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For a while now, you've been spearheading your organization's content marketing efforts, and your team's performance has convinced management to adopt the content marketing strategies you've suggested.

Now, your boss wants you to write and present a content marketing plan, but you've never done something like that before. You don't even know where to start.

Fortunately, we've curated the best content marketing plans to help you write a concrete plan that's rooted in data and produces results. But first, we'll discuss what a marketing plan is and how some of the best marketing plans include strategies that serve their respective businesses.

The purpose of a marketing plan is to write down strategies in an organized manner. This will help keep you on track and measure the success of your campaigns.

Writing a marketing plan will help you think of each campaign's mission, buyer personas, budget, tactics, and deliverables. With all this information in one place, you'll have an easier time staying on track with a campaign. You'll also discover what works and what doesn't. Thus, measuring the success of your strategy.

Looking to develop a marketing plan for your business? Click here to download HubSpot's free Marketing Plan Template to get started.

To learn more about how to create your marketing plan, keep reading or jump to the section you're looking for:

If you're pressed for time or resources, you might not be thinking about a marketing plan. However, a marketing plan is an important part of your business plan.

Marketing Plan vs. Business Plan

A marketing plan is a strategic document that outlines marketing objectives, strategies, and tactics.

A business plan is also a strategic document. But this plan covers all aspects of a company's operations, including finance, operations, and more. It can also help your business decide how to distribute resources and make decisions as your business grows.

I like to think of a marketing plan as a subset of a business plan; it shows how marketing strategies and objectives can support overall business goals.

Keep in mind that there's a difference between a marketing plan and a marketing strategy.

Marketing Strategy vs. Marketing Plan

A marketing strategy describes how a business will accomplish a particular goal or mission. This includes which campaigns, content, channels, and marketing software they'll use to execute that mission and track its success.

For example, while a greater plan or department might handle social media marketing, you might consider your work on Facebook as an individual marketing strategy.

A marketing plan contains one or more marketing strategies. It's the framework from which all of your marketing strategies are created and helps you connect each strategy back to a larger marketing operation and business goal.

For example, suppose your company is launching a new software product, and it wants customers to sign up. The marketing department needs to develop a marketing plan that'll help introduce this product to the industry and drive the desired signups.

The department decides to launch a blog dedicated to this industry, a new YouTube video series to establish expertise, and an account on Twitter to join the conversation around this subject. All this serves to attract an audience and convert this audience into software users.

To summarize, the business's marketing plan is dedicated to introducing a new software product to the marketplace and driving signups for that product. The business will execute that plan with three marketing strategies: a new industry blog, a YouTube video series, and a Twitter account.

Of course, the business might consider these three things as one giant marketing strategy, each with its specific content strategies. How granular you want your marketing plan to get is up to you. Nonetheless, every marketing plan goes through a particular set of steps in its creation.

Learn what they are below.

1. State your business's mission.

Your first step in writing a marketing plan is to state your mission. Although this mission is specific to your marketing department, it should serve your business's main mission statement.

From my experience, you want to be specific, but not too specific. You have plenty of space left in this marketing plan to elaborate on how you'll acquire new customers and accomplish this mission.

For example, if your business's mission is "to make booking travel a delightful experience," your marketing mission might be "to attract an audience of travelers, educate them on the tourism industry, and convert them into users of our bookings platform."

Need help building your mission statement? Download this guide for examples and templates and write the ideal mission statement.

2. Determine the KPIs for this mission.

Every good marketing plan describes how the department will track its mission's progress. To do so, you need to decide on your key performance indicators (KPIs).

KPIs are individual metrics that measure the various elements of a marketing campaign. These units help you establish short-term goals within your mission and communicate your progress to business leaders.

Let's take our example of a marketing mission from the above step. If part of our mission is "to attract an audience of travelers," we might track website visits using organic page views. In this case, "organic page views" is one KPI, and we can see our number of page views grow over time.

These KPIs will come into the conversation again in step 4.

3. Identify your buyer personas.

A buyer persona is a description of who you want to attract. This can include age, sex, location, family size, and job title. Each buyer persona should directly reflect your business's current and potential customers. So, all business leaders must agree on your buyer personas.

Create your buyer personas with this free guide and set of buyer persona templates.

4. Describe your content initiatives and strategies.

Here's where you'll include the main points of your marketing and content strategy. Because there's a laundry list of content types and channels available to you today, you must choose wisely and explain how you'll use your content and channels in this section of your marketing plan.

When I write this section, I like to stipulate:

Which types of content I'll create. These might include blog posts, YouTube videos, infographics, and ebooks.

How much of it I'll create. I typically describe content volume in daily, weekly, monthly, or even quarterly intervals. It all depends on my workflow and the short-term goals for my content.

The goals (and KPIs) I'll use to track each type. KPIs can include organic traffic, social media traffic, email traffic, and referral traffic. Your goals should also include which pages you want to drive that traffic to, such as product pages, blog pages, or landing pages.

The channels on which I'll distribute my content. Popular channels include Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Pinterest, and Instagram.

Any paid advertising that will take place on these channels.

5. Clearly define your plan's omissions.

A marketing plan explains the marketing team's focus. It also explains what the marketing team will not focus on.

If there are other aspects of your business that you aren't serving in this particular plan, include them in this section. These omissions help to justify your mission, buyer personas, KPIs, and content. You can't please everyone in a single marketing campaign, and if your team isn't on the hook for something, you need to make it known.

In my experience, this section is particularly important for stakeholders to help them understand why certain decisions were made.

6. Define your marketing budget.

Whether it's freelance fees, sponsorships, or a new full-time marketing hire, use these costs to develop a marketing budget and outline each expense in this section of your marketing plan.

You can establish your marketing budget with this kit of 8 free marketing budget templates.

7. Identify your competition.

Part of marketing is knowing whom you're marketing against. Research the key players in your industry and consider profiling each one.

Keep in mind not every competitor will pose the same challenges to your business. For example, while one competitor might be ranking highly on search engines for keywords you want your website to rank for, another competitor might have a heavy footprint on a social network where you plan to launch an account.

Easily track and analyze your competitors with this collection of ten free competitive analysis templates.

8. Outline your plan's contributors and their responsibilities.

With your marketing plan fully fleshed out, it's time to explain who's doing what. I don't like to delve too deeply into my employees' day-to-day projects, but I know which teams and team leaders are in charge of specific content types, channels, KPIs, and more.

Now that you know why you need to build an effective marketing plan, it's time to get to work. Starting a plan from scratch can be overwhelming if you haven't done it before. That's why there are many helpful resources that can support your first steps. We'll share some of the best guides and templates that can help you build effective results-driven plans for your marketing strategies.

Ready to make your own marketing plan? Get started using this free template.

Types of Marketing Plans

Depending on the company you work with, you might want to create various marketing plans. We compiled different samples to suit your needs:

1. Quarterly or Annual Marketing Plans

These plans highlight the strategies or campaigns you'll take on in a certain period.

Forbes published a marketing plan template that has amassed almost 4 million views. To help you sculpt a marketing roadmap with true vision, their template will teach you how to fill out the 15 key sections of a marketing plan, which are:

Executive Summary

Target Customers

Unique Selling Proposition

Pricing & Positioning Strategy

Distribution Plan

Your Offers

Marketing Materials

Promotions Strategy

Online Marketing Strategy

Conversion Strategy

Joint Ventures & Partnerships

Referral Strategy

Strategy for Increasing Transaction Prices

Retention Strategy

Financial Projections

Best For

If you're truly lost on where to start with a marketing plan, I highly recommend using this guide to help you define your target audience, figure out how to reach them, and ensure that audience becomes loyal customers.

2. Social Media Marketing Plan

This type of plan highlights the channels, tactics, and campaigns you intend to accomplish specifically on social media. A specific subtype is a paid marketing plan, which highlights paid strategies, such as native advertising, PPC, or paid social media promotions.

