-project environment, gauging the feasibility and profitability of projects is key to effective prioritization. This, in turn, is crucial to your agency’s continued success.

We ended up terminating contracts with two of our oldest clients after only a few months of using Productive. We thought that we were at least at zero with them, or that we had some small earnings, but it turned out that we were losing money because the money they paid us did not cover salaries, fixed overhead per hour, and variable overhead per hour.

Ilija Brajković, CEO at Kontra Agency  

Ensuring Timely Delivery of Marketing Campaigns

Depending on your project scope, your timelines might differ significantly from one engagement to another. Industry benchmarks suggest a period of 8 to 12 weeks for completing most client marketing plans, including conducting market research and setting goals. In order to complete project deliverables in a timely manner, you’ll need to maintain communication with the client and internal stakeholders, allocate sufficient resources, and closely monitor your progress with creative project management software .

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The Main Phases of Marketing Project Management

Similarly to generic agency project management, a marketing project goes through various phases of the project life cycle, from planning and execution to post-delivery insights.

Marketing Project Planning

The planning stage usually incorporates the development of two essential documents:

• Project charter: This is a document that provides a succinct description of the project, with key marketing goals and constraints, stakeholders, and project budgeting overviews.
• Marketing strategy: A marketing strategy is a more in-depth resource that includes the result of your marketing research (target audience, positioning, channels, metrics for success) and guides the project’s development.

The latter, in particular, can be a blind spot for agencies that do internal marketing projects. In fact, research shows that 47% of agencies that do digital marketing don’t have a fully defined digital marketing strategy (Smart Insights). However, developing one and putting it down on paper is key to driving customer engagement, brand familiarity, and sales alignment.

Setting Realistic Milestones and Deadlines

According to research by RGPM, 31% of project managers report issues with unrealistic deadlines (RGPM). PMI provides part of the reason for why this can occur:

The reality for many of today’s project managers is that they are no longer asked to generate authentic, bottom-up schedules and cost estimates . They’re instead given those values as targets and then have to force-fit their plans to suit the situation.

The drawbacks of setting deadlines based on incomplete data or unrealistic expectations can be significant. From causing burnout in employees, which also leads to lower quality of project deliverables, missed deadlines, lack of trust, and deteriorating client relationships. To combat this, consider the following:

• Make sure to foster historical data, such as reports on estimated vs actual time, in order to be more secure in your future estimations
• Work on open and transparent communication — if you provide clients with insights on your circumstances, you’re liker to avoid sudden requests for changes in project scope
• Use agile project management marketing principles to keep your progress flexible and resilient to potential changes and risks

Monitoring Your Performance

Don’t go into a marketing initiative without defining exactly why you’re pursuing a project and what you want to get out of it. The main way to ensure that you’re working towards a tangible goal is by monitoring key project and agency metrics.

source: PRODUCTIVE HELPS YOU VISUALIZE AND FORECAST KEY METRICS

Some of these metrics include:

• Utilization rate: One of the key capacity planning metrics that depicts how efficient your teams are by using the ratio of time spent on billable work vs total hours worked.
• Lead Generation: Consider your organic traffic, pipeline engagement, and qualified leads in order to optimize marketing and outreach practices.
• Lead Conversion : How many leads are becoming prospects, and how many prospects are being converted to clients? A low lead conversion rate indicates issues in your marketing or sales funnel.
• Profit margins: Calculated by looking at profit divided by revenue. A high profit margin signals you can grow your operations with new staff, technologies, and other investments.

Related : Mastering the Digital Marketing Agency Profit Margin: Tips for Agencies

Efficient Resource Allocation

Capacity planning in agencies is a complex process in itself, made more difficult because a single project manager can lead anywhere from 2 to 10 different projects simultaneously (RGPM).

GET THE MOST OUT OF YOUR AGENCY’S RESOURCES

It includes key steps such as:

• Identifying required resources: The identification step includes everything from knowing which resource is the right for the task to predicting potential gaps and how to resolve them.
• Assigning tasks: After the first step is completed, your employees’ expertise and availability should be considered when assigning tasks.
• Staying proactive: Whether you’re allocating weekly or biweekly, a project manager’s work is continuous. For example, sudden sick leave can significantly impact your deadlines — good allocation means responding to changes quickly while mitigating impacts on budgets or deadlines.
• Monitoring utilization: Keep an eye out on your employees’ billable hours and efficiency in completing tasks. If there are issues in the process, analyze and address their underlying cause. Do employees lack the proper information to complete their work, or are they overburdened with other tasks?

Risk Management

According to research, 65% of senior finance leaders believe that the volume and complexity of corporate risks have changed “mostly” or “extensively” over the last five years. Risk management can be complex, as it requires significant foresight and strategies to resolve it. Some common practices include:

• Risk avoidance: If a part of your marketing strategy seems complex to execute, i.e. technology-wise, you can avoid it by searching for a more reliable alternative.
• Risk reduction: If you can pinpoint a specific risk associated with your project, you can take steps to mitigate it. For example, the risks of launching marketing campaigns in an unknown channel are reduced by conducting in-depth research.
• Risk transference: This includes sharing or transferring risk to an outside source. For example, if a marketing campaign includes organizing a large-scale event, this can be outsourced to a specialized PR or event planning agency.
• Risk acceptance: Risk acceptance is usually used if the potential rewards outweigh the risk. For example, using an innovative technique to market a product launch instead of a tried-and-tested, but outdated method.

Communication Strategies

Strategies for effective communication with stakeholders are universal across various types of client projects. They include being proactive: for example, making sure that you send key reports without waiting to be prompted. Otherwise, you can foster transparency in multiple ways, such as by sharing access to your market project management software. Clients can then get first-hand insights into your task management and leave their feedback.

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Communication strategies are also important for handling internal teams. According to a survey by Fierce, Inc., 86% of respondents believe that lack of collaboration or ineffective team communication is to blame for workplace failures. This is why ensuring that all key team members are aligned on project goals and how to achieve them is so important for effective workstreams .

Tools for Project Management Marketing

According to PMI, organizations that use manual processes for managing their data, such as Excel, or use outdated marketing project management tools have a project failure rate of 18%. With features such as billable hours tracking, collaboration and communication, budgeting, and more, organizations can optimize business performance and increase efficiency. Tools can be specialized or comprehensive when it comes to their functionalities.

• Specialized tools : Focus on delivering a specific feature, such as time tracking, accounting, or collaboration tools.
• Comprehensive tools: Support various facets of marketing agency operations in one platform, such as resource, financial, and project management.

Though an agency can have specialized tools in its stack, using an all-in-one solution for project management can be especially beneficial. Some advantages include centralized data, standardized workflows, and streamlined day-to-day activities.

With growth comes a bigger need for one source of truth, and that’s what Productive gives us, and that’s really important.

Maike Vilé, Partner at Makerstreet

Productive – The Best All-in-One Management Tool for Marketing Projects

If you’re looking for marketing agency software to manage your tasks, documentation, and budgeting, look no further than Productive . This comprehensive platform provides agencies of all shapes and sizes with the tools to efficiently manage their current and future projects.

SUPPORT COLLABORATION WITH VISIBILITY INTO PROJECT PROGRESS

Some of its key features for marketing departments include:

• Project Views: Visualize and manage your project lifecycle with various customizable dashboards, including Gantt and Kanban.
• Time Tracking : Use Productive’s integrated time tracking to easily manage time entries or automatically sync it with your bookings in your Resourcing.
• Budgeting : Whether you’re working on a one-time or retainer project with a fixed or hourly rate, you can build your project budgets and get real-time insights in Productive.
• Financial Forecasting: Learn more about your key agency metrics, including revenue, profit margin, and budget burn, across the project timeline.
• Docs : Create essential documents, like a project charter or marketing strategy, and share them with key stakeholders.
• Sales Pipeline : Drive alignment between sales and marketing by managing your sales cycle, forecasting revenue, and getting insights into your performance.

Additional features include: Billing , Purchase Orders , Automations , Permission Builder .

If I had to describe the one thing that Productive does for us it’s decision-making . Not just in my role, but across our finance and operations team. We are in and out of the platform on a daily basis, using the data and the reporting to help us make key commercial decisions about how we’re running the business, running our accounts, how we’re hiring and managing resources. It really is the tool for helping us make decisions.

Learn how Productive supports your agency’s long-term growth .

Marketing Project Management: Examples of Strategies

There are two main frameworks that you can use to combat poor communication and define your marketing goals: SMART and RACI.

Defining SMART Goals

The SMART framework lists five essential factors to consider when turning your plans into action. Your marketing objectives should be:

• Specific : Your goals should clearly state what needs to be accomplished and who’s responsible for it.
• Measurable : Incorporate measurable benchmarks to determine whether the project is progressing according to the project schedule.
• Achievable : Consider past data to ensure that your project objectives are realistic and can be completed.
• Relevant : Make sure that your specific goals are in alignment with your agency’s strategic aims.
• Time-bound: Set specific project milestones to ensure that your project progress is on track.

Using a RACI Matrix

The RACI Matrix is a popular framework for defining and communicating roles and responsibilities within project teams. It includes four main categories:

• Responsible : Who is responsible for completing a specific task or objective?
• Accountable: Who is the person who signs off on a completed project task?
• Consulted : Who needs to provide additional information to complete the work?
• Informed : Who needs to be updated about the progress but does not need to contribute to the completion of the task?

The RASCI framework adds an additional role, that of Supportive , or those employees that can provide assistance to others in responsible roles.

3 Tips and Tricks for Successful Management

1. promoting stakeholder buy-in.

Lack of stakeholder buy-in can negatively affect client projects, for example, inaccurate estimations, unannounced dependencies, lack of support, unidentified risks, and more. In order to get everyone fully on board, a project manager should aim to get a full understanding of the needs of a particular stakeholder and ensure that they’re fully aware of what they expect or require from the project. Buy-in is equally crucial for internal initiatives. Changes should be introduced and disseminated from the top brass to the ground level. Another important factor is open communication and willingness to receive feedback. Ensuring all team members understand the benefits of significant changes and allowing them to comment on them is important for agency-wide adoption.

2. Fostering Expertise

Your agency can’t stay competitive without a skilled workforce. Multiple research has shown the benefits of upskilling or reskilling employees in favor of hiring new staff — developing capacity building plans , both on a long-term and short-term level, ensures that you can fill project requirements. This is applicable to a larger extent to various types of marketing projects, as they lean heavily on technology and consumer behavior, both of which are changing at a rapid pace. Equipping your team with the necessary expertise on emerging technologies, data analytics, and digital marketing trends ensures that you can meet the demands of the volatile industry landscape. Another great way to support your business knowledge management is to consider holding project post-mortems for each client engagement. These meetings can be an excellent tool for finding process improvements and supporting best practices for future projects.

3. Minimizing Tool Overload

According to research from Personio, 37% of employees report that there are too many digital tools to use, and as many as 36% state that having too many tools in their stack disrupts their productivity. Other drawbacks can include:

• Lack of data standardization
• Working in silos across departments
• Increased tech overhead

Although it’s unlikely that you’ll find one single tool for all various facets of an agency’s day-to-day operations, you can often condense multiple functionalities of project marketing management into one.

We used to have a project management tool, a time tracking tool, a support tool, a way we handled opportunities and sales-driven processes. Those were all separate tools that we had, and it wasn’t good. It also meant that all that data was being lost every time we switched between tools, or we had to find a way to normalize the data between them. And now, the fact that it’s all in one, it’s really a game changer.

Bryan Casler, Vice President of Digital Strategy at 4Site Interactive Studios

Switch from multiple tools to a single agency management solution .

How to Support Your Marketing Project Management Process

A marketing project manager has their work cut out for them. Thankfully, with the right mindset and marketing project management software, success isn’t too far away. This includes strategies such as defining and aligning your marketing objectives with agency goals, managing risk, and promoting collaboration and communication throughout the process. Finally, investing in a good marketing tool is a key part of handling the above. The right tool can help you minimize tool overload, get reliable data, and manage marketing processes efficiently. To learn more about how you drive successful marketing projects, book a demo with Productive.

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Marketing Project Management Guide

Explore project management tools tailored to your needs — try Wrike free for two weeks.

The Ultimate Guide to Marketing Project Management

The words marketing project often conjure up images of printed fliers stuffed in the daily paper or an ad exec perfecting ad copy. But marketing project management includes far more than fliers and ads. Marketing project management activities are intertwined with the core of every business, whether you offer a product or a service. Long before any ads are written and long after fliers are printed, marketing teams are hard at work maximizing ways to reach customers and clients. 

Marketing project management involves researching market opportunities, strategizing projects to increase market share and maximize profit, and then planning and implementing those strategies in ways that will help the company achieve its goals. But this process can be riddled with bottlenecks, inefficiencies, and process breakdowns. 28% of marketers in one survey cited “lack of strategy” as their top concern, with a further 25% naming “limited internal resources” as an obstacle. 

Marketing project managers have an extensive remit when it comes to executing projects, managing campaigns, and planning events. This requires in-depth knowledge of customer profiles and behaviors and a bank of potential ways to reach them — from email marketing to content marketing, social media marketing, and event marketing. These campaigns require long-range planning, ease of approvals between departments, and retrospective performance analysis of each step.

With such varied responsibilities, marketing project managers and their teams need all the help they can get to ensure that appropriate data is collected and analyzed, marketing strategies are chosen and implemented, and results are studied to inform future marketing projects.

That’s why we’ve put together this comprehensive marketing management guide to give you a solid foundation in marketing program management concepts, terms, strategies, and tools. 

From creating your marketing team to designing your marketing project management plan, you’ll learn exactly what successful project management in marketing requires. We’ll also provide you with resources from our Wrike blogs, ebooks, videos, and infographics. We know our Wrike marketing management guide will set you up for marketing success.

What's in the Marketing Project Management Guide?

An introduction to marketing management, the role of a marketing project manager, building a marketing team, how to create a marketing strategy, developing a marketing plan, how to build a marketing calendar, an introduction to martech, choosing marketing tools & software, a guide to marketing analytics, how to create a marketing dashboard, marketing resource management guide, marketing glossary, marketing concepts.

• Marketing Funnel
• Targeting In Marketing
• Lead In Marketing
• Marketing Asset Management
• What is A/B Testing in Marketing
• Marketing Reach
• Marketing Channel

Marketing Tools and Software

• Marketing System
• Brand Management Software
• Marketing Asset Management Software
• Marketing Events Calendar

Marketing Roles & Skills

• Marketing Hard Skills
• Marketing Functions
• Marketing vs Marketing Management
• CMO Responsibilities

Marketing Performance Management

• KPIs in Marketing
• Marketing ROI
• Marketing Performance
• LTV in Marketing
• Marketing Metrics vs Marketing Analytics
• Marketing CPA
• Marketing Efficiency
• Measuring Marketing Performance
• Marketing Performance Assessment
• Most Important Marketing Metrics

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• Product Management
• Solve User-Reported Issues
• Find Issues Faster
• Optimize Conversion and Adoption

How to create a go-to-market strategy: Guide with examples

Editor’s note : This blog was updated on 7 April 2023 to add a section on how to develop a go-to-market strategy and specify more examples of go-to-market strategy tactics and programs.

Go-to-market (GTM) strategy is key to any product’s success. Without one, you’re essentially driving blind — trying to introduce a product to an audience that, chances are, doesn’t know anything about it. The word “strategy” in “go-to-market strategy” emphasizes this well, you can’t just throw a last-minute plan together and hope it’ll work.

Thought and intentionality are the drivers behind go-to-market strategy. You have to really understand your target audience, its needs, and the context around you.

In this article, we’ll talk about what go-to-market strategy means, how to develop a GTM strategy, the various factors and considerations to account for, and demonstrate some examples of GTM strategy along the way. Let’s get started.

What is a go-to-market (GTM) strategy?

So what does go-to-market strategy mean, exactly? The name is pretty telling; go-to-market strategy is a thorough, comprehensive plan outlining how a company is going to bring a new product into the market it’s hoping to serve. The plan truly goes from A–Z and includes all aspects of the product, starting from research at the very beginning and to post-launch promotional activities and advertising (and beyond) at the end.

The objective of a go-to-market (GTM) strategy is simple: drive awareness, accessibility, and retention of a product from initial validation to scaling it for a much larger market population. As you might imagine, the strategies adopted will transform over time based on market confirmation.

The general notion is that go-to-market strategies are transactional, so companies often wait to execute until the product is ready to deploy.

However, a good product manager initiates the GTM strategy when conceptualizing a product idea. The strategy should capture new realities around business models, market maturity, brand positioning, competitive forces, and growth strategy.

The evolution of new business models

Software-defined solutions and as-a-service business models necessitate a transformational approach to GTM strategy. Products do not reach end-of-life anymore; they evolve and drive continuous innovation.

The lifecycle below represents how organizations now think about products and solutions. Every lifecycle step requires a conscious approach to a market strategy, not just the launch phase.

The product inception phase captures a pain point and creative solutions. Product strategy, however, needs to consider the product’s market entry, differentiation, viability, and feasibility. Each phase validates the hypothesis and refines the GTM strategy as we move through the cycle.

Products are rarely fire-and-forget nowadays. The deliberation on building stickiness, increasing switching costs, and creating long-term value for the customer is crucial.

Setting the scene: Analyze, aspire, action, accomplish

When introducing a new product in a new or an existing market, I often use the Analyze, Aspire, Action, Accomplish model to build a proper idea of what we’re working towards. It applies various frameworks at distinct stages of the product lifecycle. These help set us up for success as we build a GTM strategy:

The intent is not to explain the tools captured within the framework but to present the key outcomes from each phase:

The analysis phase requires a solid understanding of customer pain points (said and unsaid), market dynamics (what is available, why it is insufficient), and potential solutions to minimize or eradicate the gap.

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At this stage, the GTM aspects are usually not critical. However, solving a problem with no avenue to reach the customer is also futile.

The aspirational step is where I believe the hypothesis for a GTM strategy is crucial. In product parlance, segmenting, targeting, and positioning (STP) is an essential activity.