Shane Snow's Marketing Plan for His Book Dream Team is a great example of a social media marketing plan:

When Shane Snow started promoting his new book, "Dream Team," he knew he had to leverage a data-driven content strategy framework. So, he chose his favorite one: the content strategy waterfall. The content strategy waterfall is defined by Economic Times as a model used to create a system with a linear and sequential approach.

Snow wrote a blog post about how the waterfall's content strategy helped him launch his new book successfully. After reading it, you can use his tactics to inform your own marketing plan. More specifically, you'll learn how he:

Applied his business objectives to decide which marketing metrics to track.

Used his ultimate business goal of earning $200,000 in sales or 10,000 purchases to estimate the conversion rate of each stage of his funnel.

Created buyer personas to figure out which channels his audience would prefer to consume his content.

Used his average post view on each of his marketing channels to estimate how much content he had to create and how often he had to post on social media.

Calculated how much earned and paid media could cut down the amount of content he had to create and post.

Designed his process and workflow, built his team, and assigned members to tasks.

Analyzed content performance metrics to refine his overall content strategy.

Best For

I use Snow's marketing plan to think more creatively about my content promotion and distribution plan. I like that it's linear and builds on the step before it, creating an air-tight strategy that doesn't leave any details out.

3. Content Marketing Plan

This plan could highlight different strategies, tactics, and campaigns in which you'll use content to promote your business or product.

HubSpot's Comprehensive Guide for Content Marketing Strategy is a strong example of a content marketing plan:

At HubSpot, we've built our marketing team from two business school graduates working from a coffee table to a powerhouse of hundreds of employees. Along the way, we've learned countless lessons that shaped our current content marketing strategy. So, we decided to illustrate our insights in a blog post to teach marketers how to develop a successful content marketing strategy, regardless of their team's size.

In this comprehensive guide for modern marketers, you'll learn:

What exactly content marketing is.

Why your business needs a content marketing strategy.

Who should lead your content marketing efforts?

How to structure your content marketing team based on your company's size.

How to hire the right people for each role on your team.

What marketing tools and technology you'll need to succeed.

What type of content your team should create, and which employees should be responsible for creating them.

The importance of distributing your content through search engines, social media, email, and paid ads.

And finally, the recommended metrics each of your teams should measure and report to optimize your content marketing program.

Best For

This is a fantastic resource for content teams of any size - whether you're a team of one or 100. It includes how to hire and structure a content marketing team, what marketing tools you'll need, what type of content you should create, and even recommends what metrics to track for analyzing campaigns. If you're aiming to establish or boost your online presence, leveraging tools like HubSpot's drag-and-drop website builder can be extremely beneficial. It helps you create a captivating digital footprint that sets the foundation for your content marketing endeavors.

4. New Product Launch Marketing Plan

This will be a roadmap for the strategies and tactics you'll implement to promote a new product. And if you're searching for an example, look no further than Chief Outsiders' Go-To-Market Plan for a New Product:

After reading this plan, you'll learn how to:

Validate a product

Write strategic objectives

Identify your market

Compile a competitive landscape

Create a value proposition for a new product

Consider sales and service in your marketing plan

Best For

If you're looking for a marketing plan for a new product, the Chief Outsiders template is a great place to start. Marketing plans for a new product will be more specific because they target one product versus its entire marketing strategy.

5. Growth Marketing Plan

Growth marketing plans use experimentation and data to drive results, like we see in Venture Harbour's Growth Marketing Plan Template:

Venture Harbour's growth marketing plan is a data-driven and experiment-led alternative to the more traditional marketing plan. Their template has five steps intended for refinement with every test-measure-learn cycle. The five steps are:

Best For

I recommend this plan if you want to experiment with different platforms and campaigns. Experimentation always feels risky and unfamiliar, but this plan creates a framework for accountability and strategy.

In my opinion, this marketing plan is a masterclass for companies in the tourism industry. It's a comprehensive game plan that covers key strategies for events, tourism programs, meetings, and conventions.

It also divides its target market into growth and seed categories to allow for more focused strategies. For example, the plan recognizes Millennials in Chicago, Atlanta, and Nashville as the core of it's growth market, whereas people in Boston, Austin, and New York represent seed markets where potential growth opportunities exist. Then, the plan outlines objectives and tactics for reaching each market.

Why This Marketing Plan Works

The plan starts with a letter from the President & CEO of the company, who sets the stage for the plan by providing a high-level preview of the incoming developments for Louisville's tourism industry

The focus on Louisville as "Bourbon City" effectively leverages its unique cultural and culinary attributes to present a strong brand

Incorporates a variety of data points from Google Analytics, Arrivalist, and visitor profiles to to define their target audience with a data-informed approach

Colleges have a broad target audience, including prospective students, international students, parents, alumni, faculty, and staff. This marketing plan does an effective job of outlining strategies for each group as they move through different stages in the funnel.

For example, students who become prospects as freshman and sophomore will receive emails that focus on getting the most out of high school and college prep classes. Once these students become juniors and seniors - thus entering the consideration stage - the emails will focus more on the college application process and other exploratory content.

Why This Marketing Plan Works

This marketing plan by Visit Oxnard, a convention and visitors bureau, is packed with all the information one needs in a marketing plan: target markets, key performance indicators, selling points, personas, marketing tactics by channel, and much more.

It also articulates the organization's strategic plans for the upcoming fiscal year, especially as it grapples with the aftereffects of the pandemic. Lastly, it has impeccable visual appeal, with color-coded sections and strong branding elements.

Why This Marketing Plan Works

This marketing plan by a nonprofit organization is an excellent example to follow if your plan will be presented to internal stakeholders at all levels of your organization. It includes SMART marketing goals, deadlines, action steps, long-term objectives, target audiences, core marketing messages, and metrics.

The plan is detailed, yet scannable. By the end of it, one can walk away with a strong understanding of the organization's strategic direction for its upcoming marketing efforts.

Why This Marketing Plan Works

Wright County Economic Development's plan drew our attention because of its simplicity, making it good inspiration for those who'd like to outline their plan in broad strokes without frills or filler.

It includes key information such as marketing partners, goals, initiatives, and costs. The sections are easy to scan and contain plenty of information for those who'd like to dig into the details. Most important, it includes a detailed breakdown of projected costs per marketing initiative - which is critical information to include for upper-level managers and other stakeholders.

Why This Marketing Plan Works

This marketing plan presentation by a cultural council is a great example of how to effectively use data in your plan, address audiences who are new to the industry, and offer extensive detail into specific marketing strategies.

For instance, an entire slide is dedicated to the county's cultural tourism trends, and at the beginning of the presentation, the organization explains what an arts and culture agency is in the first place.

That's a critical piece of information to include for those who might not know. If you're addressing audiences outside your industry, consider defining terms at the beginning, like this organization did.

Why This Marketing Plan Works

Uses quality design and images to support the goals and priorities in the text

Separate pages for each big idea or new strategy

Includes sections for awards and accomplishments to show how the marketing plan supports wider business goals

Defines strategies and tactics for each channel for easy skimming

Cabarrus County's convention and visitors bureau takes a slightly different approach with its marketing plan, formatting it like a magazine for stakeholders to flip through. It offers information on the county's target audience, channels, goals, KPIs, and public relations strategies and initiatives.

We especially love that the plan includes contact information for the bureau's staff members, so that it's easy for stakeholders to contact the appropriate person for a specific query.

Why This Marketing Plan Works

Visit Billing's comprehensive marketing plan is like Cabarrus County's in that it follows a magazine format. With sections for each planned strategy, it offers a wealth of information and depth for internal stakeholders and potential investors.

We especially love its content strategy section, where it details the organization's prior efforts and current objectives for each content platform.

At the end, it includes strategic goals and budgets - a good move to imitate if your primary audience would not need this information highlighted at the forefront.

Why This Marketing Plan Works

Marketing Plan FAQs

What is a typical marketing plan?

In my experience, most marketing plans outline the following aspects of a business's marketing:

Strategies

Objectives

Target audience

Tactics

Each marketing plan should include one or more goals, the path your team will take to meet those goals, and how you plan to measure success.

For example, if I were a tech startup that's launching a new mobile app, my marketing plan would include:

Featured resource: Free Marketing Plan Template

What should a good marketing plan include?