The key questions here are:

• In what market segments do you have a real opportunity?
• What is the path to get there (e.g., who else do you need to come along with you)?

This step should also inform you of critical competitors and the differentiators you need to win in the market. It should define your ideal customer profile, and, more crucially, identify beachhead customers .

The action stage should help determine a product-market fit , messaging (writing a press release, the FAQs, credentials that you expect to have, etc.), and the different  personas  you must target.

Once the product is launched to the market , the accomplish stage should help with data-driven product refinement .

A conceptual example

When pursuing my MBA, my group worked (unofficially) with Marriott on a concept idea to offer an experience-first product. While considering Marriott’s breadth of brands, we selected JW Marriott and Sheraton to provide an experience beyond just room and food to the middle-aged and Millennials, respectively.

The package considered everything from travel, activities, pricing, and even specific pilot locations where the offer would be live first. The concept also identified messaging for the personas and essential ecosystem strategies, including travel and experience partners.

How to develop a go-to-market strategy

Now, let’s go over how to develop a GTM strategy. The Analyze, Aspire, Action, Accomplish model I shared earlier is kind of like a mini version of what I’m about to break down.

You can use the following steps — or categories of steps, rather — for holistic GTM strategy.

• Initial research and context
• Evaluating product-market fit
• Competition
• Setting goals and milestones
• Launching the plan

1. Initial research and context

It’s vital to understand the context of the world around you before you try to bring a new product into the mix (or bring an existing product to new markets). Just like the “analyze” component, this step builds the foundation you need for a GTM strategy.

The first thing to consider is how mature the market is. The best GTM strategies to adopt often depend on the market’s maturity, which you can evaluate using the Ansoff matrix:

Consider an electric vehicle, for example. It is a new product in an existing market. The adoption threshold is dependent on solving the range anxiety.

As Tesla demonstrated, building a supercharger network was equally important as making the car itself.

I would argue that autonomous cars will be a new product in a new market. It’s easy to imagine this as an existing market, but an autonomous car has the potential to completely redefine how people think about car ownership.

Further, societal context is important. In 2013, Google launched Google Glass. Though Google thought it was super cool and innovative to bring a wearable, information-displaying headset in public, they failed to recognize the privacy concerns that came along with that.

The general public immediately saw through to the privacy concerns, and Google Glass didn’t last very long as a result. If they’d considered the context and implications around their new product sooner, they hopefully wouldn’t have poured as much time and resources into it.

2. Evaluating product-market fit

It should be no surprise that product-market fit holds a big piece of the GTM strategy pie.

Product-market fit refers to the product’s ability to fulfill the unmet needs of your target market. Driving your value proposition here is extremely important, as you want people to clearly see how you meet their needs in ways competitors can’t.

The general idea is to find the sweet spot where you’re offering just enough value that your customers find the product usable and your business sees it as feasible and viable. There are lots of ways to capture this data across both qualitative and quantitative methods . Things like customer interviews, surveys, and focus groups can be a great way to capture this information. You can also do observation studies to see if your product is being used by target customers in the way that you think and hope they are.

And, if you have a product that already exists in the market but isn’t being adopted as highly as you hoped (or is slowly being overtaken by competitors), it may be time for a rebrand.

In 2018, we researched cars, their perceived branding, and their attempt to rebrand themselves. It was interesting that vehicles such as Buick and Cadillac had transformed themselves to be more amenable to upper-middle-class people in their early 40s (BMW and Lexus had held this market), whereas Lincoln failed.

Such repositioning requires a considerable thought process from a GTM perspective, especially regarding social messaging, following, advertisements, product considerations — the whole nine yards.

3. Competition

What are your competitors doing? What are they not doing? How do customers perceive your competition’s products?

These are all great questions that can help you build a successful GTM strategy. You don’t need to namedrop your competitors to convince people that your product has an edge over theirs, but you can emphasize how your product differentiates itself from others on the market. If it’s obvious, customers will notice all on their own.

Though there are many tried and true methods for competitive analysis , here a few steps to follow to kick it off:

• Create a shortlist of competitors
• Do a competitor deep dive
• Look at holistic overview and strategy

By fleshing out these ideas, you can get a better view of who you’re directly competing with. Though you’re in the same market, you may not be direct competitors, and looking at these three steps can help you draw those conclusions.

Take Microsoft Surface and Apple iPads for example. Yes, they’re both tablets and would be considered competitors for that reason, but their features and target audiences don’t really make them competitors after all.

Further, when evaluating the competition, think creatively. Brita, for example, opted not to compete with other kitchen appliances. Instead, it was sold in the water aisle, which positioned it to compete with bottled water.

Such decisions are not determined at the launch stage but during inception. Cialis beat Viagra by redefining the customer purchase criteria where Levitra wasn’t. Without going into too much detail, let’s just say that product differentiation was crucial in this endeavor.

4. Setting goals and milestones

Goal setting and tracking are going to help you figure out where you’re placing in your GTM race and keep you on track. Without clear goals that everyone buys into, there will be no real direction that your team is working towards, and you’ll find yourself in disarray.

I know everyone talks about SMART goals, it’s basically drilled into our heads. SMART goals, to everyone’s disdain, really do make all the difference. Setting goals that are smart, measurable, attainable, etc. makes it easier to see where and how you’re falling flat.

On the flip side, milestones will help hold you accountable to the pace you’re at — are you behind schedule, ahead, or right on the money? They provide an opportunity to evaluate your tactics, identify bottlenecks, and pivot when needed. By regularly reviewing your progress against milestones, you can make data-driven decisions to optimize your GTM strategy, improving your chances of success in the market.

For example, say the goal is to increase the number of new customers by 18 percent within the first six months after launching the product. You have a specific number to reach within a certain time frame, and in the case of our example, we’ll say it’s not an overly egregious goal. Your milestone can be to acquire 10 percent of these new customers by the end of the eighth week. The track is set, and you can adjust methods depending on how far behind or ahead you are of that finish line.

5. Launching the plan

Everything is in place — it’s time to launch! Boots are on the ground. This is the most nerve-wracking and critical stage of the journey. You’re going to need to align a number of things here.

First and foremost, ensure communication is clear and specific across all functions. Sales and marketing need to know what’s going on, as do executive teams and adjacent product functions. Collaborate effectively and ensure you’re informing the right stakeholders throughout the launch process.

Similarly to how goals and milestones are crucial, you’ll also need to put some KPIs in place to monitor how your GTM plan is performing. Check them regularly to see how you’re doing and adjust accordingly. There’s no shame in admitting that something needs to change — after all, all products didn’t come out perfectly from the get-go. Be ready to make changes and adjust your plan as needed to respond to changes in the market, feedback from customers, or any unexpected challenges.

Example of go-to-market strategy

As part of our capstone project, thanks to a fantastic initiative from the NIU College of Business, we worked on a real-life GTM, from cradle to grave.

The solution was a way to minimize readmissions. Preventable readmissions (readmission is when a patient returns to the hospital within 21 days after discharge for any reason) cost over  $25 billion , and Medicare incurs more than 60 percent of that cost.

Medicare instituted a penalty for hospitals where readmissions are too high. A database of all hospitals and their readmission rate (and propensity for pen) was available.

Based on the information, we devised a method to segment the ideal market, their demographics, and five states that maximized the sales motion. Note that the “ideal customer profile” is not genuinely perfect — it was a “what’s possible” with the resources available on-hand.

In addition, we identified a set of hospitals that would be the best candidates for a pilot. An extensive amount of math went into parsing through the spreadsheets — my group was willing to recommend me for a Ph.D. just for that work — but we distilled it down to a single roadmap of client profiles (pilot, short-term, long-term).

While the GTM strategy was to work with the hospitals, the eventual goal was to work directly with Medicare to save them at least 30 percent of the $17 billion spent on unnecessary expenses.

Product-led vs. sales-led growth

You’re also going to have to choose if you want to pursue a product-led or sales-led growth approach, as they represent fundamentally different methods of acquiring and retaining customers. Most articles about product-led vs. sales-led growth strategies push one versus the other. The truth is, you have to pick what’s best for your situation. You should also know where the inflection point is to switch from one to the other (or use them in tandem).

Before I go further, let me explain as I best understand it — because my approach often is not to choose between the two consciously.

Product-led growth

A product-led approach often depends on organic growth, backed by an exploratory model (freemium, trial to buy), self-serve capabilities, and a seamless user experience when it comes to setting up and using the product.

Companies spend considerable finance on marketing rather than on the sales motion. The product-led strategy enables a broader net and a lower acquisition cost (CAC).

A prominent example of a B2C product that took a product-led approach is Spotify.

Unbelievably, AWS started as a product-led offering, with self-service capabilities and utilities that enabled faster time-to-market and monitoring usage, free trial, and cost transparency. It held the No. 1 position in cloud hosting and attracted small businesses, especially startups.

However, Azure, being late to the party, took a sales-led approach. It built strong channel and solution partners, offered end-to-end advisory and execution, and quickly catapulted to no. 1, led heavily by large contracts with the top companies in Fortune 500.

AWS has since transitioned to a hybrid model and built a substantial presence in the large-cap market by offering both a sales-led approach and a marketplace, which are add-ons once they acquire a client.

The most significant driver for a hybrid approach is the transformation to as-a-service models. Many organizations consider customer success management as a sales function. While partially true, CSMs are not purely commission-driven and are usually not in the loop during the initial stages of a sale.

The expectation of driving adoption, cross-selling, upselling, and renewals to minimize CAC implies that they provide the convergence between product and sales-led approaches. I reach out to CSMs for product feedback because it tends to be rooted in data

Side note: If you can’t monitor KPIs and back your CSMs, you shouldn’t be in the SaaS business!

Sales-led growth

A sales-led approach to growth, on the other hand, depends heavily on your sales team or channel partners. Depending on your product (transformational versus incremental) and who you are (Amazon versus startup), your sales team will connect with clients, build relationships, explain product benefits, and take it through the contractual process.

As you might imagine, the success of your product also depends on the sales organization’s willingness to sell. If you’re considering shifting from a perpetual to a recurring model and do not regard the sales angle, you’re sure to have a paperweight on your hands!

B2B products that require long contract cycles and considerable time to deploy and onboard often require a sales-led approach. However, this doesn’t imply that sales will influence the product features or roadmap .

Creating a go-to-market strategy is more art than science. However, it is crucial to start with a hypothesis, do it early, and make it fluid enough to pivot based on data.

Consider the type of product you are building, the markets you are targeting to define the brand, the competition, the pilot customers, and the growth strategy you must adopt. While no crystal ball guarantees success, a conscious approach will amplify the probability.

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How to Create a Winning Marketing Project Plan

Planning for marketing projects can be a large undertaking. A business, whether large or small, relies on marketing to develop its brand image, create awareness, and increase demand for products or services. 

Consequently, there is a lot of pressure on marketers to deliver campaigns that improve ROI – and let’s not forget the never-ending demand from stakeholders to “go viral.” That’s why marketing project management , a framework that helps marketers plan, oversee, and deliver on projects is often used as a basis to create successful marketing project plans. 

What is a marketing project plan? 

A marketing project plan is a document or presentation that details the collection of strategies your marketing team will employ to achieve its goals for an upcoming project or period of time – as well as how you plan to implement them. 

Marketing agencies likely work within a project management framework , whereas in-house marketing teams might work on several different initiatives throughout the year.

We’ll get into exactly what you need to include in a marketing project plan later in this blog. That said, marketing plans will also include an overview of your goals, competitors, target market, necessary tasks, KPIs, and timeline. 

Why should you create a plan for marketing projects?

How would you otherwise outline goals, define a strategy, and track outcomes without carefully planning for it? Marketing project plans are used to document and clearly illustrate what you are trying to achieve and how. 

If your marketing project requires approval, having a thoughtful plan in place means you’ll have a tangible document to send to stakeholders for them to consider – a particularly important part of project-based agency work. For a creative agency trying to win a client bid, a well-drafted marketing project plan and persuasive proposal will help set your agency apart. 

Marketing plans are also crucial for in-house marketing teams as it helps marketing managers understand the team’s upcoming activities and how you plan to keep the project on track. 

Plus, according to CoSchedule’s  2022 marketing trend report , organized marketers are nearly 7x more likely to report success than their peers – a jump from 3x more likely in 2018. Implementing a project marketing plan is perhaps the best way to ensure your project stays organized.

What is the difference between a marketing strategy and a marketing plan? 

Yes, a marketing strategy is different than a marketing plan, although one cannot exist without the other. In essence, your marketing strategy outlines how you plan to achieve your long-term goals and your marketing plan is a detailed account of what low-level tasks need to get done to see the strategy through.  

Marketing strategies consist of high-level thinking regarding how you’ll achieve your future goals, maintain your team or company values, and secure a competitive advantage in your efforts. 

For example, if you’re tasked with launching a new product by the end of the year, your strategy will include the types of marketing you plan to utilize in order to successfully launch the product. This could include email marketing, social media content, or a video campaign. 

On the flip side of things, a marketing plan consists of the day-to-day tasks and actions that must be completed in order to act on your strategy and achieve your long-term goals. Using the previous example, your plan would include actually making the videos in the commercial campaign. 

Without a marketing strategy, it will be difficult to plan out your team’s activities, but at the same time, a marketing plan is a very necessary part of carrying out your strategy.

What to include in a project marketing plan 

So much goes into planning a marketing project that it can be difficult to know what to include. You want to provide enough details on what your team will be working on, but at the same time, you don’t want to leave your audience feeling overwhelmed. 

Here’s a look at the main points you should make sure your plan includes: 

1. Executive summary 

If you’ve ever written a business plan before, you’re likely familiar with what goes into an executive summary. In essence, this is a short summary overview of the contents of your plan so that readers are briefed on your overall vision before diving into the details. 

Although this section should come at the very beginning of your plan, some might find it easier to write it once you’ve completed the rest of the plan, since that’s when you’ll have already thought through the particulars of each section. 

Project goals are the backbone of your marketing plan, as they act as a sort of north star that guides the direction of your activities. 

Every team might have a different preference for the framework they prefer to use to set goals. Some utilize Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) , whereas others rely on SMART goals – meaning they set goals that are Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Time-related.

Regardless of the method you use, your goals should be clear in order to clearly define what the team should be working on. Failure to set goals that are both realistic and achievable can cause your team to fall short and waste resources on work that isn’t furthering your main objectives.  

3. Strategies 

Your marketing strategies are the ways you plan to achieve your goals. For instance, if your goal is to launch a campaign that results in a sold-out product launch, your strategies include how you’ll do that – whether through paid advertising, sponsored social media posts, or blog content.

Before you can kick off your marketing project or campaign, it’s critical to have a clear picture of your brand’s messaging. This includes your mission statement, positioning, as well as the value proposition that sets you apart from competitors. Putting these into writing helps establish a strong foundation for your team to work off once the project begins.

4. Marketing team 

For in-house marketing teams, it might already be clear who will be working on this specific project. But if not, this is the part of the plan where you should introduce the team who will help achieve the project goals. 

5. Target market

Building a winning marketing project plan involves a hefty amount of market research, including research on your target market. After all, how are you supposed to successfully launch a marketing campaign without knowledge of the behaviors of your target audience? 

Depending on your goals and objectives, this part of your marketing plan can look several different ways. For example, if your marketing campaign revolves around the launch of a new product, you’ll want to outline your Ideal Customer Profiles (ICPs). 

Creating customer personas involves considering your target buyer’s occupation, demographic information, pain points, and how your product can remedy those pains. Compiling ICPs and personas can be immensely helpful in helping you craft persuasive marketing messaging. 

6. Competitive analysis

The best way to determine how your marketing campaigns can stand out is by examining what your competitors are doing. For a new product launch campaign, you’ll want to look at what types of marketing messages are currently working for them as well as what they’ve previously tried. How can your brand differentiate itself in order to stand out? 

If you’re looking to utilize SEO to launch your new product, analyze the content of your competitors that are currently ranking for the keywords you’re targeting. Examine the health of their website while considering gaps in your own strategy.

For example, if your marketing campaign focuses on social media, examine what mediums your competitors are using. Are they active on TikTok, or is short-form social content an area in which there’s an opportunity to stand out? Is it standard for your competitors to post daily, or do they have a slower posting cadence?

7. Budget and resource allocation

A marketing project plan without a budget estimate would be incomplete. After all, it’s difficult to know if your goals are within reach unless you know how much it will cost to execute your plans. 

In-house marketing teams likely won’t need to incorporate their labor costs into their budget , but agencies that bill clients hourly or work with retainers will need to factor in the cost of their labor, which may require more extensive budget planning . 

Also read: 8 Steps to Track Project Budgets (and Maximize Profits)

Other common costs for marketing budgets include PPC campaigns, sponsored social media posts, focus groups, and outsourced graphic design, among many other potential costs. 

Many project management software tools are able to help speed up your budgeting processes and reduce your administrative burden. Other teams prefer to budget the old-fashioned way with the help of simple spreadsheet templates for budgeting. 

8. Timeline of tasks 

Having your goals and strategies in place is one thing, but executing them is an entirely different challenge. This is why it’s helpful to create a list of tasks that need to be completed as well as a timeline of when they’ll be completed and include both in your marketing project plan. 

This information helps make your plan actionable, as it clearly outlines what’s needed of the team to see the project plans through to completion. Presenting everything in a timeline format helps clients, stakeholders, or executive managers have a better idea of when certain milestones will be completed and ask for timelines to be moved up if necessary. 

Once again, project management software solutions are well-equipped to help you manage and execute your projects. Many tools – such as Rodeo Drive – allow you to assign tasks to marketing team members based on their current workload, which prevents you from overburdening them as the project progresses . 

9. Metrics for measurement 

The best way to measure whether your marketing campaigns were successful is to outline KPIs and specific metrics for success. 

The metrics you’ll want to employ will obviously differ based on your project objectives. For example, if your goal is to drive traffic to your website using a content marketing strategy focused on new blog content, you might want to consider measuring pageviews, click-through rates, and keyword rankings during a particular period. 