A good marketing plan will create a clear roadmap for your unique marketing team. This means that the best marketing plan for your business will be distinct to your team and business needs.

That said, most marketing plans will include sections for one or more of the following:

Clear analysis of the target market

A detailed description of the product or service

Competitive analysis

Strategic marketing mix details (such as product, price, place, promotion)

Measurable goals with defined timelines

This can help you build the best marketing plan for your business.

A good marketing plan should also include a product or service's unique value proposition, a comprehensive marketing strategy including online and offline channels, and a defined budget.

Featured resource: Value Proposition Templates

What are the most important parts of a marketing plan?

When you're planning a road trip, you need a map to help define your route, step-by-step directions, and an estimate of the time it will take to get to your destination. It's literally how you get there that matters.

Like a road map, a marketing plan is only useful if it helps you get to where you want to go. So, no one part is more than the other.

That said, you can use the list below to make sure that you've added or at least considered each of the following in your marketing plan:

Marketing goals

Executive summary

Target market analysis

Competitive analysis

Marketing strategies

Tactics

Budget

Metrics

What questions should I ask when making a marketing plan?

Questions are a useful tool for when you're stuck or want to make sure you've included important details.

Try using one or more of these questions as a starting point when you create your marketing plan:

Who is my target audience?

What are their needs, motivations, and pain points?

How does our product or service solve their problems?

How will I reach and engage them?

Who are my competitors? Are they direct or indirect competitors?

What are the unique selling points of my product or service?

What marketing channels are best for the brand?

What is our budget and timeline?

How will I measure the success of marketing efforts?

How much does a marketing plan cost?

Creating a marketing plan is mostly free. But the cost of executing a marketing plan will depend on your specific plan.

Marketing plan costs vary by business, industry, and plan scope. Whether your team handles marketing in-house or hires external consultants can also make a difference. Total costs can range from a few thousand dollars to tens of thousands. This is why most marketing plans will include a budget.

Featured resource: Free Marketing Budget Templates

What is a marketing plan template?

A marketing plan template is a pre-designed structure or framework that helps you outline your marketing plan.

It offers a starting point that you can customize for your specific business needs and goals. For example, our template includes easy-to-edit sections for:

Business summary

Business initiatives

Target market

Market strategy

Budget

Marketing channels

Marketing technology

Sample Marketing Plan

Let's create a sample plan together, step by step.

Follow along with HubSpot's free Marketing Plan Template.

1. Create an overview or primary objective.

2. Determine the KPIs for this mission.

For example, if I wanted to focus on social media growth, my KPIs might look like this:

3. Identify your buyer personas.

Use the following categories to create a target audience for your campaign.

For more useful strategies, consider creating a buyer persona in our Make My Persona tool.

4. Describe your content initiatives and strategies.

Content pillars should be based on topics your audience needs to know. If your ideal clients are female entrepreneurs, then your content pillars can be: marketing, being a woman in business, remote working, and productivity hacks for entrepreneurs.
Our business mission is to provide [service, product, solution] to help [audience] reach their [financial, educational, business related] goals without compromising their [your audience's valuable asset: free time, mental health, budget, etc.]. We want to improve our social media presence while nurturing our relationships with collaborators and clients.
Then, determine any omissions.

5. Define your marketing budget.
We want to achieve a minimum of [followers] with an engagement rate of [X] on [social media platform]. The goal is to achieve an increase of [Y] on recurring clients and new meaningful connections outside the platform by the end of the year.
6. Identify your competitors.

I like to work through the following questions to clearly indicate who my competitors are:

Which platforms do they use the most?

How does their branding differentiate?

How do they talk to their audiences?

What valuable assets do customers talk about? And if they are receiving any negative feedback, what is it about?

7. Outline your plan's contributors and their responsibilities.

Create responsible parties for each portion of the plan.
Our content pillars will be: [X, Y, Z].

Social media manager: [hours per week dedicated to the project, responsibilities, team communication requirements, expectations]

Content strategist: [hours per week dedicated to the project, responsibilities, team communication requirements, expectations]

Community manager: [hours per week dedicated to the project, responsibilities, team communication requirements, expectations]

This marketing plan won't be focusing on the following areas of improvement: [A, B, C].

Sales strategists: [hours per week dedicated to the project, responsibilities, team communication requirements, expectations]

Sales executives: [hours per week dedicated to the project, responsibilities, team communication requirements, expectations]

Our marketing strategy will use a total of [Y] monthly. This will include anything from freelance collaborations to advertising.
Get started on your marketing plan.

These marketing plans serve as initial resources to get your content marketing plan started. But, to truly deliver what your audience wants and needs, you'll likely need to test some different ideas out, measure their success, and then refine your goals as you go.

Editor's Note: This post was originally published in April 2019, but was updated for comprehensiveness. This article was written by a human, but our team uses AI in our editorial process. Check out our full disclosure t o learn more about how we use AI.
Marketing will manage the content plan, implementation, and community interaction to reach the KPIs. Sales will follow the line of the marketing work while creating and implementing an outreach strategy. Customer Service will nurture clients' relationships to ensure that they have what they want. [Hours per week dedicated to the project, responsibilities, team communication requirements, expectations].Project Managers will track the progress and team communication during the project. [Hours per week dedicated to the project, responsibilities, team communication requirements, expectations].

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What is a Marketing Plan & How to Write One [+Examples]

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Learn how to write the perfect marketing plan, and check out real examples that are rooted in data and produce real results for their business.

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Your company has an upcoming event in your local area to promote your product/services alongside similar companies (GROUP TASK) Please add your slide decks below - with your group names)

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Your company has an upcoming event in your local area to promote your product/services alongside similar companies (GROUP TASK) Please add your slide decks below - with your group names)

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You have been given a budget of £2000 to get a stand built for this event.

Using the 9 evaluation methods, compare three potential suppliers - local / national. Add any screenshots of the stands they are offering / styles / anything else you find useful in your research.

Cost evaluation, quality of service, social media presence, experience and expertise, scalability, technology, financial stability, cultural fit, reviews.

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1. What is Primary and Secondary data?

2. List sources of Primary Data

3. What is the difference between Qualitative and Quantitative data?

4. List of types of Primary Qualitative and Quantitative data

5. List sources of Secondary Data

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Create your own marketing strategy using the TOPPPSEED framework

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Create your own marketing strategy using the TOPPPSEED framework

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Target Markets - wide net? Target smaller group?

Objectives - does your strategy help achieve the mission and vision?

Positioning - How do you want to be perceived in the minds of your target customers?

Processes - Automation? Training?

Partnership - what kind of partners?

Sequence - AIDA? (awareness, interest, desire, action)? RACE? (reach, act, convert, engage)

customer aquisition? retention?

Experience - what customer experience you promising?

Engagement - how are you assessing engagement?

Data - how are you monitoring data?

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Using the budget methods below, research the following - for each a definition, factors influencing choice, typical industries and typical size of company

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Using the budget methods below, research the following - for each a definition, factors influencing choice, typical industries and typical size of company

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% of Sales

Objective & Task

Competitive Parity

Zero Based Budgeting

Incremental Budgeting

https://www.perplexity.ai/

https://chatgpt.com/

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Apply the PESTEL analysis to your company

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Apply the PESTEL analysis to your company

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•Political

•Economic

•Societal forces

•Technology

•Legal

•Environment

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Create a survey on the customer experience of your company website

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Create a survey on the customer experience of your company website

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The survey is aimed at getting feedback on your company website. 5 questions only.

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At the end of the training you will be able to:

•Understand what a marketing plan is

•Understand the Ansoff’s Matrix and it’s purpose

•Understand the different types of marketing plans

•Be able to conduct a thorough marketing plan using SOSTAC

•Identify different types of competitors and be able to conduct a comprehensive competitor analysis using a variety of tools

•Be able to conduct an environment scan using multiple tools

•Understand budget-setting methods

•Understand different market research methods

•Understand how to create marketing briefs

•Evaluate potential marketing suppliers

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List who is your company's microenvironment and how they impact your business. 