Alternatively, if your marketing campaign is centered around a webinar event, perhaps you’ll want to examine the Net Promoter Score (NPS), qualified leads in attendance, or the total number of customers acquired as a result of the event. 

Regardless of the metrics you select, including them as part of your marketing plan will help you track your success as the project progresses, in addition to helping the project team understand what success should look like at the conclusion of the project. 

The role of a marketing project manager 

Leading a marketing team is no easy task. In addition to ensuring the marketing campaign is successful, the project manager is in charge of managing the project scope , making sure the team has enough resources, and balancing the needs and demands of stakeholders. 

Wearing so many different hats during the project requires project managers to possess a variety of soft and hard skills . Critical thinking, communication, time management , and conflict resolution are typically some of the most necessary skills, in addition to adaptability, since it’s unlikely that the project will go exactly as planned. 

That said, marketing is at the core of your project plan, so it’s essential that your project manager has experience successfully completing and managing marketing projects as well. 

Related: 12 Ways to Improve Team Accountability [Remote & Onsite]

How to create a marketing project plan in 6 steps 

Now that we’ve covered everything that goes into a marketing project plan, you might be wondering in what order you should tackle each part of the plan. In general, you can follow these 6 steps to create a comprehensive marketing plan: 

Step 1: Identify your stakeholders   

Your stakeholders are the target audience for your marketing project plan, which is why it’s important to consider their needs and demands before you even begin compiling your plan. 

If you work for an agency, your stakeholders might include the actual client that’s paying for your services, but for an in-house team, stakeholders typically include company executives who you’ll need to report. Overall though, stakeholders include anyone with a vested interest in your project or campaign. 

If you know your stakeholders are extremely budget sensitive or extremely focused on one part of the project, you’ll want to give those items extra attention in your plan. 

Also read:  15 Marketing Agency Software To Use in 2023

Step 2: Assemble your team 

The question of who’s going to work on your project is an important one. Some project objectives might require team members with skills and experience beyond that of your current team. 

For example, if your campaign has a PR component and no one on your team has experience placing articles in sought-after publications, perhaps you’ll want to point out this gap to stakeholders and pitch a third-party PR firm to help out. 

Step 3: Build a project communication plan

Poor communication causes projects to fail. Luckily, you can prevent this from happening by creating a communication management plan . 

This document should outline how often communication will occur and through which channels. That way, stakeholders know how often they should expect to hear updates on project progress, and marketing team members understand how often they should communicate their progress. Maybe updates will occur through a weekly email, or perhaps through a quarterly meeting. 

Step 4: Write down all required tasks 

The best way to illustrate that a plan is actionable and achievable is by noting what needs to get done to complete the project. Not only will this help you once it’s time to assign tasks to your team members, but it will give your stakeholders a better idea of what the team will be working on. 

Step 5: Finalize your schedule 

Your marketing plan should preemptively answer the questions you anticipate your stakeholders will ask. “When will the marketing campaign be completed?” is inevitably a question you’ll hear them ask. 

As such, after you’ve created a list of tasks that need to get done, it’s wise to finalize a timeline. This will help ensure everyone is on the same page regarding deadlines, and stakeholders can let you know immediately if the timeline needs to be adjusted. 

Step 6: Compile a risk management plan 

Risk management is sometimes overlooked by marketing project managers until it’s too late. This process involves identifying, evaluating, and monitoring risks that can interfere with the team’s ability to complete the project. 

Project risks can include a range of things, including everything from one of your team members going out on maternity leave to the unpredictable availability of certain resources you can’t complete the project without. Giving some thought to these potential risks ahead of time allows you to be better prepared to handle them, should they occur. 

Ace your marketing projects with Rodeo Drive 

It’s no secret that marketing project planning can be challenging. Surprisingly, 65% of marketers don’t use a project management software, despite the fact that those who do are 4x more likely to report success than their counterparts. 

That’s why we created Rodeo Drive – an all-in-one project management software tool built with the needs of creative teams in mind. Rodeo Drive makes it easier than ever for marketers to access all of the project management features they need – all in one place. Users can build budgets, send estimates and invoices, and track their time directly from the platform. 

The best part is, all of Rodeo Drive’s features are interconnected, meaning your budget will update in real time as your team records their hours worked. This means you’ll instantly know when your projects go over budget, and Rodeo Drive’s reports give you insights on things like your project profitability and employee productivity. 

All in all, Rodeo Drive allows you to spend more time doing what you do best – creating successful marketing campaigns. 

Why not see if Rodeo Drive can make your life easier? Get started for free.

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What Is a Marketing Plan and How Do I Make One? (Template Included)

Marketing planning doesn’t get the respect that it’s due. No matter how great the product or service, it will wither on the vine and die if no one knows about it. That’s where marketing comes in. But marketing doesn’t just happen: You’ll need to create a marketing plan. You might even say it’s like a project because it is. And any project manager can tell you that without a marketing plan, a project is aimless and destined for failure.

All businesses need a marketing plan to succeed. Yet so many businesses think they don’t have the time or money to invest in one. When funds get tight, it’s usually the marketing budget that suffers the cuts. This is unfortunate because a marketing plan it’s what can return a business to profitability.

If you’re looking to get the most out of your marketing strategies, then take the time to learn how to create a marketing plan for your business.

What Is a Marketing Plan?

A marketing plan consists of all the strategies that a company will execute to reach its marketing goals over a period of time. Marketing plans usually outline marketing activities on a monthly, quarterly or annual basis.

Therefore, the first thing to know about a marketing plan, as any project manager will tell you, is to do the research. A plan is not created in a vacuum. It must have context. For one thing, there are likely to have been similar marketing efforts in the past. These can provide valuable historic data to guide your new plan.

Project management software can help you make a marketing plan more effectively. ProjectManager is software with multiple project views to help you plan, schedule and track your marketing plan. To get started, list all your marketing activities, due dates, assignees and more on the list view. Once you’ve organized your marketing plan, you can view it as a Gantt chart to allocate resources and share it as a kanban board for your marketing team to execute their work. All views are updated in real time to keep everyone working better together. Get started with ProjectManager today for free.

Elements of a Marketing Plan

Some examples of marketing strategies that can be part of a marketing plan are online advertising, email marketing, content marketing, social media management, events, etc. Marketing plans vary greatly but they all share these basic elements:

• Executive Summary: Summarizes the content of your marketing plan. It’s also used for business cases and project proposals.
• Marketing Goals: Define the goals that your marketing plan will achieve, and how those align with the strategic goals of your business plan.
• Key Performance Indicators (KPI): Every marketing strategy needs key performance indicators you can use to measure its success.
• Brand Strategy: Here you’ll need to define important aspects of your brand’s strategy such as your value proposition, marketing mix and growth strategy.
• Market Research: Market research is critical for the success of your marketing plan. You’ll need to define what’s the total addressable market for your product, what’s your market share and what’s your target market. Additionally, you need to conduct a competitive analysis to identify your competitors and how to outperform them.
• SWOT Analysis: This analysis allows you to do an assessment of your strengths and weaknesses and how those relate to the opportunities and threats of your market.
• Marketing team: Assemble a marketing team to achieve your goals.
• Marketing Budget: Create a marketing budget to manage the resources and costs associated with each marketing activity. You can use our free marketing budget template to get started.
• Marketing Strategies: Some marketing plans may require several marketing strategies that are executed simultaneously. Here you’ll want to describe all the marketing activities that you’ll execute, such as your content marketing plan, social media marketing, search engine optimization, email marketing, and other marketing channels.

Structure & Approval Process

The marketing plan is also part of a larger business plan. The marketing plan, however, is mostly concerned with advertising and marketing efforts related to the overall strategy of the organization and specifically its marketing goals.

There is a formal structure to most plans and a marketing plan is no different. It will contain historic data, predictions for the future and marketing activities to reach the goals set by the plan. As noted, the first step is to identify a customer need to target and then devise how to exploit that for profit.

The marketing department of an organization is responsible for the making of a marketing plan, which will have to be approved by the executive in charge of that department before being presented to their superiors.

How to Create a Marketing Plan

When making a strategic marketing plan it’s helpful to seek the help of the experts within your marketing team. Marketing managers are responsible for planning big and small projects and their expertise is helpful to guide a marketing plan. The emphasis here is on the plan, which regardless of the industry, shares a common marketing plan template .

Here are 7 steps to creating a marketing plan.

1. Identify Stakeholders

In project management, the stakeholders are like the clients or customers. When creating a marketing plan, your stakeholders are the executives you are reporting to in your organization. They’re the ones who are the reason for the marketing plan. Think of this as the market research part of the plan. You want to identify the stakeholders within your organization, so you can tailor a marketing plan to meet their requirements and achieve the marketing goals of the company.

Assemble Your Team

Any plan must be executed and that’s where the team comes in. You need to ensure that your marketing team members have the skills that you require to get the job done. For example, you’ll need digital marketing experts if you intend to execute a content marketing plan that involves social media marketing, paid advertising, search engine optimization and blog posting.

2. Create a Communication Plan

Project managers, like marketers, understand the importance of effective communications. The project manager is not only managing their team and making sure the project is on course, they also have to communicate the project’s progress to the stakeholders and directions to the marketing team. How this is done and with what frequency is decided in your communication plan. You can easily make your own with this communication plan template .

3. Create Task List

Every marketing campaign is made up of smaller projects, called marketing strategies or marketing activities. For example, if your marketing goal is to increase sales by 10 percent, then you’d put that on top of a work breakdown structure, which allows you to break down the marketing activities that build up to it.

This is how you define the marketing efforts that your plan must take in order to achieve your marketing goals. These tasks can be collected into what project managers call milestones , which are phases of the project. Once done, these marketing activities are prioritized.

4. Make a Schedule for your Marketing Plan

Once you have a thorough list of all the marketing activities and their priority, you can set them up on a project timeline , with start dates and end dates. The schedule is the backbone of any marketing plan and requires a lot of thinking through to make sure you give everything the time it needs to get done while remaining on a timetable that suits the business plan.

5. Generate a Risk Management Plan

Marketing projects, no matter how well they’re planned, never go as intended. There are risks inherent in everything we do, but with so much at stake in your marketing plan, you’ll need to think about what could go wrong and then have a risk management plan in place to resolve it if and when it does.

6. Monitoring and Reporting

Each marketing activity is tied to a deliverable, whether that’s typography for a print ad, casting a commercial or printing direct mail. You’ll want to track those deliverables as you move through the marketing plan to make sure they’re staying within budget and on schedule. This is best done with thorough reporting that can track various project metrics to measure your progress. It also helps to have good reporting when presenting to your stakeholders.

Marketing Plan Example

The best way to explain how to create a marketing plan is an example. Let’s create a marketing plan for a small business. Here’s the marketing plan outline for an email campaign for company XYZ.

XYZ Marketing Plan

Brand Strategy

• Value Proposition: Increase sign-ups by 20 percent.
• Marketing Mix: Email 75 percent, 10 percent paid online ads and 15 percent banner ads on our website.
• Growth Strategy: Click-through rate of 50, free trial 25 percent and 20 percent sign-ups.

Marketing Goals

• Increase revenue by 10 percent for the quarter.
• Key Performance Indicators (KPI): Click-through rate, sign-ups.

Market Research

• Total Addressable Market: Customer base and those who engage on our LinkedIn group and other communities that would benefit from our product.
• Market Share: Only 25 percent, room to grow.
• Target Market: Mid-level executives.
• Buyer Personas: Management, mid-level executive in the financial division of a company.
• Competitive Analysis: Niche is wide open as competition targets leadership.

SWOT Analysis

• Strengths and weaknesses are internal factors. Strengths are the capabilities that allow the company to compete such as its intellectual property and R&D while weaknesses are the internal limitations that the company might have such as lack of production capacity. Opportunities and threats refer to external factors. An opportunity could be an untapped market and a threat could be new competitors.

Marketing Planning

• Marketing team: Part in-house and contract with the agency
• Marketing Budget: $10,000
• Marketing Strategies: Blog posting, social media marketing, webinars and virtual events.
• Content Marketing Plan: Create email content and art, banner ads for our website and posts targeting LinkedIn groups and other online communities.
• Target Audience: Mid-level financial executives.
• Social Media Marketing: Post to all social platforms.
• Search Engine Optimization: Keyword research.
• Email Marketing: Delivered by the agency.
• Marketing Channels: Email, online communities, social.

Free Marketing Plan Template

Our free marketing plan template is a great place to start creating a marketing plan for your organization. We also have many project management templates that can help you manage your marketing projects.

Marketing Plan Basics

As noted, the marketing plan is a course of marketing strategies that are executed to achieve the marketing goals of an organization. Therefore, when creating a marketing plan it is crucial to have a thorough understanding of the following aspects.

What is the market you’re targeting? Once you’ve identified it, research it and gather all the data points necessary to provide a sharp picture of that market and its needs. This includes customers in that market, but also any market dynamics, patterns and sales history.

Competition

It’s unlikely that you’ll be the only business offering a product or service to a market. Therefore, you’ll have competition. Who are they? How will you differentiate yourself from them with your value proposition? A SWOT analysis can help you understand your position in the market.

Any marketing plan must be built on a strategic plan that coordinates advertising, direct marketing, training, trade shows and any other arm of the campaign.

All plans are anchored to an agreed-upon amount of money to fund them. This starts with the marketing executives who decide on what goals the market plan should achieve and how much they estimate the cost to reach them. The project budget must be realistic and within the financing constraints of the larger business.

All plans have a goal, and the goal should be attainable. It’s not a vision statement aiming high, but realistic objectives for the marketing plan. This large goal is the rule by which marketing success will be ruled.

Marketing Mix

The traditional marketing mix consists of the “four Ps” which are product, price, place and promotion. However, there are other types of the marketing mix that add more “Ps” such as people, process and physical evidence. Regardless of the one you choose for your marketing management purposes, you’ll need one to meet the needs of their customers and return a maximum profit for the company.

No plan can gauge its success if it’s not tracking and analyzing its actual versus planned results. Tracking the success of the marketing programs is key, but so is tracking the deliverables that are part of the plan. Tracking the execution of the plan is something that a project manager does all the time, and we’ll get to that in a moment. Tracking the progress the marketing plan is making towards its goal requires key performance indicators (KPIs) to measure and adjust as needed to stay on track.

ProjectManager and Marketing Plans

If a project manager can help marketers make marketing plans work better, then marketers should use the same tools as project managers. ProjectManager is that project management tool: it’s an award-winning software that helps marketing teams plan, manage and track their projects with accuracy and ease.

The project plan can be a pain, collecting and scheduling tasks, defining resources and so on. It’s a lot of work and made more complicated by difficult spreadsheets. But with ProjectManager the tasks are easy to manage and assign. Add deadlines, and they’re automatically charted across a timeline. You’ve got a schedule that easy.

But a plan isn’t just a schedule. The online Gantt chart in ProjectManager gives you more control over tasks that might be tied to other tasks. If you don’t identify those early on, they’ll be trouble later. The Gantt is simple to edit, as even the best laid plans change.

How do you get the plan and your team on the same page? You can start by assigning them to tasks right from the Gantt. Then they can manage their work and collaborate with their teammates, while you track how they’re doing while theye’re doing it.

Multiple Views Make Things Easy for Everyone

Marketing plans involve more than one team. There can be creative teams that are building the ad materials and a Gantt chart could make their eyes glaze over. ProjectManager has multiple views to suit everyone on the marketing team.

One of those project views is a kanban board . It shows teams what tasks are ready for them to work on and gives you transparency into their workload, which keeps projects on track.

You need to monitor the project and stakeholders want progress reports. ProjectManager has you covered. Because ProjectManager is cloud-based, all status updates are instantly reflected throughout the software, including the dashboard, which shows up-to-the-minute data in easy to read charts. You can’t find a better tool to plan your next marketing campaign.

Related Content

Creating a marketing plan can be overwhelming, especially for new marketing managers. That’s why we’ve created blogs, e-books, templates and guides to help you with your marketing management needs. Here are some of them.

• 10 Free Marketing Templates for Excel, Word and More
• Marketing Implementation 101: How to Implement Your Marketing Plan
• Why Marketing Teams Absolutely Need a Project Manager
• 3 Project Management Tool Tips for Marketing Teams

ProjectManager is a cloud-based project management software with features to help marketers with every step of their marketing plan and execution of marketing campaigns. Plan, monitor and report on your marketing plan with one software that gives your teams the tools they need to collaborate for greater productivity. Make better marketing plans with ProjectManager today with this free 30-day trial .

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What is a Go-to-Market Strategy? GTM Plan Template + Examples

Published: April 26, 2024

To have a successful product launch, you need to craft a thoughtful, actionable, effective go-to-market (GTM) strategy framework.

Without proper planning, it’s impossible to know if you’re chasing the wrong audience, are too early or too late to a given market, or targeting a market that's too saturated with similar solutions.

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To make the process easier to navigate, I’ll going to walk you through everything you need to know to build a killer go-to-market strategy in this article. This guide can be used for startups, B2B businesses, and virtually any new venture you plan on launching.

• What is a Go-to-Market Strategy?

Go-to-Market Strategy Purpose

Who needs a go-to-market strategy, go-to-market strategy benefits, go-to-market strategy framework, how to build a go-to-market strategy, go-to-market strategy tips.

• Go-to-Market Plan Template

Go-to-Market Strategy Examples

What is a go-to-market (gtm) strategy.

A go-to-market (GTM) strategy is a step-by-step plan designed to bring a new product to market and drive demand. It helps identify a target audience, outline marketing and sales strategies, and align key stakeholders. While each product and market will be different, a well-crafted GTM strategy should identify a market problem and position the product as a solution.

I have to note that go-to-market strategies aren’t exclusive to physical products, as you can create a GTM plan for a new service, branch of your company, or even an entirely new business. 

The purpose of any GTM strategy is to have a set plan for how your company will bring your offer to market with as little risk as possible. 

It aligns all involved stakeholders on overall processes (whether directly involved or not), helps you get in front of the right people (your target audience), and helps you effectively convey value to drive conversions. 

Your go-to-market strategy is essentially a handy roadmap to success that measures the viability of your solution’s success and predicts its performance based on market research, prior examples, and competitive data. 

Ultimately, you want to create a plan that helps you competitively position your offer, set the product or service apart from the competition, and generate leads and customer retention. 

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• Sales Plan Template

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Since, as I mentioned above, GTM strategies aren’t exclusive to physical products, any business that is introducing something new to market and wants to effectively reach its audience and drive (sustainable) business growth needs (or would benefit from) a go-to-market strategy. For example:

• Established businesses launching new products or breaking into new markets with new customer segments need a go-to-market strategy to aid a successful entry. 
• A small business looking to expand beyond its market or introduce new products would benefit from a GTM strategy to guide its expansion efforts. 
• Businesses undergoing strategic changes, like mergers, acquisitions, or new business model changes, would benefit from updating an existing or creating a new GTM strategy that aligns with any new visions or directions. 
• Companies facing increased competition can use a GTM strategy to draw out key differentiators that help attract customers.

As you develop a new product or service, it’s vital to start drawing a go-to-market strategy that’s customized to fit your budget and your buyer persona . Although it takes a great amount of effort, time, money and resources, a well-planned go-to-market strategy can significantly benefit your project.

Create Alignment

Alignment is essential when preparing to launch a new product or service.

Whether you’re a product designer or a social media coordinator, everyone needs to be on the same page because you’re all contributing to and executing on elements of the strategy. 

Go-to-market strategies help maintain alignment throughout the product lifecycle with roadmaps and planning documents that inform everyone on who handles what. Without this alignment, your process can get unorganized quickly, which can lead to miscommunications, missed deadlines, and errors that can cause your project to flop. 

Establish Product-Market Fit

I find that creating a go-to-market plan can prevent many of the mistakes and oversights that can tank new product launches. Poor product-market fit can dampen a launch — even if the product is well-designed and innovative.

When you’ve identified your target audience segments and their specific needs, a GTM strategy helps you tailor things like messaging and pricing to resonate with your intended audience. 

Take Apple, for example. In the 1980s, decades before Steve Jobs launched the game-changing iPhone, he led one of Apple’s biggest flops: the Apple Lisa computer.

Although Lisa had some of the best graphic technology of its time, only 10,000 units were sold. Critics attribute the failure to Lisa’s misleading ads and high price, despite its low processing power.

While Apple and Steve Jobs recovered, smaller companies could have a lot more to lose when bringing a product to market with a poor plan.

Work Out Kinks

While a go-to-market strategy isn't guaranteed to prevent failure, it can help you manage expectations and work out any kinks before you invest in bringing a product to market.

The process of creating a go-to-market strategy allows you to discover gaps in the market, which can help you hone down your product’s niche and better alleviate your buyer persona’s pain points.

Competitive Advantage

Competitor research is a vital part of creating a go-to-market strategy, which makes it one of the biggest benefits of having a GTM strategy: you know exactly how you compare to your competitors and what makes your offer stand out. 

You can differentiate your product from competitors and create a unique value proposition that generates interest and sells your product. 

Cost-saving

With a GTM strategy, you’re much less likely to waste your budget on unnecessary processes that don’t help you meet your goals. 

You’ll be more strategic and focused with your spending in ways that will help you meet your goals, and you’ll make decisions that are better aligned with your budget. 

Accelerated growth 

A high-quality GTM strategy saves you from any wasted time. Sure, you won’t have immediate success, but careful planning tells you exactly which markets to enter and why, which helps you create effective value propositions for your marketing materials and helps you get in front of interested customers at a much faster rate.

To aid you in this process, we have free go-to-market strategy templates that can help you build a strategy that positions your product in front of your target audience.

Go-To-Market Plan Methodologies

I've seen two major methods for developing a go-to-market strategy: the funnel and the flywheel . While the traditional, one-off funnel method focuses on attracting leads and nurturing them into sales, the flywheel approach uses inbound marketing and other strategies to build long-lasting customer relationships.

While the funnel is centered around the awareness, consideration, and decision stages of the customer’s journey, the circular flywheel focuses on attracting, engaging, and delighting prospects, leads, and customers.

When a lead becomes a customer, the flywheel continues as the company is tasked with attracting, engaging, and delighting them all over again with solid customer experiences, new content, and potentially new offerings.

Before I share my go-to-market strategy framework, I thought I’d go over four key points of a GTM plan.

All of these points are integrated into the step-by-step guide I share below, so you don’t need to answer these questions now. Still, they’re useful for keeping in mind — especially if you’re creating a never-before-seen product.

Here are the critical parts of a go-to-market strategy:

• Product-Market Fit: What problem(s) does your product solve?
• Target Audience: Who is experiencing the problem that your product solves? How much are they willing to pay for a solution? What are the pain points and frustrations that you can alleviate?
• Competition and Demand: Who already offers what you’re launching? Is there a demand for the product, or is the market oversaturated?
• Distribution: Through what mediums will you sell the product or service? A website, an app, or a third-party distributor?

Alternatively, you could also try to use go-to-market platforms like Dealfront to help establish and initiate your strategy framework. 

Platforms like Dealfront allow you to pull from four layers of data, enabling you to target your ideal customer, track visitor behavior, reach out to leads, and promote your company with the help of B2B display advertising. 

Now, let’s get started. Below is my step-by-step guide to building your own GTM strategy using the tactics I’ve implemented to build multiple companies throughout the years.

I’ve also outlined how you can iterate and optimize as your company evolves, and you’ll find helpful examples of how we’ve broken these steps down at my most recent company, Automation Hero (formerly SalesHero).

• Use go-to-market strategy templates
• Identify the buying center and personas.
• Craft a value matrix to help identify messaging.
• Test your messaging.
• Optimize your ads based on the results of your tests before implementing them on a wide scale.
• Understand your buyer’s journey.
• Choose one (or more) of the four most common sales strategies.
• Build brand awareness and demand generation with inbound and/or outbound methods.
• Create content to get inbound leads.

1. Use go-to-market strategy templates

Launching a new product or service can get overwhelming very quickly, especially when there are many moving parts and stakeholders. That’s why the first thing you should do when taking a new product to market is to find go-to-market strategy templates that keep you and your team stay aligned and on schedule.

HubSpot offers a free go-to-market kit with multiple templates that help you organize each aspect of your strategy and keep key stakeholders informed on who is responsible for which task.

Download the kit today to get started on your go-to-market strategy.

Each template has its own unique purpose, but they are best utilized in tandem:

• Product Launch Planning Template: Create tasks that need to be completed for the product launch, provide progress updates, and plan social media and PR messaging
• Product Update Email Templates: Internally communicate product updates and changes to your team
• Product Roadmap Template: Create a schedule of all the tasks that will be addressed and who will be handling them
• Product Lifecycle Mapping Template: Keep track of your product’s lifecycle stages
• Product Classification Template: Classify your product and align all teams on product vision, marketing plan, and sales strategy
• SWOT Analysis Template: Determine your product’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and weaknesses, as well as conduct market research on competition
• Sales Plan Template: Outline and communicate sales strategy to stakeholders

2. Identify the buying center and personas.

When preparing your product for market, you must always consider your customer.

According to Gartner, the typical buying group for a complex B2B solution involves six to 10 decision-makers. These people make up what is called the "buying center."

Each of those buyers typically fills one of the following roles (though it’s important to note some job titles might occupy more than one role):

• Initiator: Starts the buying process or shows initial interest
• User: Uses your product regularly
• Influencer: Convinces others the product is needed
• Decision maker: Gives final approval for the purchase
• Buyer: Owns the budget
• Approver: Final approver who pushes the initiative on a larger scale (typically someone in the C-suite)
• Gatekeeper: Blocker in getting a product implemented or approved

These roles vary based on the product, industry, and vertical you’re selling to. I recommend getting your team together to brainstorm the job titles that could be impacted by your solution.

I recommend researching each role to get a general sense of what they do, their goals, and their pain points. Learning who these people are, what motivates them, and what their problems are is critical as they will be the ones to put your product on the map.

Using Automation Hero as an example, the buying center breaks down like this:

But the sales funnel is no longer the best way to look at your buyer’s journey. Instead, I propose using the flywheel methodology , which takes a more holistic approach that puts your customer at the center and turns your leads from prospects to customers to active promoters.

In the flywheel model, customers go through three stages: attract, engage, and delight.

First up is the attract phase. Content at this stage grabs a potential customer’s attention. This can be in the form of a blog, whitepaper, or video. A lead gets here by clicking on an ad, social media post, or a search engine result. However, these behaviors do not indicate that this lead is ready to make a purchase yet.

After that comes the engage phase. In this stage, a prospect has demonstrated they have a problem your product can solve. They show this through digital behavior like downloading an ebook or joining a webinar, allowing you to engage them with educational content.

While each company divides the lead generation and qualification process differently, marketing is typically in charge of the attract and engage phases. Your marketing team will need to generate interest and awareness and educate the relevant audience on a product’s value through messaging and content (more on that later).

Halfway through the engagement phase, the prospect should ask for a quote or a trial period. They’re nearing a decision on whether or not to purchase.

Once the prospect reaches this point, the sales team takes over. I find process typically looks as follows:

• Contact: Communication between the lead and sales rep begins.
• Qualification: The sales rep learns more about the company, their customers’ pain points , and asks questions to see if they meet the basic requirements to purchase the product (BANT is a popular sales qualification method but several other sales methodologies are used to qualify).
• Business case: The prospect tests the product through a free trial or POC to see if it can solve their needs.
• Evaluation: The decision-makers in the organization weigh the cost of the product to the results they achieved during the business case.
• Negotiation: Both sales reps and decision-makers discuss pricing details and feature needs.
• Close: A deal is agreed upon and your prospect turns into a customer.
• Renewal (Optional): Your customer renews their contract or subscription.

Right after your sales representative closes the sale, the lead leaves the engage phase and enters the delight phase. When customers reach this stage, they should be delighted by a painless onboarding process and friendly customer service options.

After that, your customer should ideally turn into a promoter. They bring you more customers, keeping the flywheel going and enabling you to grow better.

7. Choose one (or more) of the four most common sales strategies.

You’ve done all the required foundational work; now it’s time to pick a strategy that will push your product into the market. No one method will work for every product or market, so it’s important to consider the complexity, scalability , and cost of yours.

There are generally four go-to-market sales strategies — each one catering to a different product and business model.

The Self-Service model

The self-service model is when a customer purchases on their own. We typically see this model with B2C purchases in which a customer can find and buy a product via a website, like Amazon.

This works best for simple products with a low-cost point and high sales volume. It can be difficult to build, but when successful, it sees a short sales cycle, zero cost to hire salespeople, and is highly profitable.

While you won’t need a sales team, you will need a marketing team to drive traffic and conversions to your site. The core marketing team would likely include growth marketing, performance marketing, and content marketing experts, though there will likely be other team members as well.

The Inside Sales Business Model

The inside sales business model is when a prospect needs to be nurtured by a sales rep to convert into a deal. This type of model works best with a product of medium complexity and price.

The sales cycle ranges between a few weeks and a few months. Here, you’ll invest in a sales team — but inside sales reps are less expensive than field reps.

With a high volume of sales, this model can be profitable and is fairly easy to build and scale as you hire more team members. The sales team in this model is typically composed of a sales manager who supervises a handful of reps.

The Field Sales Business Model

The field sales business model is when you have a full sales organization that closes large enterprise deals. These are typically complex products with high price points, which also means there’s typically a low volume of deals with a long sales cycle.

The sales team in this model is often very costly as the field reps are experienced, high-salary employees. This model is easy to build but harder to scale because hiring and training a full sales organization takes time and money.

Members include a sales manager, field reps, sales engineers, a sales development representative (SDR) team, and sales operations.

The Channel Model

Lastly, in the channel model , an outside agency or partner sells your product for you. This is hard to build, as the people can be difficult to recruit and educate on the benefits of your product. They are also often less motivated to sell than your own sales team would be.

However, this is a cheaper model because you don’t need always to pay a sales team of your own. I find that it works best with a product that matches the partner’s interest. For example, if you sell phone cases, you might want to find partners selling related products, like Best Buy or Apple.

You can mix and match these strategies based on industry or customer size (i.e., number of licenses or seats). For startups, it’s healthy to scale over time rather than invest in an expensive sales team too early.

8. Build brand awareness and demand generation with inbound and/or outbound methods.

Now, you need to fill your pipeline by snagging the attention of your target audience. This occurs through demand generation, which can happen with both inbound and outbound strategies.

With inbound, prospects discover your brand through marketing efforts and reach out to you or show signs of interest organically. Some examples of organic inbound traffic channels could be social media, content, or paid ads leading to a landing page.

Outbound demand generation is when a salesperson contacts a lead through cold outreach tactics. They might do this by reaching out to a contact list, sending warm emails , phoning leads , or gathering leads at industry conferences .

Once interest has been generated through these methods, sales conversations begin, and the leads are led to more educational content and then into the sales funnel.

9. Create content to get inbound leads.

Inbound leads are generally easier to convert and cheaper to acquire than outbound leads. This is because inbound leads are already partially educated on the business problem you solve, aware of your product, and usually more interested in buying your product.

Content marketing is the key to generating that inbound interest, as content will drive traffic to your site.

Your content marketing team will drive this inbound traffic by finding and targeting keywords that your potential customers would search for and then creating and posting related content on your website.

At the core of content marketing is search engine optimization (SEO) , which is the way a search engine ranks the content on the internet once a query is entered into the search bar. This will be a large source of your organic web traffic.

What goes into content marketing? It’s a cycle of keyword research, creation, and measurement.

• Keyword research: Identify keywords related to your product, analyze the volume (how often that keyword is searched), the difficulty of ranking for that keyword (i.e., how competitive that keyword is), and see who is already ranking for those keywords.
• Content research: Brainstorm content topics that include that keyword. See what articles already exist around these topics and begin to plan your content calendar.
• Content creation: Put those ideas into motion and have a writer create articles on those topics.
• Design: Add relevant images, infographics, videos, and other multimedia to your content so it’s more visual and engaging.
• Promote: Spread your content and drive traffic to your website by sharing the links via social media or emails to your customer database.
• Build links: Reach out to other publishers and ask them to link to your content to gain even more traffic with link-building tactics. This gives you site authority, which helps improve your SEO rankings.
• Conversion rate: Track and measure the engagement and conversion rates of your content. Keep doing what works and drop what doesn’t. From there, begin the content creation cycle again.

Your content team should develop content that aligns with the various stages of the buyer’s journey (top-of-funnel, middle-of-funnel, bottom-of-funnel).

Top-of-funnel content is lighter educational content, middle-of-funnel content is deeper, more applied learning, and bottom-of-funnel content is for those who are ready to buy and implement. To use SalesHero as an example, the content at each level of the funnel would look like this:

• Top-of-funnel content: "What is sales AI?"
• Middle-of-funnel content: "How sales AI can increase productivity"
• Bottom-of-funnel content: "Using sales AI to extract dark data"

To make this process easier (and more organized), I recommend creating a messaging strategy or content marketing plan based on your customer's journey and the knowledge they do (and don’t) have at each stage. 

Below, I’ll share an example of how you can organize your content, and you can easily fill in my chart when creating your own. 

Top-of-Funnel Content

Funnel Stage: Awareness

Flywheel Goal: Attract Prospects

What type of content will you create to catch the eye of potential customers in similar industries? Make a table like the one below.

Middle-of-Funnel Content

Funnel Stage: Consideration

Flywheel Goals: Attract and Engage Leads

In this phase, your audience might know of your service or be researching products related to yours. What types of content do you create to move your service to the front of their minds?

Bottom-of-Funnel Content

Funnel Stage: strong> Decision

Flywheel Goals: strong> Engage and Nurture Leads / Gain and Delight Customers

Your audience is really interested in your service. How will you use content to sell them?

• Find ways to optimize your pipeline and increase conversion rates.
• Analyze and shorten the sales cycle.
• Reduce customer acquisition cost.
• Strategize ways to tap into your existing customer base.
• Adjust and iterate as you go.
• Retain and delight your customers.

1. Find ways to optimize your pipeline and increase conversion rates.

Growth requires more than simply picking a sales strategy and building a demand generation process. You must optimize.

Sales is a numbers game, and you can only be successful if you measure progress . The key performance indicators (KPIs) for managing a sales team are volume, conversion rate, and time.

You’ll also want to track how many opportunities come into the flywheel: your pipeline volume.

Then track how many leads turned into customers. Comparing the volume of the pipeline opportunities to the number of won deals will get you your overall conversion rate.

It’s found that it's even more important to optimize the conversion rate between stages. As opportunities move through the funnel, they’ll go through various qualification processes (i.e., basic qualifications, current solutions in use, technical evaluation, and closing), and you’ll want to track at which stage the opportunities fall out and why.

I recommend measuring this for your overall flywheel and per sales rep. This information tells you where each rep needs to improve and potentially receive more training. Work to personalize your sales coaching efforts to shorten the sales cycle of each rep. Compare time and conversion rate to see who's better and faster in particular stages.

Track how many opportunities each rep converts and at what stage in the process they drop out. The sooner an unqualified opportunity falls out of the flywheel, the better, because less time, energy, and resources are spent on that particular lead.

2. Analyze and shorten the sales cycle.

Finally, track how long your sales cycle is. This is the amount of time it takes for an opportunity to enter the sales funnel and change to a closed/won deal. The goal is to shorten the conversion between every stage. This can be done by identifying common objections (and iterating ways to remove them before they happen), doing ongoing lead nurturing, and brainstorming ways to find the best-fit customers.

3. Reduce customer acquisition costs.

As a business owner , you’ll also need to optimize your customer acquisition cost . This will be very expensive at first, but as time goes on, you’ll need to reduce this cost by optimizing your processes, or you’ll be losing more money than you make.

Customer acquisition is how much it costs to gain a new customer or deal per $1. The lower the customer acquisition cost, the lower the impact your marketing efforts have on your PNL, and the higher the profit you get per customer.