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List who is your company's microenvironment and how they impact your business. 

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•Suppliers (kinds of suppliers)

•Intermediaries

•Competitors (done previously)

•Publics

•Customers (kinds of customers)

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Analyse the internal elements of your company

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Analyse the internal elements of your company

# data[].attributes.body
•Resources

•System and processes

•Skills/people

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Conduct an analysis of your competitors for their marketing activities

# data[].attributes.subject
Conduct an analysis of your competitors for their marketing activities

# data[].attributes.body
Name, social channels, followers, how often do they post? What is their main content type? Do they post ads?

https://www.socialinsider.io/

https://adstransparency.google.com/

https://www.facebook.com/ads/library/?active_status=all&ad_type=all&country=GB&is_targeted_country=false&media_type=all

https://library.tiktok.com/ads?region=GB&start_time=1664578800000&end_time=1721304769890&adv_name=&adv_biz_ids=&query_type=&sort_type=last_shown_date,desc

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•What is the best benefit of your product from your customer’s view?

•How is your product/service completely unique?

•Why would a customer buy from you and not your competition?

•When will the customer be better off buying from someone else?

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Complete the website analysis for your competitors

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Complete the website analysis for your competitors

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Name, Domain strength, Speed test, Content, reviews from other sites, google review, keywords they rank for

https://websiteseochecker.com

https://pagespeed.web.dev/

https://app.wincher.com

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Create a positioning map of your company and competitors

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Create a positioning map of your company and competitors

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Profile your competitors   3-5 from Task 1 

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Profile your competitors   3-5 from Task 1 

# data[].attributes.body
Name of competitor

•Background

•Product range

•Target market

•Pricing strategy

•Marketing strategy

•Distribution Strategy

•USP - unique selling point - what makes them better or stand out more from the competition.

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Post your company name and the following -

Name of competitors (3-5) / type / how they are a competitor

Screenshots of Google map entries of top competitors

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For a while now, you've been spearheading your organization's content marketing efforts, and your team's performance has convinced management to adopt the content marketing strategies you've suggested.

Now, your boss wants you to write and present a content marketing plan, but you've never done something like that before. You don't even know where to start.

Fortunately, we've curated the best content marketing plans to help you write a concrete plan that's rooted in data and produces results. But first, we'll discuss what a marketing plan is and how some of the best marketing plans include strategies that serve their respective businesses.

The purpose of a marketing plan is to write down strategies in an organized manner. This will help keep you on track and measure the success of your campaigns.

Writing a marketing plan will help you think of each campaign's mission, buyer personas, budget, tactics, and deliverables. With all this information in one place, you'll have an easier time staying on track with a campaign. You'll also discover what works and what doesn't. Thus, measuring the success of your strategy.

Looking to develop a marketing plan for your business? Click here to download HubSpot's free Marketing Plan Template to get started.

To learn more about how to create your marketing plan, keep reading or jump to the section you're looking for:

If you're pressed for time or resources, you might not be thinking about a marketing plan. However, a marketing plan is an important part of your business plan.

Marketing Plan vs. Business Plan

A marketing plan is a strategic document that outlines marketing objectives, strategies, and tactics.

A business plan is also a strategic document. But this plan covers all aspects of a company's operations, including finance, operations, and more. It can also help your business decide how to distribute resources and make decisions as your business grows.

I like to think of a marketing plan as a subset of a business plan; it shows how marketing strategies and objectives can support overall business goals.

Keep in mind that there's a difference between a marketing plan and a marketing strategy.

Marketing Strategy vs. Marketing Plan

A marketing strategy describes how a business will accomplish a particular goal or mission. This includes which campaigns, content, channels, and marketing software they'll use to execute that mission and track its success.

For example, while a greater plan or department might handle social media marketing, you might consider your work on Facebook as an individual marketing strategy.

A marketing plan contains one or more marketing strategies. It's the framework from which all of your marketing strategies are created and helps you connect each strategy back to a larger marketing operation and business goal.

For example, suppose your company is launching a new software product, and it wants customers to sign up. The marketing department needs to develop a marketing plan that'll help introduce this product to the industry and drive the desired signups.

The department decides to launch a blog dedicated to this industry, a new YouTube video series to establish expertise, and an account on Twitter to join the conversation around this subject. All this serves to attract an audience and convert this audience into software users.

To summarize, the business's marketing plan is dedicated to introducing a new software product to the marketplace and driving signups for that product. The business will execute that plan with three marketing strategies: a new industry blog, a YouTube video series, and a Twitter account.

Of course, the business might consider these three things as one giant marketing strategy, each with its specific content strategies. How granular you want your marketing plan to get is up to you. Nonetheless, every marketing plan goes through a particular set of steps in its creation.

Learn what they are below.

1. State your business's mission.

Your first step in writing a marketing plan is to state your mission. Although this mission is specific to your marketing department, it should serve your business's main mission statement.

From my experience, you want to be specific, but not too specific. You have plenty of space left in this marketing plan to elaborate on how you'll acquire new customers and accomplish this mission.

For example, if your business's mission is "to make booking travel a delightful experience," your marketing mission might be "to attract an audience of travelers, educate them on the tourism industry, and convert them into users of our bookings platform."

Need help building your mission statement? Download this guide for examples and templates and write the ideal mission statement.

2. Determine the KPIs for this mission.

Every good marketing plan describes how the department will track its mission's progress. To do so, you need to decide on your key performance indicators (KPIs).

KPIs are individual metrics that measure the various elements of a marketing campaign. These units help you establish short-term goals within your mission and communicate your progress to business leaders.

Let's take our example of a marketing mission from the above step. If part of our mission is "to attract an audience of travelers," we might track website visits using organic page views. In this case, "organic page views" is one KPI, and we can see our number of page views grow over time.

These KPIs will come into the conversation again in step 4.

3. Identify your buyer personas.

A buyer persona is a description of who you want to attract. This can include age, sex, location, family size, and job title. Each buyer persona should directly reflect your business's current and potential customers. So, all business leaders must agree on your buyer personas.

Create your buyer personas with this free guide and set of buyer persona templates.

4. Describe your content initiatives and strategies.

Here's where you'll include the main points of your marketing and content strategy. Because there's a laundry list of content types and channels available to you today, you must choose wisely and explain how you'll use your content and channels in this section of your marketing plan.

When I write this section, I like to stipulate:

Which types of content I'll create. These might include blog posts, YouTube videos, infographics, and ebooks.

How much of it I'll create. I typically describe content volume in daily, weekly, monthly, or even quarterly intervals. It all depends on my workflow and the short-term goals for my content.

The goals (and KPIs) I'll use to track each type. KPIs can include organic traffic, social media traffic, email traffic, and referral traffic. Your goals should also include which pages you want to drive that traffic to, such as product pages, blog pages, or landing pages.

The channels on which I'll distribute my content. Popular channels include Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Pinterest, and Instagram.

Any paid advertising that will take place on these channels.

5. Clearly define your plan's omissions.

A marketing plan explains the marketing team's focus. It also explains what the marketing team will not focus on.

If there are other aspects of your business that you aren't serving in this particular plan, include them in this section. These omissions help to justify your mission, buyer personas, KPIs, and content. You can't please everyone in a single marketing campaign, and if your team isn't on the hook for something, you need to make it known.

In my experience, this section is particularly important for stakeholders to help them understand why certain decisions were made.

6. Define your marketing budget.

Whether it's freelance fees, sponsorships, or a new full-time marketing hire, use these costs to develop a marketing budget and outline each expense in this section of your marketing plan.

You can establish your marketing budget with this kit of 8 free marketing budget templates.

7. Identify your competition.

Part of marketing is knowing whom you're marketing against. Research the key players in your industry and consider profiling each one.

Keep in mind not every competitor will pose the same challenges to your business. For example, while one competitor might be ranking highly on search engines for keywords you want your website to rank for, another competitor might have a heavy footprint on a social network where you plan to launch an account.

Easily track and analyze your competitors with this collection of ten free competitive analysis templates.

8. Outline your plan's contributors and their responsibilities.

With your marketing plan fully fleshed out, it's time to explain who's doing what. I don't like to delve too deeply into my employees' day-to-day projects, but I know which teams and team leaders are in charge of specific content types, channels, KPIs, and more.

Now that you know why you need to build an effective marketing plan, it's time to get to work. Starting a plan from scratch can be overwhelming if you haven't done it before. That's why there are many helpful resources that can support your first steps. We'll share some of the best guides and templates that can help you build effective results-driven plans for your marketing strategies.

Ready to make your own marketing plan? Get started using this free template.

Types of Marketing Plans

Depending on the company you work with, you might want to create various marketing plans. We compiled different samples to suit your needs:

1. Quarterly or Annual Marketing Plans

These plans highlight the strategies or campaigns you'll take on in a certain period.

Forbes published a marketing plan template that has amassed almost 4 million views. To help you sculpt a marketing roadmap with true vision, their template will teach you how to fill out the 15 key sections of a marketing plan, which are:

Executive Summary

Target Customers

Unique Selling Proposition

Pricing & Positioning Strategy

Distribution Plan

Your Offers

Marketing Materials

Promotions Strategy

Online Marketing Strategy

Conversion Strategy

Joint Ventures & Partnerships

Referral Strategy

Strategy for Increasing Transaction Prices

Retention Strategy

Financial Projections

Best For

If you're truly lost on where to start with a marketing plan, I highly recommend using this guide to help you define your target audience, figure out how to reach them, and ensure that audience becomes loyal customers.

2. Social Media Marketing Plan

This type of plan highlights the channels, tactics, and campaigns you intend to accomplish specifically on social media. A specific subtype is a paid marketing plan, which highlights paid strategies, such as native advertising, PPC, or paid social media promotions.

Shane Snow's Marketing Plan for His Book Dream Team is a great example of a social media marketing plan:

When Shane Snow started promoting his new book, "Dream Team," he knew he had to leverage a data-driven content strategy framework. So, he chose his favorite one: the content strategy waterfall. The content strategy waterfall is defined by Economic Times as a model used to create a system with a linear and sequential approach.

Snow wrote a blog post about how the waterfall's content strategy helped him launch his new book successfully. After reading it, you can use his tactics to inform your own marketing plan. More specifically, you'll learn how he:

Applied his business objectives to decide which marketing metrics to track.

Used his ultimate business goal of earning $200,000 in sales or 10,000 purchases to estimate the conversion rate of each stage of his funnel.

Created buyer personas to figure out which channels his audience would prefer to consume his content.

Used his average post view on each of his marketing channels to estimate how much content he had to create and how often he had to post on social media.

Calculated how much earned and paid media could cut down the amount of content he had to create and post.

Designed his process and workflow, built his team, and assigned members to tasks.

Analyzed content performance metrics to refine his overall content strategy.

Best For

I use Snow's marketing plan to think more creatively about my content promotion and distribution plan. I like that it's linear and builds on the step before it, creating an air-tight strategy that doesn't leave any details out.

3. Content Marketing Plan

This plan could highlight different strategies, tactics, and campaigns in which you'll use content to promote your business or product.

HubSpot's Comprehensive Guide for Content Marketing Strategy is a strong example of a content marketing plan:

At HubSpot, we've built our marketing team from two business school graduates working from a coffee table to a powerhouse of hundreds of employees. Along the way, we've learned countless lessons that shaped our current content marketing strategy. So, we decided to illustrate our insights in a blog post to teach marketers how to develop a successful content marketing strategy, regardless of their team's size.

In this comprehensive guide for modern marketers, you'll learn:

What exactly content marketing is.

Why your business needs a content marketing strategy.

Who should lead your content marketing efforts?

How to structure your content marketing team based on your company's size.

How to hire the right people for each role on your team.

What marketing tools and technology you'll need to succeed.

What type of content your team should create, and which employees should be responsible for creating them.

The importance of distributing your content through search engines, social media, email, and paid ads.

And finally, the recommended metrics each of your teams should measure and report to optimize your content marketing program.

Best For

This is a fantastic resource for content teams of any size - whether you're a team of one or 100. It includes how to hire and structure a content marketing team, what marketing tools you'll need, what type of content you should create, and even recommends what metrics to track for analyzing campaigns. If you're aiming to establish or boost your online presence, leveraging tools like HubSpot's drag-and-drop website builder can be extremely beneficial. It helps you create a captivating digital footprint that sets the foundation for your content marketing endeavors.

4. New Product Launch Marketing Plan

This will be a roadmap for the strategies and tactics you'll implement to promote a new product. And if you're searching for an example, look no further than Chief Outsiders' Go-To-Market Plan for a New Product:

After reading this plan, you'll learn how to:

Validate a product

Write strategic objectives

Identify your market

Compile a competitive landscape

Create a value proposition for a new product

Consider sales and service in your marketing plan

Best For

If you're looking for a marketing plan for a new product, the Chief Outsiders template is a great place to start. Marketing plans for a new product will be more specific because they target one product versus its entire marketing strategy.

5. Growth Marketing Plan

Growth marketing plans use experimentation and data to drive results, like we see in Venture Harbour's Growth Marketing Plan Template:

Venture Harbour's growth marketing plan is a data-driven and experiment-led alternative to the more traditional marketing plan. Their template has five steps intended for refinement with every test-measure-learn cycle. The five steps are:

Best For

I recommend this plan if you want to experiment with different platforms and campaigns. Experimentation always feels risky and unfamiliar, but this plan creates a framework for accountability and strategy.

In my opinion, this marketing plan is a masterclass for companies in the tourism industry. It's a comprehensive game plan that covers key strategies for events, tourism programs, meetings, and conventions.

It also divides its target market into growth and seed categories to allow for more focused strategies. For example, the plan recognizes Millennials in Chicago, Atlanta, and Nashville as the core of it's growth market, whereas people in Boston, Austin, and New York represent seed markets where potential growth opportunities exist. Then, the plan outlines objectives and tactics for reaching each market.

Why This Marketing Plan Works

The plan starts with a letter from the President & CEO of the company, who sets the stage for the plan by providing a high-level preview of the incoming developments for Louisville's tourism industry

The focus on Louisville as "Bourbon City" effectively leverages its unique cultural and culinary attributes to present a strong brand

Incorporates a variety of data points from Google Analytics, Arrivalist, and visitor profiles to to define their target audience with a data-informed approach

Colleges have a broad target audience, including prospective students, international students, parents, alumni, faculty, and staff. This marketing plan does an effective job of outlining strategies for each group as they move through different stages in the funnel.

For example, students who become prospects as freshman and sophomore will receive emails that focus on getting the most out of high school and college prep classes. Once these students become juniors and seniors - thus entering the consideration stage - the emails will focus more on the college application process and other exploratory content.

Why This Marketing Plan Works

This marketing plan by Visit Oxnard, a convention and visitors bureau, is packed with all the information one needs in a marketing plan: target markets, key performance indicators, selling points, personas, marketing tactics by channel, and much more.

It also articulates the organization's strategic plans for the upcoming fiscal year, especially as it grapples with the aftereffects of the pandemic. Lastly, it has impeccable visual appeal, with color-coded sections and strong branding elements.

Why This Marketing Plan Works

This marketing plan by a nonprofit organization is an excellent example to follow if your plan will be presented to internal stakeholders at all levels of your organization. It includes SMART marketing goals, deadlines, action steps, long-term objectives, target audiences, core marketing messages, and metrics.

The plan is detailed, yet scannable. By the end of it, one can walk away with a strong understanding of the organization's strategic direction for its upcoming marketing efforts.

Why This Marketing Plan Works

Wright County Economic Development's plan drew our attention because of its simplicity, making it good inspiration for those who'd like to outline their plan in broad strokes without frills or filler.

It includes key information such as marketing partners, goals, initiatives, and costs. The sections are easy to scan and contain plenty of information for those who'd like to dig into the details. Most important, it includes a detailed breakdown of projected costs per marketing initiative - which is critical information to include for upper-level managers and other stakeholders.