4. Strategize ways to tap into your existing customer base.

A common adage in the industry is that it costs seven times more to acquire a new customer than it does to do business with an existing customer. If you're providing a great buying experience, existing customers already know, like, and trust you — all of which are reasons to stick around. 

The best opportunity for companies to earn more and gain revenue is through renewals, cross-selling, and upselling . The average cost for a company to renew a product is $0.13, while upsells cost a company $0.28.

Many people think of sales as a black box. But with analytics and new sales AI technologies cropping up, business leaders can optimize their processes to accelerate business.

5. Adjust and iterate as you go.

Building a successful company is not reserved for those entrepreneurs who’ve been blessed with special skills.

Chances are, you’ve already built your product, and building a company is a very similar process. You must be strategic and continue to improve throughout the process.

Take time and continue to iterate, and you too can build a company. Return to areas of your plan that aren’t working and tweak them. Make note of the things that are working, and brainstorm ways to expand upon them.

6. Retain and delight your customers.

In this phase, you will focus on maintaining your customer relationships and spreading good word-of-mouth. This is where a flywheel strategy can be much more helpful than the funnel, which ends at sales. For a detailed rundown of the delight phase and beyond, check out this ultimate guide .

Although different products might require different launch strategies, the below template and steps should help you create a solid starter plan which can be customized along the way.

Go-To-Market Plan Template

Download Now

Creating a go-to-market strategy from scratch can be daunting — especially if it’s your first time launching a brand-new product or service. That’s why HubSpot created a complete go-to-market kit to help you get started. You’ll find templates that help keep your team on schedule and promote alignment between all product stakeholders.

The kit includes:

• Product Launch Planning Template
• Product Update Email Templates
• Product Lifecycle Mapping Template
• Product Classification Template
• SWOT Analysis Template

Still stumped? Below, I’ve included a few more examples of go-to-market strategies that can help you inspire your own.

• Microsoft Surface
• Bread Beauty Supply

Via is a ridesharing platform that was founded in 2012 when Uber was still relatively unknown .

While Uber has bypassed Via in popularity and product usage, Via has effectively carved a niche in the transportation technology space.

Why I Think Via’s Go-to-Market Strategy Works:

The company’s GTM strategy emphasized ride-sharing — that is, riders literally share rides with other riders traveling in the same direction. The driver takes a predetermined route and drops riders off at convenient locations rather than picking up riders at private locations.

Via set out to solve a common pain point for commuters: overcrowded or unavailable public transit with inflexible routes.

Another pain point of the target audience was that Uber and Lyft rides were overpriced and couldn’t be used for daily commutes. Via looked at this problem and created a true ridesharing service that could fill the space Uber and Lyft didn’t fill.

Now, the company partners with private transit operators, schools, and public transit agencies to expand existing operations or provide more riding options for passengers. The result of Via’s go-to-market strategy is that it no longer sees Uber as a direct competitor .

2. Microsoft Surface

Microsoft Windows has long been the preeminent OS, and for good reason: most computer manufacturers offer Windows laptops and desktops.

So why would Microsoft launch its line of computers and tablets if its software is ubiquitous?

Why I Think Microsoft Surface’s Go-to-Market Strategy Works:

In its go-to-market strategy for its Surface products, Microsoft set out to solve a common problem for tablet users. Tablets were primarily mobile devices; while they were convenient to carry, they didn’t offer the full functionality of a laptop. And for many people, owning both a tablet and a laptop was not financially feasible.

When it released the third generation of the Surface tablet , Microsoft made its position clear. The device was a fully functioning computer in tablet form. You could have a light device without sacrificing function. Compared to the Apple iPad, its principal competitor, the Surface tablet offered more functionality at the same price.

Now, the Microsoft Surface line has expanded to include laptops and desktops. Microsoft realized that laptop buyers may not purchase a Windows laptop because there are so many manufacturers to choose from. Specifications and hardware components vary from machine to machine.

With its Surface laptops, Microsoft makes the choice easier for target demographics such as college students and everyday users. These devices compete with Apple’s macOS offerings and are designed to seamlessly integrate with all of the features of Windows OS.

At first glance, the Owala brand of water bottles doesn’t seem much different from competitors.

But in its go-to-market strategy, the brand used its motto, "Do more of what you love," to hint at its products’ ease of use. You can "do more of what you love" since you won’t even waste time opening the bottle. The lid itself is where you sip.

Why I Think Owala’s Go-to-Market Strategy Works:

With its product launch, Owala addressed common problems for water-drinkers: openings that are too wide, spills, and two-handed drinking.

Owala specifically targets those who are active. In its first series of Instagram posts, the brand posted a mosaic of a man on a motorcycle, and in most of its social posts, it includes people in workout clothes.

The company arguably entered an overcrowded space. Brands such as HydroFlask and Contigo dominate the industry. By addressing a specific target buyer and solving their problems, however, Owala successfully launched into that competitive market. The brand distributes its offerings through its website, BestBuy, and Amazon for optimum reach.

4. Bread Beauty Supply

Bread Beauty Supply , a Black- and woman-owned hair care line, set out to solve a common problem for its curly-haired audience: overcomplicated routines that waste time, energy, and products.

Why I Think Bread Beauty Supply’s Go-to-Market Strategy Works:

The brand launched in 2020 and partnered with Sephora as its principal distribution channel. In its go-to-market strategy, the brand identified a segment of buyers who would rather keep their routine simple and leave their curls in their natural state.

Compare this strategy with that of competitor brands such as Pattern Beauty and Ouidad, both of which offer a multitude of hair care products that can dizzy, confuse, and overwhelm buyers. When creating its go-to-market plan, Bread Beauty Supply recognized that some people with curly hair would rather spend less, not more, time on their hair.

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While the curly hair care industry verges on overcrowded, Bread Beauty Supply successfully launched by taking a unique stance in the industry.

The Sip , a Black- and woman-owned champagne subscription service, makes drinking luxury wine more affordable.

Champagne clubs have always been around, offering monthly deliveries of delectable wines at a premium cost.

To the target audience, however, this model poses a few problems. The wine of choice for that month could fail to meet expectations, and that could result in a wasted bottle. And that is at full cost, too. One of The Sip’s competitors, Club Bubbly, charges $100 per month to deliver two bottles of champagne.

Why I Think The Sip’s Go-to-Market Strategy Works:

In its go-to-market strategy, The Sip emphasized its mini-bottle program: subscribers can try three mini-bottles of champagne at a fraction of the cost. If you happen to like one, you can buy the full bottle.

By solving common problems faced by subscribers of wine boxes, The Sip not only attracted the subscribers of its competition, but opened up this type of subscription to buyers who could not previously afford it.

Vuclip , a mobile video-on-demand service, tapped into emerging markets with limited access to high-quality video streaming services. Consumers in these areas — including India, Thailand, and Egypt — dealt with slow video buffering speeds due to a lack of advanced mobile networks.

Why I Think Vuclip’s Go-to-Market Strategy Works:

The company's go-to-market strategy rested on appealing to those "must-have" markets, where it could come in with a competitive advantage by presenting an accessible platform that addressed those regional consumers' issues with buffering.

The result? Vuclip built a subscriber base of more than 41 million consumers across over 3,000 cities, with plans to establish a presence in even more underserved markets around the world.

Upscope , an interactive screen sharing platform, came on the scene as a resource to suit a more technically inclined crowd than its competitors — namely onboarding, support, and IT specialists.

Why I Think Upscope’s Go-to-Market Strategy Works:

The primary pain point the company looked to address was the trouble consumers ran into when trying to share their screens — particularly when it came to walking prospects, customers, or employees through technical subject matter.

The company addressed that issue by creating a solution that lends itself to instant and interactive screen sharing — sparing users the trouble of fumbling through the screen share process and letting all parties engage with the content they're seeing.

Upscope supported its go-to-market efforts with a solid content marketing strategy — maintaining an active web presence and blog. It also incorporated integrations with other tools into its solution, giving itself more visibility and clout.

Baggu is a reusable bag brand. While it seems rather simple on the surface, its go-to-market strategy has made a buzz in the world of sustainability.

Why I Think Baggu’s Go-to-Market Strategy Works:

This brand was created to eliminate unnecessary waste through responsibly managing deadstock products and fabric. This appeals to eco-conscious consumers who are trying to minimize their use of plastic bags.

Accompanying its relatable mission, Baggu has held many collaborations that take its products from functional, to stylish statement pieces.

Baggu recently partnered with Joonbug , a Jamaican artist known for impressive skate designs, and made colorful patterns that showcase his cultural roots and style.

The products are visually interesting, eye-catching, and were marketed through Instagram — a social media platform designed for visual ads and promotion, and a perfect vehicle for a mutually beneficial collaboration for JoonBug, who is also a prominent influencer in the art sphere.

Thinx is a feminine hygiene company that makes underwear for people with periods. This re-imagined approach to menstrual products has been gaining more traction in the industry, and its go-to-market strategy has definitely aided in its success.

Why I Think Thinx’s Go-to-Market Strategy Works:

A common pain point for people with periods is spending a lot of money on one-time hygienic products, and it’s not good for the environment, either. So offering washable underwear with a 2 year guarantee is a much better investment than the alternative.

Thinx is also known for partnering with organizations using cause marketing, like with Black Mamas Matter Alliance. BMMA focuses on the issue of maternal health (specifically for black women who are three times more likely to die from childbirth than other races) that Thinx’s audience would also care about or be aware of.

This strategy appeals to consumers who can feel good knowing they're buying something that gives back a portion of profit to something beyond themselves, especially if it raises awareness of inequalities in maternal health.

10. Metaverse

One of the most outlandish ideas of recent go-to-market strategies is none other than the launch of the Metaverse. It’s an immersive, digital economy made by Facebook, and a look into the future for the platform.

Why I Think the Metaverse’s Go-to-Market Strategy Works:

This brand understands that people are leading digital lives more than ever, which includes more online shopping — but without the experience of shopping in person. So while it is more convenient to add items to your cart through clicks, customers give up the feel of shopping in store.

Metaverse solves for this, by incorporating the brick and mortar experience in a VR-centric, digital world.

In addition to solving the online shopping dilemma, the PR campaign and influencer marketing was such a huge rollout on one of the most major social media platforms, it caused quite a buzz through the internet and news outlets.

Create a Strong GTM Strategy for Your New Venture

Building a go-to-market strategy is critical before bringing your new product to market. With the steps I shared in this guide, you’ll be well on your way to launching a product or service that solves for your future customers and becomes profitable in the marketplace.

Editor's note: This post was originally published in November 2019 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

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How to create a marketing plan [free template].

What is a Marketing Plan?

What is a marketing plan template, use workamajig’s free marketing plan templates, how to write a marketing plan that works, build & execute your marketing plan with workamajig, browse more blogs.

As the famous Benjamin Franklin quote says, “If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail.” This rings especially true in highly competitive industries, and even more so with the rise of social media and the vast array of options for selling products and services.

It can be easy to get lost among all the options available, which means you need a framework for quickly and successfully launching and supporting your brand, product, or service in the market.

This is where a marketing plan comes in.

A marketing plan outlines a company’s overall marketing strategy, including the research and data that support it. Key information that comprise a marketing plan include:

• Company information : highlighting its relevance to the strategy in place
• Company, market, and competitor research: isolating and informing high-value marketing opportunities
• Concrete marketing plans: outlining goals, activities, and resources for enabling success

Marketing plans are typically laid out over a year but can change depending on the team’s objectives—the more frequently you need to create one, the more valuable it becomes to do it efficiently. This is where a marketing plan template comes in handy.

A marketing plan template is a tool used to build a comprehensive marketing strategy. It mainly eliminates the manual work of identifying and structuring the key information we outlined above. This allows you to focus on the actual task of building your marketing strategy, from setting goals and conducting research to identifying activities and resources essential to your campaigns. Our template is designed to cover these essentials while also leaving room for you to tailor content and sections to your specific needs.

Why Are These Important?

Alignment and efficiency are the overarching themes when creating a marketing plan and building an easy marketing plan template. For starters, a marketing plan helps establish a clear set of goals and objectives, which allows teams to optimize their efforts toward the same outcome. It also qualifies as an effective risk management tool when done right by clearly outlining stakeholders and their responsibilities for minimal overlap, as well as budget allocations and projections to ensure that planned activities are equipped to succeed.

When you create a marketing template, you achieve even more efficiency. This allows for more seamless creation of new marketing plans to fit new requirements and continuous learning from using and evaluating an established format.

The difference between a marketing plan and an effective one is subtle yet critical to your success. A basic marketing plan template should be:

•   Simple: by following a straightforward approach, using terms and a structure that’s easy to digest, both for the one creating it as well as those reading it,
• Interesting: with expertly designed layouts or formats that synergize well with the outline/structure and
• Versatile: allowing you to freely and easily add, remove, or rearrange sections and information to make sense of your strategy.

Below, we’ve created two free marketing plan templates that are designed around the above principles.

The Google Slides template is designed for more flexible layouts and more images.

The Google Docs template offers a more straightforward approach.

To begin using either template, click the matching link above and select File > Make a copy.

While you’re free to start populating the template however you like, there are ways to optimize this activity further. Below, we’ve reorganized the various sections in our template so you can populate them in an order that makes sense; these are grouped into five phases: Introduction, Research, two Strategy phases, and Polish. By following this section like a step-by-step guide, you would prioritize sections that inform other parts of the document so that you can complete each part almost in one go.

Introduction

First, fill in your Title Page before navigating to the Company Overview. This is like the ‘About Us’ section of a website and will help stakeholders learn about your business by filling in the following:

• Your Company Name
• Where your company is located (Headquarters)
• Your market category and a summary of the products or services you provide (Category, Products & Services)
• Your Mission Statement

It’s important to create a mission statement if you don’t have one yet—this gives both you and your audience a vivid impression of what your company is about and what it’s trying to achieve, which would be an important piece to understanding why your whole marketing plan can be expected to work. Your goal here is to write a mission statement that is clear and easy to understand.

An option to include information about your team or other specific individuals within the company is included. This would make sense if a specific group of individuals in your company is involved; the alternative implies that the plan may involve efforts from across the entire organization.

After wrapping up your introductory sections, it’s time to collect data to inform your marketing strategy. In this phase, we’ll be looking at your company, your customers, and your competitors and using that to identify your ideal client.

Start with the SWOT Analysis. This stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. Here is a quick rundown and some guide questions for identifying each section:

• Strengths refer to internal advantages that your company might have over your competition. For example, do you have a strong brand reputation? Do you have a tried-and-tested pipeline and track record for launching successful marketing campaigns? Do you have a sizable budget? How about highly skilled employees?
• Weaknesses outline the opposite—these are factors that might put you at a disadvantage against competitors. These are often related to either a limited budget or a lack of skills or experience.
• Opportunities serve to highlight external factors that you might be able to use to your advantage. Consider this: are there relevant changes to market trends or consumer behavior? Have new market segments emerged? Are there new business models you can utilize in your strategy?
• Threats, on the other hand, are external factors that could negatively affect your business. Look into the following: Have new competitors emerged, or have existing competitors experienced substantial growth or change? Has the economy taken a turn for the worse? Are your customers’ preferences seemingly changing? Are there notable changes in technology or the environment to worry about?

Next, move to Customer Analysis. This is the process of evaluating and understanding different aspects of your consumer base, including their preferences and habits. This is fundamental to your overall strategy, as customer satisfaction almost always directly correlates to greater returns. A customer analysis is mainly broken down into demographics, which relate to their biological, educational, professional, and marital information, and psychographics, which relate to their behaviors, thought processes, and preferences. This also includes exploring various external factors that might influence their purchasing decisions, such as events and the offerings of competitors.

Once that’s finished, navigate to your Competitor Analysis section. This is the process of analyzing competitors who offer similar products or services or operate within the same industry or market as your company. This includes inspecting their overall strategy, including branding, operations, and promotion, identifying strengths and what resonates with their market or yours, and looking into areas where they might be lacking. This helps inform opportunities for your plan to stand out and succeed.

Finally, you can jump back to the Buyer Persona. A buyer persona is a detailed description of your target audience or customer built on the market research you conducted above; this includes existing data on your customers—this would include demographic information, motivations, and behavior, among other details. This helps businesses build a deeper understanding of their audience and is used to anchor marketing, sales, communication, and product development strategies to satisfy a given persona’s needs and preferences. Creating an effective buyer persona now will help build strategy for meaningful engagement.

Strategy-Building (Part 1)

Completing the previous sections should result in a clear picture of your position in the market. You can now use that to build the marketing plan's meat thoroughly. For starters, you will want to find the Goals section—our guide on SMART goals has everything we believe you will need to fill in this part of the plan.

Next, we will be tackling the Marketing Mix in two parts.

Product. In this section, discuss the products and/or services you intend to release or market as part of this strategy. This means outlining various features, design elements, or variants that will be available to customers.

Pricing. This is where you’ll be outlining amounts—how much will each of the products you included previously cost? When determining these, it’s critical that you consider your buyer persona, as well as competitor pricing and any promotions or discounts that might be part of your strategy. This will further increase your products’ perceived value among customers, especially your target market. Tables are a great formatting tool here; you can also link to an external spreadsheet, where you have more room to create a detailed pricing scheme.

Place. This section discusses how you would make products or services available to customers. It includes the method by which sales are generated (e.g., retail, online, direct), as well as strategies for storing, housing, and distributing inventory. Your main consideration here is making sure that your products and services are as convenient and efficient to access as possible in order to sufficiently meet customer demand.

The second part of the marketing mix covers both the Promotion and Marketing Channels sections. This is done so you can cross-reference between the two sections, ensuring that they are updated to synergize with one another.

The Promotion section primarily focuses on how you will help customers understand the value of your products and services, including tools and techniques for providing support across the customer journey (before, during, and after a sale.) A critical consideration here is ensuring the methods align with your goals while respecting your brand identity.