Why This Marketing Plan Works

This marketing plan presentation by a cultural council is a great example of how to effectively use data in your plan, address audiences who are new to the industry, and offer extensive detail into specific marketing strategies.

For instance, an entire slide is dedicated to the county's cultural tourism trends, and at the beginning of the presentation, the organization explains what an arts and culture agency is in the first place.

That's a critical piece of information to include for those who might not know. If you're addressing audiences outside your industry, consider defining terms at the beginning, like this organization did.

Why This Marketing Plan Works

Uses quality design and images to support the goals and priorities in the text

Separate pages for each big idea or new strategy

Includes sections for awards and accomplishments to show how the marketing plan supports wider business goals

Defines strategies and tactics for each channel for easy skimming

Cabarrus County's convention and visitors bureau takes a slightly different approach with its marketing plan, formatting it like a magazine for stakeholders to flip through. It offers information on the county's target audience, channels, goals, KPIs, and public relations strategies and initiatives.

We especially love that the plan includes contact information for the bureau's staff members, so that it's easy for stakeholders to contact the appropriate person for a specific query.

Why This Marketing Plan Works

Visit Billing's comprehensive marketing plan is like Cabarrus County's in that it follows a magazine format. With sections for each planned strategy, it offers a wealth of information and depth for internal stakeholders and potential investors.

We especially love its content strategy section, where it details the organization's prior efforts and current objectives for each content platform.

At the end, it includes strategic goals and budgets - a good move to imitate if your primary audience would not need this information highlighted at the forefront.

Why This Marketing Plan Works

Marketing Plan FAQs

What is a typical marketing plan?

In my experience, most marketing plans outline the following aspects of a business's marketing:

Strategies

Objectives

Target audience

Tactics

Each marketing plan should include one or more goals, the path your team will take to meet those goals, and how you plan to measure success.

For example, if I were a tech startup that's launching a new mobile app, my marketing plan would include:

Featured resource: Free Marketing Plan Template

What should a good marketing plan include?

A good marketing plan will create a clear roadmap for your unique marketing team. This means that the best marketing plan for your business will be distinct to your team and business needs.

That said, most marketing plans will include sections for one or more of the following:

Clear analysis of the target market

A detailed description of the product or service

Competitive analysis

Strategic marketing mix details (such as product, price, place, promotion)

Measurable goals with defined timelines

This can help you build the best marketing plan for your business.

A good marketing plan should also include a product or service's unique value proposition, a comprehensive marketing strategy including online and offline channels, and a defined budget.

Featured resource: Value Proposition Templates

What are the most important parts of a marketing plan?

When you're planning a road trip, you need a map to help define your route, step-by-step directions, and an estimate of the time it will take to get to your destination. It's literally how you get there that matters.

Like a road map, a marketing plan is only useful if it helps you get to where you want to go. So, no one part is more than the other.

That said, you can use the list below to make sure that you've added or at least considered each of the following in your marketing plan:

Marketing goals

Executive summary

Target market analysis

Competitive analysis

Marketing strategies

Tactics

Budget

Metrics

What questions should I ask when making a marketing plan?

Questions are a useful tool for when you're stuck or want to make sure you've included important details.

Try using one or more of these questions as a starting point when you create your marketing plan:

Who is my target audience?

What are their needs, motivations, and pain points?

How does our product or service solve their problems?

How will I reach and engage them?

Who are my competitors? Are they direct or indirect competitors?

What are the unique selling points of my product or service?

What marketing channels are best for the brand?

What is our budget and timeline?

How will I measure the success of marketing efforts?

How much does a marketing plan cost?

Creating a marketing plan is mostly free. But the cost of executing a marketing plan will depend on your specific plan.

Marketing plan costs vary by business, industry, and plan scope. Whether your team handles marketing in-house or hires external consultants can also make a difference. Total costs can range from a few thousand dollars to tens of thousands. This is why most marketing plans will include a budget.

Featured resource: Free Marketing Budget Templates

What is a marketing plan template?

A marketing plan template is a pre-designed structure or framework that helps you outline your marketing plan.

It offers a starting point that you can customize for your specific business needs and goals. For example, our template includes easy-to-edit sections for:

Business summary

Business initiatives

Target market

Market strategy

Budget

Marketing channels

Marketing technology

Sample Marketing Plan

Let's create a sample plan together, step by step.

Follow along with HubSpot's free Marketing Plan Template.

1. Create an overview or primary objective.

2. Determine the KPIs for this mission.

For example, if I wanted to focus on social media growth, my KPIs might look like this:

3. Identify your buyer personas.

Use the following categories to create a target audience for your campaign.

For more useful strategies, consider creating a buyer persona in our Make My Persona tool.

4. Describe your content initiatives and strategies.

Content pillars should be based on topics your audience needs to know. If your ideal clients are female entrepreneurs, then your content pillars can be: marketing, being a woman in business, remote working, and productivity hacks for entrepreneurs.
Our business mission is to provide [service, product, solution] to help [audience] reach their [financial, educational, business related] goals without compromising their [your audience's valuable asset: free time, mental health, budget, etc.]. We want to improve our social media presence while nurturing our relationships with collaborators and clients.
Then, determine any omissions.

5. Define your marketing budget.
We want to achieve a minimum of [followers] with an engagement rate of [X] on [social media platform]. The goal is to achieve an increase of [Y] on recurring clients and new meaningful connections outside the platform by the end of the year.
6. Identify your competitors.

I like to work through the following questions to clearly indicate who my competitors are:

Which platforms do they use the most?

How does their branding differentiate?

How do they talk to their audiences?

What valuable assets do customers talk about? And if they are receiving any negative feedback, what is it about?

7. Outline your plan's contributors and their responsibilities.

Create responsible parties for each portion of the plan.
Our content pillars will be: [X, Y, Z].

Social media manager: [hours per week dedicated to the project, responsibilities, team communication requirements, expectations]

Content strategist: [hours per week dedicated to the project, responsibilities, team communication requirements, expectations]

Community manager: [hours per week dedicated to the project, responsibilities, team communication requirements, expectations]

This marketing plan won't be focusing on the following areas of improvement: [A, B, C].

Sales strategists: [hours per week dedicated to the project, responsibilities, team communication requirements, expectations]

Sales executives: [hours per week dedicated to the project, responsibilities, team communication requirements, expectations]

Our marketing strategy will use a total of [Y] monthly. This will include anything from freelance collaborations to advertising.
Get started on your marketing plan.

These marketing plans serve as initial resources to get your content marketing plan started. But, to truly deliver what your audience wants and needs, you'll likely need to test some different ideas out, measure their success, and then refine your goals as you go.

Editor's Note: This post was originally published in April 2019, but was updated for comprehensiveness. This article was written by a human, but our team uses AI in our editorial process. Check out our full disclosure t o learn more about how we use AI.
Marketing will manage the content plan, implementation, and community interaction to reach the KPIs. Sales will follow the line of the marketing work while creating and implementing an outreach strategy. Customer Service will nurture clients' relationships to ensure that they have what they want. [Hours per week dedicated to the project, responsibilities, team communication requirements, expectations].Project Managers will track the progress and team communication during the project. [Hours per week dedicated to the project, responsibilities, team communication requirements, expectations].

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What is a Marketing Plan & How to Write One [+Examples]

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Learn how to write the perfect marketing plan, and check out real examples that are rooted in data and produce real results for their business.

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The Ansoff Matrix Explained with Example

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Marketing in Two Minutes: APIC Marketing Planning Model

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SOSTAC - how to write the perfect plan (in 4 minutes)

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Market Mapping / Market Positioning Map | Marketing

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Earned media vs. paid media vs. owned media EXPLAINED

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SWOT Analysis - What is SWOT? Definition, Examples and How to Do a SWOT Analysis

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Porter's 5 Forces Explained | External Analysis Course

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Setting SMART Marketing Objectives and Goals

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Money 20/20 - Direct Competitor

Background: Established international fintech events company founded in 2012.