Marketing Channels then focus on the what or where of your promotion plan, which is typically broken down into traditional, digital, retail, and event marketing channels. Building this section relies heaviest on your buyer persona and the specific products and services you’re looking to promote—understanding where you can best reach your existing market or attract new eyes is important here.

Working on these sections first allows you to transition seamlessly to your Unique Value Proposition. Use this section to talk about how or why your products/services are a better choice than the competition. Your customer and competitor analysis would feed a lot of information here.

Strategy-Building (Part 2)

The second phase of your strategy will move between the template's Performance Management and Budget sections.

Under Performance Management , it’s time to identify your Key Metrics. Also known as key performance indicators (KPI) are quantifiable measures that determine your campaign or strategy’s progress or success. To assist with this, look back at your Goals section to see what factors can be represented by numbers and data—for some of these, you may need to derive them from computations of other factors. Common key metrics include total conversions, conversion rate, click-through rate, and social media engagements.

At this point, you can freely work on two sections simultaneously: Monitoring & Evaluation Methods and  Projected Expenses.

Monitoring & Evaluation Methods answers the question of how you will collect the metrics listed. Include relevant tools and data collection methods to be used here.

Projected Expenses refer to an itemized list of unique costs required to execute the strategy. This includes hardware and software needs, resources needed to run online or in-person events and promotions, travel and other logistics, and even compensation for in-house or outsourced manpower. A table is a great way to format information here.

Once all of that is ready, you can begin working on Projected Returns . In this section, you want to outline how this strategy is expected to generate value beyond just the immediate sale of whatever products or services are being offered and how much each of these sources is expected to contribute. From here, you can define your expected return on investment (ROI) by subtracting the total earnings from the costs in your Projected Expenses section.

You will notice that only one section remains—jump back to the early part of the template to work on your Executive Summary. This section combines all of the sections into a big-picture pitch. Your highest priorities here are summarizing your Goals, Marketing Mix, Unique Value Proposition, and Projected Returns sections.

Now that you’ve filled in all template sections double-check everything for errors or omissions.

A marketing plan serves as the blueprint for your success over time. A marketing plan template ensures that you can quickly and expertly craft a strategy while allowing for continuous improvement.

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What Is a Marketing Strategy?

• How It Works
• Marketing Strategies vs. Plans

How to Create a Marketing Strategy

The bottom line.

• Marketing Essentials

Marketing Strategy: What It Is, How It Works, and How to Create One

Investopedia / Daniel Fishel

A marketing strategy refers to a business’s overall game plan to facilitate the buying and selling of its products or services. A marketing strategy determines how to reach prospective consumers and turn them into customers. It contains the company’s value proposition , key brand messaging, data on target customer  demographics, and other high-level elements.

A thorough marketing strategy covers the four Ps of marketing: product, price, place, and promotion.

Key Takeaways

• A marketing strategy is a business’s game plan for reaching prospective consumers and turning them into customers of their products or services.
• Marketing strategies should revolve around a company’s value proposition.
• The ultimate goal of a marketing strategy is to achieve and communicate a sustainable competitive advantage over rival companies.

Understanding Marketing Strategies

A clear marketing strategy should revolve around the company’s value proposition, which communicates to consumers what the company stands for, how it operates, and why it deserves its business.

This provides marketing teams with a template that should inform their initiatives across all of the company’s products and services. For example, Walmart ( WMT ) is widely known as a discount retailer with “everyday low prices,” whose business operations and marketing efforts are rooted in that idea.

Marketing Strategies vs. Marketing Plans

The marketing strategy is outlined in the marketing plan —a document that details the specific types of marketing activities that a company conducts and contains timetables for rolling out various marketing initiatives.

Marketing strategies should ideally have longer life spans than individual marketing plans because they contain value propositions and other key elements of a company’s brand, which generally hold constant over the long haul. In other words, marketing strategies cover big-picture messaging, while marketing plans delineate the logistical details of specific campaigns.

For example, a marketing strategy might say that a company aims to increase authority in niche circles where their clients visit. The marketing plan puts that into action by commissioning thought leadership pieces on LinkedIn.

Benefits of a Marketing Strategy

The ultimate goal of a marketing strategy is to achieve and communicate a sustainable competitive advantage over rival companies by understanding the needs and wants of its consumers. Whether it’s a print ad design, mass customization , or a social media campaign, a marketing asset can be judged based on how effectively it communicates a company’s core value proposition.

Market research can help chart the efficacy of a given campaign and can help identify untapped audiences to achieve bottom-line goals and increase sales.

Creating a marketing strategy requires a few steps. Here are some of the steps you should consider when creating your marketing strategy.

• Identify your goals: While sales are the ultimate goal for every company, you should have more short-term goals such as establishing authority, increasing customer engagement, or generating leads. These smaller goals offer measurable benchmarks for the progress of your marketing plan. Think of strategy as the high-level ideology and planning as how you accomplish your goals.
• Know your clients: Every product or service has an ideal customer, and you should know who they are and where they hang out. If you sell power tools, you’ll choose marketing channels where general contractors may see your messaging. Establish who your client is and how your product will improve their lives.
• Create your message: Now that you know your goals and who you’re pitching to, it’s time to create your message. This is your opportunity to show your potential clients how your product or service will benefit them and why you’re the only company that can provide it.
• Define your budget: How you disperse your messaging may depend on how much you can afford. Will you be purchasing advertising? Hoping for a viral moment on social media organically? Sending out press releases to the media to try to gain coverage? Your budget will dictate what you can afford to do.
• Determine your channels: Even the best message needs the appropriate venue. Some companies may find more value in creating blog posts for their website. Others may find success with paid ads on social media channels. Find the most appropriate venue for your content.
• Measure your success: To target your marketing, you need to know whether it is reaching its audience. Determine your metrics and how you’ll judge the success of your marketing efforts.

Why Does a Company Need a Marketing Strategy?

A marketing strategy helps a company direct its advertising dollars to where it will have the most impact. Compared with the data from 2018, the correlation between organization and success in marketers jumped from being almost four times more likely to almost seven times more likely in 2022.

What Do the Four Ps Mean in a Marketing Strategy?

The four Ps are product, price, promotion, and place. These are the key factors that are involved in the marketing of a good or service . The four Ps can be used when planning a new business venture, evaluating an existing offer, or trying to optimize sales with a target audience. It also can be used to test a current marketing strategy on a new audience.

What Does a Marketing Strategy Look Like?

A marketing strategy will detail the advertising, outreach, and public relations campaigns to be carried out by a firm, including how the company will measure the effect of these initiatives.

They will typically follow the four Ps. The functions and components of a marketing plan include market research to support pricing decisions and new market entries, tailored messaging  that targets certain demographics and geographic areas, and platform selection for product and service promotion—digital, radio, Internet, trade magazines, and the mix of those platforms for each campaign, and metrics that measure the results of marketing efforts and their reporting timelines.

Is a Marketing Strategy the Same as a Marketing Plan?

The terms “marketing plan” and “marketing strategy” are often used interchangeably because a marketing plan is developed based on an overarching strategic framework. In some cases, the strategy and the plan may be incorporated into one document, particularly for smaller companies that may only run one or two major campaigns in a year. The plan outlines marketing activities on a monthly, quarterly, or annual basis, while the marketing strategy outlines the overall value proposition.

Companies need to sell their products and services to generate revenue and put them on the path of being a successful business. To sell their products or services, they have to let consumers know of them. They must also convince consumers to buy them as well as convert consumers from competitors. Having a marketing strategy that outlines this process and more is a crucial step in converting consumers into customers.

Walmart Corporate. “ About .”

CoSchedule. “ Trend Report: Marketing Strategy 2022 .”

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How to create a go-to-market strategy

A go-to-market (GTM) strategy is a step-by-step plan for launching a new product or expanding into a new market. It helps you launch your product to the right audience, with the right messaging, at the right time. Learn how to craft a go-to-market strategy in nine steps and set your next product launch up for success.

Oatly went straight to their target audience at the exact moment customers were smelling the espresso and ready to buy. And you can bet this innovative go-to-market strategy was the key to their success. 

What is a go-to-market strategy? 

A go-to-market (GTM) strategy is a step-by-step plan for launching a new product or expanding an existing product into a new market. It sets your initiative up for success by answering the following questions: 

What product are you selling, and what unique problem does it solve?

Who is your ideal customer, and what pain points do they experience? 

Where will you sell your product? What markets do you want to pursue, and what does the demand and competition look like in those markets?

How will you reach your target customers and create demand? 

Launching a product is a big investment. And no matter how cutting-edge it is, a successful product launch is dictated by the strength of your marketing campaign and sales strategy. Creating a GTM strategy helps you ensure you’re taking everything into account and avoid costly mistakes—like launching your product to the wrong audience or in a market that’s already saturated with similar offerings.

When do you need a go-to-market (GTM) strategy? 

Whenever you bring a product or service to market, you need a go-to-market strategy. This includes: 

Launching a new product in an existing market —for example, an established clothing brand launching a line of beauty products. 

Bringing an existing product to a new market —for example, a local grocery chain expanding into a different state. 

Testing a new product in a new market —for example, a tech startup launching their first app. 

Even established companies need a go-to-market strategy when pioneering a new product or expanding into a new market. That’s because competition and market forces can quickly change. Even if you’ve had success with a similar product launch in the past, that same strategy might not work as well now. 

Go-to-market strategy vs. a marketing plan

A go-to-market strategy is specifically for launching a product or expanding to a new market. On the other hand, a marketing plan details how you’ll execute your overall marketing strategy. Instead of being launch specific, a marketing plan is a long-term approach to help you achieve your marketing objectives—like an annual roadmap or an overarching digital marketing strategy . Your GTM strategy draws from your long-term marketing plan, but it’s tailored to a specific launch. 

Marketing plan example: Sephora’s marketing plan leverages its loyalty program , which offers discounts and gifts to customers who spend a certain amount. This plan isn’t specific to a product launch; rather, it’s a long-term approach to building customer loyalty over time. 

Go-to-market plan example: Microsoft executed a go-to-market strategy when launching its third-generation Surface tablet . Their strategy was specific to the tablet’s launch and addressed a particular market problem—that existing tablets didn’t have the functionality of a full-fledged computer.

Organize your go-to-market strategy with a project management platform

Every GTM strategy involves lots of moving pieces, whether you’re launching a new product or exploring new markets. The right project management tool can help you visualize your entire plan in one place, including the status, owners, and dependencies of each task. And as team members collaborate and execute your go-to-market strategy, you can see those updates in real-time.

How to build a go-to-market strategy in 9 steps

So you’ve created an exciting new product or want to expand into a new market. You know you need a go-to-market strategy to make sure your initiative succeeds—but what exactly does that look like? 

Step 1: Identify the problem

Every great product launch solves a specific problem. For example, Blackberry phones let business people answer emails on the go, Uber circumvents the cumbersome process of hailing or calling for a taxi, and Dawn detergent cuts through grease and makes washing dishes easier. Each of those products have a unique value proposition —a way they add value for customers by addressing their pain points. And most importantly, when those products launched, there was significant demand for solutions.

This concept is known as product-market fit —the degree to which a product satisfies a strong market demand. Understanding product-market fit is essential to gaining a competitive advantage and making sure you’re launching the right product to the right customers. 

Step 2: Define the target audience

In order to have a successful GTM launch, you need to clearly understand your target audience. Start your market research by asking yourself the following questions: 

Who is experiencing the problem that your product solves? 

What are the specific frustrations your product can alleviate? 

How much is your audience willing to pay for a solution? 

The two most common ways to define your target market are with an ideal customer profile (ICP) and buyer personas. These methods work together to narrow down your customer base and specify the types of people within your audience.  

Ideal customer profile (ICP)

This approach defines your perfect customer—in other words, someone who experiences the frustrations your product solves. They’re aware of the problem, already looking for a solution, and are able to buy your product. To create an ideal customer profile, consider the following characteristics:  

Industry or demographic: If you’re selling to businesses, identify the specific industry you’re targeting—like financial, legal, or SaaS verticals. If you’re selling to individuals, define specific demographics your ideal customer falls within. For example, a child-care service may target families with kids between the ages of 1 and 5. 

Geography : Where do your ideal customers live? For example, a tour company that offers English-only experiences may target customers in the US and Europe. 

Size: This one is specific to B2B companies. Identify the size of the business you’re targeting—for example, you may market a new co-working space to funded startups with less than 20 employees. 

Budget: To shape your pricing strategy, consider how much your customers have to spend on your product. This will also influence the market’s perception of your product. For example, if your company sells luxury watches, you probably don’t want to go below a certain price point. Alternatively, a legal consulting firm may find it worthwhile to only target businesses who can spend at least $5,000 per month. 

Decision-making factors : What factors influence whether a customer decides to purchase your product? For example, do they rely on referrals from trusted friends or colleagues? Is there a primary decision-maker, like the CEO or sales manager of a company?

Pain points: What specific frustrations does your ideal customer have? For example, a company selling a financial-planning app may target customers who lose time trying to track their budget with spreadsheets. 

Customer needs: Beyond pain points, understanding the needs of your customers is essential for an effective GTM strategy. For example, the technology company Apple emphasizes customer experience by analyzing customer needs and designing products accordingly.

Preferred media: How does your ideal customer absorb information? For example, do they use social media, read print magazines, or browse the web with ease? 

Buyer personas

Not all members of your target audience are the same—each person is a unique individual with their own problems, values, and goals. Creating buyer personas helps you differentiate between the different types of people within your target audience, so you can visualize who your customers are on a human level. 

You should create multiple customer personas to fully understand your target audience. Here’s an example of one buyer persona for a tour company launching a new in-destination app:

Persona: Memory-maker

Individuals between the ages of 25-35

Travels alone or with a partner

Willing to pay a higher price for premium experiences

Values booking flexibility

Wants to book high-demand experiences in advance, but also choose some activities after they’ve arrived at a destination

Can use technology and apps with ease

Buyer personas may seem similar to an ideal customer profile, but they perform a different function. Personas help you visualize customer needs by breaking your ICP down into more specific segments—each representing a type of person with their own distinct problems, values, and goals. 

Step 3: Research competition and demand

Now that you’ve identified your product’s value proposition and target audience, it’s time to do some market research. Before you invest in bringing your product to market, you want to make sure that there’s enough demand and not too much competition. To guide your marketing efforts, ask yourself the following questions: 

Who already offers a similar version of your product? 

What audiences and geographic regions do your competitors target? 

How does your product differ from the competition? What do you offer that others don’t? 

Is there demand for the product, or is the market oversaturated? 

To design a comprehensive marketing campaign, you’ll need to conduct a competitive analysis . This method uses research to identify your direct and indirect competitors and uncover their strengths and weaknesses in relation to your own.  

Step 4: Decide key messaging

The next step is to determine the key messages you’ll convey to potential customers. The best approach is to tailor individual messaging for each of your buyer personas, so you can address their unique values and frustrations. 

To map your messaging to each buyer persona, create a value matrix . A value matrix breaks down each persona, their pain points, the value your product brings, and a key message that conveys how your product can solve their unique problem. 

Let’s continue with the tour company example above. As a refresher, the company wants to launch a new in-destination app. One of their personas is a “memory-maker”—a customer who is willing to pay for premium experiences. Here’s what a value matrix might look like for this persona: 

Pain points

It’s hard to verify the quality of experiences when booking online.

If they book an expensive tour in advance, they can’t get their money back if plans change. 

Product value

An app with customer pictures and reviews gives a feel for the quality of tours. 

A flexible booking policy allows them to cancel if plans change. 

Key message

Book quality experiences with peace of mind. 

To complete your value matrix, continue this process for each buyer persona. 

Step 5: Map the buyer’s journey

Now that you’ve identified your buyer personas and messaging, you can map the buyer’s journey—the path customers take from realizing their problem, considering your product as a solution, and deciding to purchase. Mapping your buyer’s journey is a key component of content marketing, because it helps you surface the right type of content to potential customers at the right time. 

Most often, the customer journey is visualized as a funnel broken into three sections: 

Top of funnel: Customers know the problem they want to solve and research solutions. They may not be aware that your product exists yet. During this phase, you want to grab the customer's attention so they consider your product. 

Middle of funnel: Customers weigh your product against other available options. Your goal during this phase is to convince potential buyers that your product is the best option. 

Bottom of funnel: Customers decide whether to purchase your product. Your goal for this phase is to convince them to commit.

Step 6: Pick marketing channels

Marketing channels are the different types of content you use to create demand for your product and move potential customers down the marketing funnel. For example, social media, paid search ads, blogs, SEO content, and emails are different marketing channels. The marketing channels you choose depend on two things: your target audience, and where your potential customers are along their buyer’s journey. 

Align marketing channels with your ideal audience. You want to make sure the distribution channels you choose align with the way your target audience consumes content. For example, if your ideal customer uses YouTube but not Instagram or LinkedIn, you may want to focus on YouTube ads rather than paid social posts. 

Determine whether your ideal customer prefers outbound tactics like direct mail or inbound strategies such as social media. When deciding between inbound and outbound channels, consider whether you want to generate broad brand awareness or engage potential customers who have shown interest in what you have to offer. This approach ensures a more tailored and effective GTM strategy that aligns with the behavior and preferences of your target audience.

Use different distribution channels for different phases of the customer  journey. Depending on where customers are in the marketing funnel, different types of marketing content can help move them to the next phase. For example, search engine optimization (SEO) content can raise brand awareness among top-of-funnel customers. For those in the middle, case studies and webinars offer high-quality insights and build customer relationships. And at the bottom of the funnel, strategies like free trial options can help convince potential customers to commit.

Step 7: Create a sales plan

The goal of your GTM strategy is a successful product launch, so it’s essential to decide how you’ll sell to your target audience and turn prospective customers into buyers. That’s where your sales strategy comes in. 

We’ve outlined the four most common sales strategies below. As needed, you can combine these strategies to fit your specific product and business model. 

Self-service model : Customers purchase your product on their own. This is a common sales process for e-commerce, in which customers can find and buy products online. While this option doesn’t require a dedicated sales team, you need to invest in marketing to drive traffic to your website. 