Product range: International fintech and payments events

Target market: businesses, credit unions, investors, start ups, government officials in finance

Pricing strategy: 'Early Bird' tickets which then gradually increase to standard price as it draws closer to the event date. (£££-£££££)

Marketing strategy: Online

Distribution: Own website registration page

USP: Good reputation globally, makes them more trustworthy/value for money than other fintech events

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Fintech Connect - Direct

Money 20/20 - Direct Competitor

Background: Established UK fintech events company founded in 2014.

Product range: UK-based fintech and payments events

Target market: businesses, credit unions, investors, start ups, government officials in finance

Pricing strategy: 'Early Bird' tickets which then gradually increase to standard price as it draws closer to the event date. (£££-£££££)

Marketing strategy: Online

Distribution: Own website registration page

USP: Solid reputation in the UK fintech events market, possibly a more personal relationship with their UK market than global event organisers.

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Ces tech - very big event for tech - indirect?

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DigiMarCon - direct

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Slush - Indirect Competitor

Background: Established non-profit event company for start-ups and investors based in Finland and founded in 2008.

Product range: An annual event for start-ups and investors

Target market: Businesses, investors, entrepreneurs - wider market reach in comparison to other OBE competitors.

Pricing strategy: 'Early Bird' tickets which then gradually increase to standard price as it draws closer to the event date. (£££-£££££)

Marketing strategy: Online

Distribution: Own website registration page as well as TP ticket distributors.

USP: Established event in Finland for start-ups and businesses, non-profit and has helped a lot of people network in a wide range of industries

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HR technologies UK - Direct Comp - HR show very closely related to our CPD/Retrain expo

SME Expo - Direct Comp - our main show 'the business show' targets SME's

B2B Expo - Direct Comp - we are a B2B company with B2B events

Your Business Expo - Direct Comp - all our events are targeted towards businesses

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1. DigiMarCon

2. CES Tech

3. small business expo

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Money 20/20 - Direct Competitor

Background: Established international fintech events company founded in 2012.

Product range: International fintech and payments events

Target market: businesses, credit unions, investors, start ups, government officials in finance

Pricing strategy: 'Early Bird' tickets which then gradually increase to standard price as it draws closer to the event date. (£££-£££££)

Marketing strategy: Online

Distribution: Own website registration page

USP: Good reputation globally, makes them more trustworthy/value for money than other fintech events

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Fintech Connect - Direct

Background: Established UK fintech events company founded in 2014.

Product range: UK-based fintech and payments events

Target market: businesses, credit unions, investors, start ups, government officials in finance

Pricing strategy: 'Early Bird' tickets which then gradually increase to standard price as it draws closer to the event date. (£££-£££££)

Marketing strategy: Online

Distribution: Own website registration page

USP: Solid reputation in the UK fintech events market, possibly a more personal relationship with their UK market than global event organisers.

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Slush - Indirect Competitor

Background: Established non-profit event company for start-ups and investors based in Finland and founded in 2008.

Product range: An annual event for start-ups and investors

Target market: Businesses, investors, entrepreneurs - wider market reach in comparison to other OBE competitors.

Pricing strategy: 'Early Bird' tickets which then gradually increase to standard price as it draws closer to the event date. (£££-£££££)

Marketing strategy: Online

Distribution: Own website registration page as well as TP ticket distributors.

USP: Established event in Finland for start-ups and businesses, non-profit and has helped a lot of people network in a wide range of industries

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1. Allows people to maximise they outdoor space and create somewhere they can relax in and enjoy, as well as having completely bespoke options in 90% of products.

2. Our ethos focuses on the organic nature of the business, with customers ordering from us, having their product handmade to order in Devon and delivered to their doorstep.

3. High-quality timber used, all made to order instead of being a stocked product and customer service lines available 12 hours a day, as a touchpoint before a purchase.

4. Buying indoor furnishings; I find our small range to be very pricey and there are many cheaper alternatives.

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1. What is the best benefit of your product from your customers POV?

That they can access tools, resources and advice to start or grow your business for free. It is also a great place for people who just want to network.

2. How is your product/service completely unique?

It is free to attend as we want to support the small business community and understand they may not have the money to attend as well as pay for the services they will sign up to at the event.

3. Why would a customer buy from you and not your competion?

As it is free I will refer to exhibitors, as we have lots of shows in different countries and areas and are continuing to expand, the exhibitors get a chance to have international as well as national customer from attending our event as we advertise the locations on each show platform.

4. When will the customer be better off buying from someone else?

When it is cheaper and they get more stuff out of it (in terms of exhibitors). In terms of ticket regsiatrtions, maybe if they have speakers from specific brands that are bigger than the ones we have (which is unlikely)

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1: access to easy networking and resources to build, grow, and develop their business in unique ways.

2: We are the the largest event in the UK within our industry, we also operate on a global scale, spanning into 4 continents

3: due to our reputation, and the scale of our events.

4: when they cannot attend either of the two days the show runs, or if they have had a negative experience.

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1. Open Banking Expo brings together a focused community around open banking and open finance, with events and content tailored specifically to that niche. Unlike broader fintech events, it concentrates on the evolving regulatory landscape, data access, and ecosystem collaboration, which makes it more targeted for professionals working in or with these themes.

2. OBE is designed for those who want to understand the specific challenges and opportunities in open banking, and to connect with others navigating the same space — whether in banking, fintech, or regulation.

3. If someone is looking for a broader fintech overview or a more general introduction to financial technology trends, then a larger, more general event might be more suitable. Open Banking Expo is more beneficial for those already working in, or closely connected to, open banking and open finance initiatives.

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resources - office, computers, printers

systems and processes - fob to open the building

skills and people - we have event directors who are main point of contact for exhibitors, then they are given an account manager who also creates a relationship and rapport.

Brand manager, graphic designer, managing director

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Resources

-Offices

-Yard where orders are made, wrapped and stored

-Delivery vehicles

-Manufacturing machines

System and Processes

-QR codes for clocking in/out

-Multiple softwares for routing and tracking deliveries

-Monthly stock-take

-'Munday' software - orders are imported and sent to manufacturers to ensure they are made within lead time and can go on the correct routes in time.

Skills & People

-Hands-on HR Team overlooking workers safety which is vital with heavy machinery

-Experienced joiners

-Skilled sales team driving up profit

-Delivery drivers

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Resources: 3 offices (Bristol, Singapore, Sydney), printer

Systems: CRM, Google drives, Google sheets to manage data, key fob for the doors, badges at shows with scanners.

Skills/people: sales, graphic design, marketing, branding, finance, operations, account managers, recruitment & HR.

CEO, Director, Marketing manager.

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Resources

Established industry network – Access to a trusted and growing community of senior professionals in banking, fintech, and regulation.

Strong brand reputation – Recognised name in the open banking space that attracts high-quality speakers, sponsors, and attendees.

System and Processes

Structured workflow for planning marketing campaigns around each event — including audience segmentation, content creation, email scheduling, and performance tracking.

(eg. Excel spreadsheets, Canva, Adobe Suite, Google Analytics, Mailchimp).

Skills/People

Deep sector knowledge – Team members who understand the nuances of open banking, payments, and fintech innovation.

Strong relationship management – Ability to build and maintain partnerships with key stakeholders, ensuring ongoing value and collaboration.

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• Suppliers

Event venues – e.g., conference centres or hotels

Tech providers – streaming platforms, AV companies, or registration software

• Intermediaries

Media partners – help promote the event to their audiences

• Competitors

Other fintech or open banking event organisers like Finovate or MoneyLIVE

• Publics

Regulatory bodies and credit unions – e.g., FCA or CMA, who influence industry direction

Media and press – journalists or publications covering open banking news

• Customers

Banks and financial institutions – attending to learn or sponsor

Fintech companies – showcasing products, speaking, or networking

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Suppliers: software, venue, raw materials

Intermediaries: distributors

Publics: magazines, news outlets

Customers: businesses, business owners, entrepreneurs, employees

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suppliers - computer, office supplies supplier, printer supplier, venue supplier

intermediaries - unsure

publics - press release, articles

customers - SME/SMBs, entrepreneurs, c suite level

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Suppliers - Timber suppliers from all over the world (Russia, European countries), our ironwork is supplied by Birkdale

Intermediaries - Wholesalers

Ebay, Etsy, B&Q

Competitors - Dunster House, Harbour Lifestyle

Publics - external website developers, google ads specialist given access to our profile and suggests improvements to maximise sales.