Inside sales model: Your sales team nurtures prospective customers to convince them to purchase your product. This is a good option for products with a medium price point that are a bit more complex, like design software for teams. 

Field sales model : Salespeople focus on closing big enterprise deals. This option requires more sales investment and a longer sales cycle, but there’s a big payoff. For example, you might use a field sales model to sell HR management software to large companies. 

Channel model : An external partner sells your product for you. While this option gives you less say in how you market your product, it’s the cheapest option and can work well if you partner with a company that sells similar products. For example, if you’re selling a new type of cereal, you could partner with a grocery chain. 

Step 8: Set concrete goals

Every great go-to-market strategy starts with clear objectives and benchmarks. Goals give you specific targets to aim for and a clear timeline, and benchmarks allow you to measure progress. Without clearly defined goals, it’s hard to tell if your GTM strategy is working. 

Here are a few different goal-setting frameworks you can use to set measurable objectives. Depending on your business needs, you can combine these strategies or use them on their own. 

SMART goals : This acronym helps you set goals that are specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and time-bound. For example, you could set the following SMART goal when launching a new app: “In six months, generate 1M total app downloads and 50K new user accounts.”

Key performance indicators (KPIs) : KPIs are quantitative metrics that help you track progress toward business objectives. For example, you could track total purchases and ad click-throughs when executing a go-to-market strategy for your new product. Keep in mind that you can use the SMART goal framework when crafting KPIs—for example, “Within three months, generate 100K total conversions and 1M ad click-throughs.”

Objectives and key results (OKRs) : This strategy pairs the objectives you want to achieve with the key results you’ll use to measure progress. It follows this format: “I will [objective] as measured by [key result].” For example, “The marketing team will increase awareness of a new product, as measured by the following key results: Drive 1M web visitors to the product page, increase social media engagement by 50%, and generate 50K new customers through email signups.” 

Step 9: Create clear processes

Creating a great go-to-market strategy is one thing, and executing it is another. That’s why creating clear processes is essential when bringing a product to market—because regardless of how well-crafted your strategy is, it only succeeds when you communicate and execute your strategy with your team. For example, you should consider the following when crafting your GTM strategy: 

How you’ll share your strategy and collaborate with team members. Don’t let your strategy gather dust in a drawer—instead, house the plans and projects that comprise your strategy in one easily accessible place. A robust work management tool can help you accomplish this. Asana lets you coordinate plans, projects, and processes in one central location. That way, team members can work and collaborate in the same space where your GTM strategy lives.

How you’ll course-correct and track goals . In order for goals to be effective, they need to be connected to your day-to-day work. That means instead of setting and forgetting goals for your GTM strategy, make a plan to regularly check in and track your progress—for example, at the end of each week or month. Share these updates with project stakeholders in a centralized project management tool. That way, everyone is on the same page.

How to optimize the customer experience process. A smooth customer experience is critical to the success of your go-to-market strategy, which includes everything from onboarding to retention and customer service. Making your customers feel supported boosts loyalty and advocacy. Consider implementing structured onboarding programs, processes that nurture retention, and establishing helpful customer service. Tools that collect feedback and enable swift service adjustments can significantly improve these processes, making each customer's journey with your product a positive and memorable one.

How to effectively manage customer acquisition costs (CAC) . Monitoring customer acquisition costs is key for long-term growth. Optimize your marketing and sales funnel to reduce CAC and maximize marketing ROI. Incorporate data-driven strategies to fine-tune targeting, leverage cost-effective channels, and improve conversion rates. Regularly reviewing these costs in relation to customer lifetime value (CLV) can provide insights into the long-term viability and profitability of your customer acquisition strategies. 

How you can standardize processes with go-to-market strategy templates . Every go-to-market strategy contains lots of components and moving pieces. But while it’s important to evaluate your strategy for each new product launch, that doesn’t mean you have to reinvent the wheel. To avoid duplicate work, create process documentation and go-to-market strategy templates to standardize your go-to-market process. For example, you could create templates outlining the steps to determine your target audience, clarify your messaging, and so on—plus an overarching template to guide how you craft your entire GTM strategy. When choosing a project management tool for your team, pick one that lets you create and share templates for processes your team uses on a regular basis.

Go-to-market strategy benefits

In addition to supporting a successful product launch, there are a number of ways in which your company may profit from developing a solid GTM strategy.

Faster market entry

A well-crafted go-to-market strategy streamlines your approach to entering new markets or launching products. By identifying the most effective distribution channels, target audience, and messaging from the get-go, businesses can significantly reduce the time it takes to go from concept to customers. Being first can often mean the difference between leading the market and playing catch-up.

GTM strategy example: Consider the launch of a groundbreaking health app that leverages AI to personalize workout plans. With a detailed go-to-market plan, the company identified fitness enthusiasts on social media as their primary audience and created affiliate partnerships with influencers for promotions. The strategy led to a rapid increase in user adoption within the first few months, showcasing how targeted efforts can result in faster market penetration.

Enhanced customer understanding

A go-to-market strategy requires in-depth market research into customer needs, preferences, and behaviors. This process not only ensures that the product or service meets market demand but also deepens the company's understanding of its customer base. This customer insight is invaluable for tailoring marketing efforts, developing future products, and improving customer satisfaction over time.

GTM strategy example: Imagine a company launching a new eco-friendly home cleaning product. Through their go-to-market strategy research, they discovered their target customers frequented eco-conscious blogs and forums. By engaging with these communities and addressing their specific concerns, the company was able to build a loyal customer base that felt heard and understood, which led to strong word-of-mouth endorsements.

Streamlined resource allocation

Crafting a go-to-market strategy forces businesses to think critically about how they allocate their resources, including time, money, and manpower. By focusing efforts on the most promising markets, channels, and customer segments, companies can achieve higher returns on investment and avoid wasteful spending.

GTM strategy example: A small software startup developed a project management tool tailored for remote teams. By concentrating their resources on online advertising targeting remote work platforms and collaboration forums, they were able to maximize their limited marketing budget, achieving a higher conversion rate than spreading their efforts across more generic channels.

Competitive advantage

A thorough go-to-market strategy equips businesses with the knowledge to differentiate themselves from the competition. By clearly articulating the unique value proposition and tailoring the marketing mix to highlight these differences, companies can carve out a distinct space in the market. This not only attracts more customers but also builds a strong brand identity.

GTM strategy example: Take the case of a new beverage company entering a crowded market. Their GTM plan concentrated on their drink's distinctive flavor combination and health advantages, which differentiators did not provide. By targeting health-conscious consumers through niche health and wellness events and partnerships, the company was able to establish a dedicated following, distinguishing itself from the competition and securing a loyal customer base.

Ready, set, strategize

Bringing a product to market is a big investment. But you can set your next launch up for success with a solid framework to determine your audience and messaging, concrete goals, and clear processes to carry out your strategy. With these nine steps, crafting a great go-to-market strategy isn’t so daunting after all.

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Product Marketing 101: A beginner’s guide to building the function

The many hats of a product marketer, product marketing’s three essential documents and workflows, three types of product marketers, the right time to hire a product marketing leader, five green flags of great product marketing leaders, developing the marketing organization.

Building a strong marketing foundation

Three product marketing leaders explain SaaS positioning, messaging, and GTM strategy—plus practical hiring advice.

Early stage founders know that product marketing is the connective work that turns a product into a tool or solution with revenue potential. Product marketing makes up a big part of a founding team’s workflows—think studying the market, learning customers’ pain points, and figuring out how to build and sell a differentiated offering. But eventually a CEO needs to welcome a new brain into the operations to formalize positioning, messaging, pricing, sales motions, and more, to free up time and serve as a force multiplier.

So, what does great product marketing look like, and what should founders and early stage teams look for in their early product marketing hires? 

We spoke with Diana Jovin, Vice President of Marketing at Teleport; Cecilia Stallsmith, founder of the developer go-to-market (GTM) consultancy Calyx, where she has run product marketing launches for companies like Stripe, 1Password and Airtable; and Meghan Keaney Anderson, Head of Product Marketing and Communications at Watershed and former Head of Marketing at Jasper, to explain the nuts and bolts of product marketing––and how to build it out at your company.

Often the first GTM hire, product marketers bring a founder’s GTM vision to life. PMMs figure out the best way to explain their product’s competitive edge in the market, and translate those key points into scalable messaging for go-to-market efforts, like sales and demand generation. The core responsibilities of a PMM include:

• Market research: Understanding the core audience, its pain points, and its needs. 
• Positioning: Articulating how your product is uniquely suited to solve a specific buyer’s problem in the market.
• Messaging: Developing talking points and recommended language to use in different sales and marketing scenarios and tailored to each core buyer persona. 
• GTM strategy: Launching products and driving user adoption, retention, and engagements.
• Sales enablement: Creating marketing assets for different stages of the funnel, like thought leadership articles, case studies, and demos.
• Customer feedback: Collecting qualitative and quantitative data to improve the customer experience and inform higher-level product decisions. 

Product marketing is a “glue role,” meaning it connects a product to the right users and helps them adopt it, said Calyx’s Cecilia Stallsmith.

"The product marketer's role is to deeply understand the customer," said Cecilia. A product marketer must "hone user personas, and figure out how to communicate the value of the product—the best product messaging is user-centric, and focuses on how the product solves a problem for the intended audience."

At its core, product marketing is a combination of information architecture and strategy, explained Diana Jovin, Teleport’s VP of Marketing. “The two key information architecture elements are positioning and messaging,” Diana added. 

Finally, product marketing is a team sport: it’s highly cross-functional. The best marketing leaders don’t develop positioning and messaging in isolation—to drive the best outcomes, product marketers must talk to customers,  engage in internal strategy calls, and conduct competitive research with the help of learning from users, analysts, and other experts, Diana said.

Here, we dive deeper into the definitions and expectations of positioning, messaging, and GTM strategy:

Positioning

Positioning answers the question, why should your audience pick you instead of alternatives in the market? It’s a core GTM topic, not only in lean product marketing but even in brand communications , too.

Effective positioning isn’t that creative or exciting, explained Meghan, Jasper’s former marketing leader. "I think about the difference between positioning as the architecture of your house versus the furniture, decorations, and how it looks on top of that,” she added.

Strong positioning shares three characteristics: it’s very concrete, repeatable, and defensible, Meghan said. Most importantly, positioning entails “figuring out the coordinates of your company,” she added. To position a product, PMMs answer questions like:

• Who are you selling to? 
• What is their biggest problem? 
• How does your product solve that problem? 
• Why is your product differentiated in your response to that problem?

The answers to these questions help PMMs develop a product’s value proposition .

Diana added that a value proposition commonly follows this formula: “For a persona who has a problem , here is a solution that provides benefits .” The role of the product marketer is to identify and articulate the persona, problem, solution, and benefits.

Think of messaging as talking points or guidelines—not word-for-word copy, Diana explained. It’s the storytelling that brings your value proposition to life, Meghan added. 

The messaging side of product marketing translates value propositions into creative marketing campaigns designed to reach the product’s core personas, or buyer profiles. 

Product messaging reflects the audience, market trends, business need, product benefits, and points of differentiation. It should synthesize that into recommended language that other marketers can turn into sales enablement assets and demand generation campaigns, and that the sales team can use on its calls and demos, Diana said.

GTM strategy

Going to market with a product has two key stages: launch and adoption . This is especially the case for product-led growth startups, Meghan explained. 

 "If you're a product marketer for a startup that's largely product-led growth and doesn't have a very complex buying cycle, then your focus is probably much more focused on product launches, but also within the product itself,” said Meghan. “How do you drive activation points? How do you drive adoption? What are the mechanics that you can introduce into the messaging around the use of a product that will get people deeper into it?"

In GTM strategy, it’s also important to determine whether you plan to pursue an offensive or defensive product marketing strategy—or a combination of both.

Offensive product marketing explains why the product is better than the competition—by pointing out its own strengths over the competition’s weaknesses.

Defensive product marketing anticipates the different strategic moves that competitors might make in response to you, and adjusts the positioning accordingly so you can defend your space, Diana explained.

Both strategy types—but especially defensive product marketing—help convey why a company’s product has the right to win market share.

“Within a corporate deck, I always include a market definition slide,” said Diana. “It answers questions like, what elements give you the right to win? What can the company do better than anybody else? By doing that, you articulate how you are disrupting a market while creating a defensive moat against the moves that competitors might make.”

To bring positioning and messaging to life––and reach internal consensus––product marketers translate their research into clear documentation. To that end, Diana recommends three core “tools” in the product marketing lifecycle:

• Messaging document: Explains a product’s audience, market trends, benefits and differentiation. Additionally, the messaging document includes recommended language for describing the product, plus the benefits of describing it in that way.
• Persona document: Covers product’s audience––its core buyers, some of their titles, their key priorities, and their day-to-day responsibilities that they might be preoccupied with when sales reaches out to them.
• Campaign document: A project brief that articulates a marketing campaign’s objective and purpose, key performance indicators (KPIs), channels it’ll live on, and stakeholder responsibilities. 

Note that messaging documents can be polarizing among PMM leaders—some high-profile SaaS companies prefer to lean on their feature landing pages and sales decks as their source-of-truth messaging documents, Cecilia said. That’s because messaging can quickly become stale in a rapidly changing market. For that reason, you should still expect to develop messaging, but might choose to house and update it in dedicated documentation, or direct stakeholders to product copy and sales enablement materials instead.

Finally, it’s important to leverage user research best practices to learn who they are and what they need in their own words. These insights can inform positioning, messaging, and GTM strategy. “It’s really important to design effective interview guides and questionnaires so you don’t lead the user and bias the information you gather,” Cecilia said. Here are her two tips for conducting smart qualitative research:

• Make sure you understand the difference between open-ended and leading questions. It's all too easy to ask a question with wording that's already biased in favor of a positive or negative answer. Open-ended questions avoid this trap, allowing the user to articulate their thoughts and feelings on the topic at hand. A leading question like "Did you find the interface difficult to use?" guides the user toward saying yes and identifying how, whereas an open-ended question like "If you could change one thing about the product, what would it be?" doesn't guide the user toward a specific answer choice or sentiment.
• Learn about selection bias when building surveys and questionnaires. Ideally, data collection will represent the overall user base and market—but without the right sampling measures, informal surveys may draw just a subset of the overall population you’re intending to study. For instance, survey opt-ins may draw more engaged users and yield positive answers, rather than a range of product opinions that could actually move the needle with actionable feedback.

Though a first marketing hire might need to be a “Swiss Army knife” profile, a more mature product marketing function has specialists aligned to the organization’s broader needs and innovation strategy. Here are three common PMM archetypes:

• Enterprise PMMs are often focused on sales enablement. These product marketers adapt positioning to different industries and buyer personas, Meghan explained. “Enterprise PMMs mostly accompany the sales team on their process, especially if it’s a big inside sales team,” she added.
• Product-led growth (PLG) PMMs primarily support launches and growth initiatives within the product itself. They’re particularly common at startups with straightforward and self-serve sales cycles. Product-focused PMMs drive activation points and adoption, Meghan added, and develop messaging that gets users deeper into the product. Think of them as an API between the product and sales orgs, Diana explained. 
• Technical/Developer PMMs create in-depth tutorials and demos for a technical audience. They speak the language of developers—straightforward and without jargon, Cecilia explained, unlike more corporate enterprise buyers. “They have to be able to take a very technical concept, understand it deeply, and then articulate how it works,” she added. “To me, it’s sort of a blend of a sales engineer and a product marketer,” Meghan added.

“The role of product marketing is to enable you to scale, once you have identified good product-market fit” said Diana. “Without that, your CEO is going to have to be on every call as a small company.”

There are three clear signs it’s time to hire a product marketer:

• When the company is ready to move from early adopters to scaled growth. Once you've found product-market fit, product marketing can help identify the broader market that your product needs to target, develop resonant messaging, and run marketing efforts to acquire those new users. Your first product marketing hire often sets up your marketing team's basic early infrastructure for adopting and activating users.
• To support product launches. If launches and feature releases feel unmanageable, PMMs can help get the word out in a controlled and scalable manner on different channels. "There are some companies where they're releasing a ton of product, they've got little feature releases every week, they've got a major launch every quarter,” said Meghan. “And in many cases, especially in the tech industry, you see that's the case that actually pushes someone to hire their first product marketer."
• If you’re looking to break into new markets. “In industries where there’s an expansion motion, or you’re selling into hard-to-move industries, you really need more of a solutions-focused product marketer who can research the buyer, understand that buying process and what matters to them, and help establish product-market fit,” Meghan added.

Great PMMs are able to jump into a fast-growing startup, serve as a founder’s GTM thought partner, and quickly execute on new ideas. But, how should you discern among a pool of competitive candidates? These signals tend to indicate promise in product marketing leaders:

• They’re not brand new to product marketing. “You can't train on the fly for something that is such a pivotal position and that enables so many different functions in the organization,” Diana said. The goal is to find a seasoned product marketer—but sometimes they pivot from a tangential role, such as content marketing, customer marketing, or sales enablement, before growing within the PMM function.
• They know how to drive revenue. Meghan emphasized the importance of bringing on a leader who knows what levers to pull to support business growth. Translated to skill sets, that might look like someone who’s familiar with growth marketing and sales enablement tactics, on top of deeply understanding the product and market.
• They can articulate technical concepts and product features. This doesn’t mean PMMs need to know how to code—it’s useful, but not critical, Ceci said. But they do need to understand the technical side of what is happening at the company, especially so they can have substantive conversations with engineers and translate technical know-how into messaging that will resonate with different personas and stakeholder groups. Founders should expect to explain to candidates what degree of technical depth their marketing leader needs to understand to effectively position the product, Diana added.
• They understand the market. Early marketing leaders need to have a firm grasp of the market’s history and trends. Together with technical understanding, product marketing leaders need to be able to deliver a narrative about the product and market it serves.
• They have good conversational chemistry with founders and C-level leaders. You want someone who is happy to roll up their sleeves,” Cecilia said. “I’d want to hire someone who's excellent at extracting the vision from a founder and turning that into a crisp, resonate message for the market."

Asking these questions helps founding teams identify the right talent to deliver on several key business objectives: establishing a foothold in the market, connecting product to market, and making customer empathy a core tenet of any marketing strategy and campaign. Diana expands on these three points:

• Positioning is pivotal to your long-term outcome. Going after a niche in an existing market? Creating a new market? These questions define who you see as your competitor or alternative solution set, and the work that's needed to drive market awareness and interest.
• Narrative bridges the gap between the market and the product. Often technical founders are very focused on the nuts and bolts of a product. Your narrative informs the arc of content that comes before prospects are ready to talk about feature sets. 
• Technical skills mean deeper understanding of customer experience and problem set. Even though PMMs don’t need to code, they need to understand the world from the point of view of their customer base.

Once you’ve hired a marketing leader, it’s time to build out a team. So, what does a marketing org look like over time? 

First, our advice assumes your first hire is a PMM. Note that this is not prescriptive; for example, PLG startups occasionally opt to focus on brand marketing to build awareness first. Remember to build your marketing organization, including your first hire(s), around your most important business needs. 

Meghan shared a glimpse of the shift in marketing priorities as a startup scales from Series A to Series B:

Series A companies need to stand up their positioning in the market and their engine of growth, Meghan said. “I might hire a head of marketing to formalize the positioning, and have them hire someone who can build the engine—one person who does product marketing, and then the other who can figure out the mechanism for getting people into the funnel and whether it's freemium or an inside sales team. But those are the two most important things: Get to a place of predictable demand and get to the foundation of why you're different in the market."

Series B companies double down on where they’re strongest and where their differentiation needs to be, Meghan said. If your best leads come from organic, then lean heavily on SEO and organic. If they come from events, build out field marketing, she explained.

When to hire a chief marketing officer (CMO) 

From there, when should you hire a CMO? Not until after you’ve proven product-market fit, said Diana. Bring on a product marketing leader first, and hire a CMO when the company is more mature, Diana and Meghan agreed. 

Most importantly, it’s the right time to hire a CMO when you feel the need to build a full-fledged marketing organization—not just product marketing support that focuses on messaging, positioning, launches, and sales enablement, Cecilia added. 

CMOs shine at overseeing a marketing organization’s budget, building and executing a strategic plan, and aligning product marketing with other marketing and communications functions, like demand generation, brand marketing, field marketing, and corporate communications. When you’re thinking about building a full-stack growth engine, with brand work, a communications strategy, events, and more, it’s important that a CMO oversees these extra specialties.  

Building a strong marketing foundation 

Once a product marketing foundation is in place, it’s time to continue educating the market and supporting sales on the stages of the buyer journey that need the most improvement. Building a marketing team that translates positioning and messaging into valuable campaigns and assets is a critical part of business-building. It’s never too early to bring on a strategic storyteller to help establish and refine product-market fit. 

To learn more about marketing, communications, customer success, partnerships, and GTM operations, subscribe today to our GTM Course.

60+ Marketing Related Project Ideas: Every Marketer Must Know

Are you looking for marketing related project ideas, if so then you are at the right place. However, marketing is crucial to any business, whether a small start-up or a large corporation. Effective marketing strategies can help businesses reach new customers, increase brand awareness, and drive revenue growth. However, developing and executing successful marketing campaigns can be challenging with the ever-evolving landscape of consumer behaviour, technology, and competition.

This blog will explore 60+ marketing related project ideas that can be effective strategies for marketing success.

What is Marketing?

Table of Contents

Marketing refers to promoting and selling products or services to customers. It involves identifying customer needs and preferences, creating products or services that meet them, and promoting them effectively to reach the target audience.

Marketing encompasses various activities, including market research, product development, pricing, promotion, and distribution. It also involves developing and maintaining strong customer relationships and analyzing and adapting to changes in the marketplace and consumer behavior.

The ultimate goal of marketing is to generate revenue and profit for a business by satisfying customer needs and wants. Effective marketing strategies can help businesses increase their customer base, build brand loyalty, and achieve their objectives.

Role of Marketing Projects

A marketing project is crucial in helping businesses achieve their marketing goals. Marketing projects are typically designed to address a specific marketing challenge or opportunity, such as launching a new product, increasing brand awareness, or entering a new market.

Some of the key roles of a marketing project include:

1. Identifying Customer Needs And Preferences

A marketing project can help businesses gather information about their target audience, including their needs, preferences, and purchasing behavior. This information can be used to develop more effective marketing strategies and tactics.

2. Developing Marketing Strategies And Tactics

 A marketing project can help businesses develop and implement effective marketing strategies and tactics, such as advertising, promotions, and social media campaigns. These strategies can help businesses reach their target audience and generate more leads and sales.

3. Measuring And Analyzing Marketing Performance

A marketing project can help businesses track and measure their marketing performance, including metrics such as website traffic, conversion rates, and customer engagement. This data can be used to refine marketing strategies and improve overall performance.

4. Building Brand Awareness And Loyalty

A marketing project can help businesses build brand awareness and loyalty among their target audience. By developing and implementing effective branding strategies, businesses can differentiate themselves from competitors and create a strong connection with their customers.

Here in this section, we will tell you more than 60+ marketing related project ideas. Read all the marketing related project ideas if you want to become a good marketer. 

1. Social Media Marketing Campaign

Develop a comprehensive marketing campaign targeting your ideal customer profile on platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

2. Email Marketing Campaign

Create an email marketing campaign that engages your subscribers with valuable content and promotions.

3. Influencer Marketing Campaign 

Partner with influencers in your industry to promote your products or services to their followers.

4. Content Marketing Strategy

Develop a content marketing strategy that includes blog posts, videos, and other types of content to engage and educate your target audience.

5. Search Engine Optimization (Seo) Strategy

Improve your website’s visibility in search engine results by developing an SEO strategy that includes keyword research, on-page optimization, and link building.

6. Pay-Per-Click (Ppc) Advertising Campaign

Create a PPC advertising campaign on platforms like Google Ads or Bing Ads to drive traffic to your website and generate leads.

7. Customer Referral Program

Implement a customer referral program that incentivizes customers to refer their friends and family to your business.

8. Trade Show Participation

Participate in trade shows and other industry events to showcase your products or services and network with potential customers. Strategically selected marketing events provide unparalleled opportunities to increase visibility, generate leads and accelerate sales.

9. Product Launch Campaign

Develop a product launch campaign that builds excitement and anticipation for your new product or service.

10. Branding And Logo Design

Develop a new branding strategy and logo design that reflects your business’s values and mission.

11. Customer Retention Program

Create a loyalty program that rewards loyal customers and incentivizes them to continue doing business with you.

12. Mobile App Development

Develop a mobile app that makes it easier for customers to interact with your business and access your products or services.

13. Web Design And Development

Redesign your website to improve its usability, functionality, and aesthetics.

14. Social Media Advertising Campaign 

Create a social media campaign on platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn to reach a broader audience.

15. Market Research

Conduct market research to understand your target audience’s needs, preferences, and purchasing behavior.

16. Customer Segmentation

Segment your customer base based on demographics, psychographics, or behavior to effectively target your marketing efforts.

17. Sales Funnel Optimization

Optimize your sales funnel to improve conversion rates and generate more revenue.

18. Customer Journey Mapping

Map out the customer journey to identify areas where you can improve the customer experience and drive more sales.

19. Video Marketing Campaign

Create a video marketing campaign that engages and educates your target audience through entertaining and informative videos.

20. Podcast Marketing Campaign

Launch a podcast that discusses topics related to your industry and promotes your products or services.

21. Event Marketing Campaign

Plan and execute an event marketing campaign that promotes your business and generates leads.

22. Loyalty Program

Implement a loyalty program that rewards repeat customers with exclusive perks and discounts.

23. Employee Advocacy Program 

Encourage your employees to become brand ambassadors and promote your business on social media and other channels.

24. Public Relations Campaign 

Develop a public relations campaign that generates positive media coverage and enhances your brand’s reputation.

25. User-Generated Content Campaign

Encourage your customers to create and share user-generated content that promotes your products or services.

26. Cross-Promotion Campaign 

Partner with other businesses in your industry to cross-promote each other’s products or services.

27. Customer Feedback Program 

Implement a customer feedback program that gathers and uses it to improve your products or services.

28. Affiliate Marketing Program

Partner with affiliate marketers who promote your products or services to their audiences in exchange for a commission.

29. Localization Strategy

Develop a localization strategy that tailors your marketing efforts to different geographic regions and cultures.

30. Website Personalization

Personalize your website’s content and user experience based on visitors’ browsing history, location, and other data points to increase engagement and conversion rates.

31. Chatbot Implementation

Implement a chatbot on your website or social media channels to provide quick and personalized customer support and answer frequently asked questions.

32. Customer Advocacy Program

Create a customer advocacy program that rewards loyal customers for promoting your business and referring new customers.

33. Community Building 

Build an online or offline community around your brand or industry to foster engagement, loyalty, and advocacy.

34. Cause Marketing Campaign 

Develop a cause marketing campaign that aligns your brand with a social or environmental cause and resonates with your target audience’s values.

35. Branded Content Partnership 

Partner with publishers or other businesses to create branded content that provides value to your target audience and promotes your brand.

36. User Experience (Ux) Design 

Improve your website or mobile app’s UX design to enhance usability, navigation, and user satisfaction.

37. Product Bundling And Upselling 

Offer product bundles or upsell opportunities to increase your average order value and revenue per customer.

38. Interactive Content Marketing 

Create interactive content such as quizzes , calculators, and games that engage and educate your target audience.

39. Customer Onboarding Program

Develop a customer onboarding program that provides new customers with a seamless and personalized experience and sets them up for success with your product or service.

40. Account-Based Marketing (ABM)

Implement an ABM strategy that targets high-value accounts or customers and delivers personalized marketing messages and experiences.

41. Virtual Reality Marketing Experience

Create an immersive VR experience that allows customers to interact with your products or services.

42. Augmented Reality Product Catalog

Develop an AR app that enables customers to visualize and try out your products in their own environment.

43. Gamification Campaign

Design a game-based marketing campaign where customers earn rewards or discounts by completing specific tasks or challenges.

44. Voice Search Optimization

Optimize your website and content for voice search queries to capture traffic from voice-enabled devices like smart speakers.

45. Personalized Packaging

Enhance customer experience by creating personalized packaging or adding custom messages to surprise and delight customers.

46. Micro-Moments Marketing

Identify key micro-moments in the customer journey and develop targeted campaigns or content to address those specific needs.

47. Geo-Targeted Campaigns

Use geolocation technology to deliver targeted ads or offers to customers based on their physical location.

48. Social Listening and Sentiment Analysis

Monitor social media platforms and online forums to gather insights about your target audience’s preferences, needs, and sentiment towards your brand.

49. Cause Marketing Campaign

Partner with a nonprofit organization or support a social cause, aligning your brand with a purpose and giving back to the community.

50. Interactive Live Webinars

Host live webinars where participants can ask questions, participate in polls, and engage in real-time discussions.

51. Subscription Box Service

Create a subscription box service that delivers curated products to customers on a regular basis, providing a unique and convenient shopping experience.

52. Data-Driven Personalization

Leverage customer data and behavior to deliver personalized marketing messages, offers, and recommendations.

53. Experiential Marketing Pop-up

Set up a temporary physical space where customers can experience your brand through interactive installations, workshops, or product demos.

54. Virtual Trade Show

Host a virtual trade show where businesses can showcase their products or services to a global audience.

55. Virtual Product Launch

Host a virtual event to unveil and showcase a new product, complete with interactive presentations, demos, and Q&A sessions.

56. Interactive Packaging

Incorporate interactive elements, such as free QR code or augmented reality, into your product packaging to provide additional content or a unique user experience.

57. Social Media Storytelling Campaign

Develop a series of engaging and compelling stories on social media platforms that highlight your brand values, mission, or behind-the-scenes content.

58. Branded Podcast

Create a podcast that focuses on topics related to your industry or niche, providing valuable insights and establishing your brand as a thought leader.

59. AI-powered Chatbot Marketing

Utilize artificial intelligence to develop advanced chatbots that can engage with customers, answer inquiries, and provide personalized recommendations.

60. Interactive Digital Signage

Use interactive digital signage in public spaces or events to capture attention, deliver targeted messages, and collect customer data.

61. Partnership with Local Artists or Designers

Collaborate with local artists or designers to create limited-edition or co-branded products that generate buzz and attract new customers.

• What is retail marketing
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Elements of Marketing Projects

Marketing projects typically involve several key elements, each important in achieving the project’s objectives. Here are some of the key elements of a marketing project:

1. Project Objectives

The objectives define what the marketing project intends to achieve. This may include increasing sales, improving brand awareness, launching a new product or service, or entering a new market.

2. Target Audience

The target audience refers to the people or businesses the marketing project intends to reach. Defining the target audience is essential to ensure the project’s messaging, branding, and tactics align with their needs and preferences.

3. Marketing Strategy

The marketing strategy outlines the project’s approach to achieve its objectives. This may include tactics such as advertising, public relations, social media marketing, email marketing, or content marketing.

The budget outlines the financial resources available to the project. This includes creative development, media buying, and other marketing expenses.

5. Timeline

The timeline outlines the project’s schedule and deadlines. This ensures the project stays on track and all tasks are completed on time.

6. Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)

KPIs measure the project’s success in achieving its objectives. This may include metrics such as website traffic , conversion rates, social media engagement, or customer acquisition costs.

7. Creative Assets

Creative assets refer to the visual and messaging components of the project, such as advertising copy, branding, and visual design. These assets are designed to capture the target audience’s attention and effectively communicate the project’s messaging.

Things to Consider While Doing Marketing Project

Creating a successful marketing project requires careful planning and execution. Here are some of the key things to consider while doing a marketing project:

1. Define Project Objectives

Before beginning any marketing project, it’s essential to define them clearly. This involves understanding what you want to achieve through the project and setting measurable goals aligning with your business objectives.

2. Know Your Target Audience

Understanding your target audience is critical to developing effective marketing strategies and tactics. Conduct market research to identify your ideal customer profile and tailor your messaging and tactics to resonate with their needs and preferences.

3. Develop A Comprehensive Marketing Strategy

Based on your project objectives and target audience, develop a comprehensive marketing strategy that outlines the tactics you’ll use to achieve your goals. Consider incorporating traditional and digital marketing tactics to reach your target audience effectively.

4. Set A Realistic Budget

Developing an effective marketing project requires a budget considering the costs of creative development, media buying, and other marketing expenses. Set a realistic budget that aligns with your business goals and resources.

5. Establish A Clear Timeline

Creating a marketing project involves multiple tasks that must be completed within a specific timeframe. Establish a clear timeline that outlines the project’s milestones and deadlines.

6. Monitor And Measure Performance

Track and measure the project’s performance against the established KPIs to identify what’s working and needs improvement. Regularly analyze the data and adjust your tactics to improve the project’s effectiveness.

7. Leverage Data And Insights

Incorporate data and insights into your marketing project to inform your decision-making and improve your outcomes. Use data to identify emerging trends and insights to refine your strategies and tactics.

Ways to Find Best Marketing Related Project Ideas

Here are some ways to find the best marketing related project ideas:

1. Conduct Market Research

Conduct market research to identify gaps in the market, unmet customer needs, and emerging trends. Use this information to brainstorm project ideas that address these gaps and needs.

2. Analyze Your Competition

Analyze your competition’s marketing strategies and identify areas where you can differentiate yourself. Use this information to generate project ideas that stand out from your competitors.

3. Engage With Your Audience

Engage with your audience on social media, email, or other channels to understand their needs, pain points, and preferences. Use this information to develop projects that address their needs and preferences.

4. Analyze Your Data

Analyze your marketing data to identify areas where you can improve your performance. For example, you may notice that your email open rates are low, indicating a need for a new email marketing campaign.

5. Look For Inspiration

Look for inspiration from other industries or brands that are doing innovative and successful marketing. Use this inspiration to generate new ideas that are relevant to your business.

6. Attend Industry Events

Attend industry events such as conferences, webinars, or workshops to learn about the latest trends and best practices. Use this knowledge to develop projects that leverage these trends and practices.

7. Brainstorm With Your Team

Brainstorm project ideas with your team to leverage their expertise and insights. Encourage an open and creative environment where everyone can contribute ideas.

This is the end of this post which is about marketing related project ideas. On the other hand, businesses can undertake countless marketing related project ideas to improve their marketing effectiveness and achieve success. By utilizing the right strategies and techniques, businesses can increase brand awareness, engage with their target audience, generate leads, and drive revenue. It is important to conduct thorough research, analyze data, and seek inspiration to generate the best marketing related project ideas for your business. 

Additionally, implementing these projects requires careful planning, execution, and monitoring to ensure they achieve the desired results. By prioritizing marketing effectiveness and leveraging the power of innovative and creative marketing strategies, businesses can stay ahead of the competition and achieve long-term success.

Q1. What are some creative marketing project ideas for small businesses?

a) Designing and implementing a guerrilla marketing campaign to create buzz and attract attention. b) Creating and distributing personalized direct mail or email campaigns to targeted customer segments. c) Organizing a local event or workshop to showcase products/services and engage with the community. d) Collaborating with complementary businesses for cross-promotion and co-branded campaigns.

Q2. How can I leverage digital marketing for my project?

a) Utilize search engine optimization (SEO) techniques to improve website visibility and organic traffic. b) Develop a content marketing strategy by creating valuable and relevant blog posts, videos, or infographics. c) Run targeted online advertising campaigns on platforms such as Google Ads or social media platforms. d) Leverage social media platforms to engage with customers, share content, and run promotional campaigns.

Q3. Are there any low-budget marketing project ideas for startups?

a) Utilise the power of social media marketing by creating compelling content and engaging with the audience. b) Implement a customer referral program to incentivize existing customers to refer new ones. c) Collaborate with local or micro-influencers who use your brand values and target audience. d) Leverage email marketing by building a subscriber list and sending targeted, personalized emails to customers.

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