Customers - Landscapers, businesses, older people with more money

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Political

Government interest in open banking and financial innovation directly shapes the agenda of the Expo.

Economic

Shifts in the financial climate (e.g. cost of living, investment trends) affect sponsorship budgets and attendee participation.

Economic uncertainty can drive demand for insights into efficiency and innovation.

Societal Forces

There’s growing consumer demand for transparency, financial inclusion, and data control. The Expo reflects and responds to these evolving public expectations through curated content and discussion.

Technology

Rapid innovation in APIs, AI, and embedded finance fuels content themes and speaker line ups.

Environment

While not core to open banking, sustainability is becoming more important in event planning, with a growing focus on reducing waste, offering digital alternatives to print, and exploring hybrid event formats to limit travel impact.

Stakeholders are increasingly interested in environmentally responsible practices from organisers.

Legal

Regulations like GDPR, and open banking standards are central to the event’s purpose. Legal changes shape the landscape for participants and are a major driver of content demand.

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political - government policy changes towards events?

economic - inflation rates may have an effect on purchasing stands for exhibitors

social - show locations and new locations

technology - AI is increasing a lot and we have had feedback on some shows that there is too many AI stands and needs more variation

environment - unsure

legal - laws or legislations in terms of advertising changes like ASA or GDPR in terms of processing data

# data[].attributes.body
Political: ASA regulating advertisements across all platforms, GDPR ensuring data is managed correctly.

Economic: inflation may find businesses tight on money and therefore less willing to purchase a stand at an event (not priority)

Social: The lean towards zoom and virtual technology may cause in person events to lose relevance

Technological: The rise of AI brings the opportunity to optimise marketing operations and make the organisation's systems and processes more efficient.

Environment: not really relevant

Legal: ensure trade laws are followed, ensure contracts between businesses and exhibitors are legal, labour laws.

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S

-Our google ads campaigns drive a lot of traffic to the website, plentiful marketing budget

-We have a very dedicated customer service team

-Fast delivery lead time

-Huge growth in the last 2 years

W

-Manufacturing let's us down sometimes - parts not sent out, wrong measurements, not made within lead time

-Could improve on our reach to a younger audience

O

-As weather gets nicer, demand for our products increase

-Market for home improvements is definitely opening up

T

-Increasing tariffs

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Strengths

Well-established in the industry with strong brand recognition.

Offers high-quality content inside and outside their events and have access to a variety of resources and connections such as senior decision-makers.

Weaknesses

It operates in a very niche market, which may limit growth compared to broader fintech events.

The small team size of OBE may also limit capacity for rapid expansion and a possibly more narrow-skill set than larger organisations.

Opportunities

There’s increasing global interest in open finance and digital banking, creating space for new markets and event formats.

Partnerships and digital content can extend reach year-round.

Threats

Larger fintech events or new competitors may try to enter the open banking space.

Regulatory delays or reduced funding in the sector could also impact attendance and sponsorship.

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Strengths: international, largest B2B events in UK, offices in 3 continents

Weaknesses: no virtual events, lacking a strong social media presence, shows run once a year on 2 days.

Opportunities: Hundreds of countries to potential do events in, ever developing market of businesses in need of assistance and guidance.

Threats: many competitors, world is leaning towards doing things virtually.

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Strengths - we hit record breaking targets for some shows, some more than others. Staff are quipped with the correct skills to market and sale correctly to hit targets. the use of up to date social media channels such as tiktok

weaknesses - newer shows may be harder to market and not as good turnout as we want to market it as much as we can but not in a way that is annoying. Sometimes when the show hits over target, it may be more busier at events which some people find distracting. organisation of the event

opportunities - on social media, a lot more people are wanting to be their own boss and but need the right resources to start or grow which we offer, for free as well.

threats - bad experiences from the shows, changes in legal regulations, changes in marketing trends

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Target market - very wide net

objectives - yes

Positioning - as a place where entrepreneurs can get the best tools and advice on how to start or grow your business and network!

processes - As the growth of AI gets bigger, we will probably use more AI tools, also training sessions for newer staff on specific areas

partnership - we partner with any type of business, marketing, tech etc. associations in the area

sequence - RACE. customer retention is very important for an event

experience - statistics of how many exhibitors, speakers other attendees will be there and also a place they can network effectively

engagement - unsure as we dont look too much at that but i assume through clicks and amount of tickets via tracking codes

data - cleaning data

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Target Markets - wide net? Target a smaller group?
Our agency’s target market is London, more specifically, central and wealthy postcodes in London such as Canary Wharf.

Objectives - does your strategy help achieve the mission and vision?

A strong marketing strategy helps us achieve our mission and vision by aligning every campaign with clear, measurable goals. It ensures our PPC, SEO, and content efforts deliver real results while showcasing our creativity and innovation. By focusing on data, performance, and our clients' needs, we drive growth and position Kinsman & Co as a trusted leader in the industry.

Positioning - How do you want to be perceived in the minds of your target customers?

Kinsman & Co would like to be perceived as marketing leaders and experts in the industry

Processes - Automation? Training?

Our tasks and client projects are in an automated task tracker called monday.com. We also have automated reports that show campaign performance for each client.

Partnership - what kind of partners?

We have a partnership with a digital recruitment agency called Blu Digital, which focuses on Marketing leaders and senior roles. This helps us as an agency as Senior Marketing people view us as industry experts and may take us on in their teams to fill a gap for them. It also helps us to get interesting guests for our podcast Digital Cheesecake.

Sequence - AIDA? (awareness, interest, desire, action)? RACE? (reach, act, convert, engage)?

Our clients are on a retainer and many stay with us for years. We don’t use a framework at the moment but I would advise the AIDA framework.

Experience - what customer experience are you promising?

We promise an agency experience fully integrated into your team and reachable at all times. We work very closely with our clients and communicate via multiple channels to ensure the client feels important and able to reach out. We also promise expertise in all areas of marketing.

Engagement - how are you assessing engagement?
Use reports like Lookerstudio and the internal GA, Meta reports to analyse performance

Data - how are you monitoring data?

We monitor data via the same reports and client data is kept in locked, password protected files.

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Target Markets

Financial institutions,

Regulators & policymakers,

Technology providers (data aggregators, ID verification, payments),

Industry influencers and start-ups.

Objectives

Grow OBE's online presence (newsletter subs, LinkedIn followers, podcast listeners).

Strengthen global brand positioning as the leading platform for Open Banking insight and collaboration.

Positioning

OBE is positioned as one of the key events in the fintech industry for policy and innovation - offering a space for discussion, insight, and action.

Processes

Internal:

Quarterly marketing sprints tied to event calendar

Content repurposing pipeline: event > article > social > video

External:

Feedback loops post-event for continuous improvement

Registration and CRM systems integrated (eg. Gleanin)

Speaker and sponsor toolkits for co-promotion

Partnerships

Financial institutions & fintechs,

Trade associations (eg. FDATA),

Media outlets and podcast sponsors,

Tech vendors for event experiences (eg. networking apps, AR/VR tools).

Sequence:

AIDA - event interest - attendance conversion is paramount

Experience

Smooth and intuitive registration

On-brand, immersive event environment

Curated agendas by OBE influenced by industry trends

Tech-enabled networking (matchmaking, 1:1 scheduling)

Responsive, clean website with up-to-date agendas

Pre-event email flows with relevant content

Personalized name badges

Social media walls, interactive installations

Engagement:

LinkedIn: Thought leadership, speaker clips, polls

Email: Segmented journeys for sponsors, speakers, attendees

YouTube: Event videos, panel highlights, behind-the-scenes

Podcasts

Data

Trackable KPIs:

Registrations by channel, region, and role

Website metrics

Social media performance (shares, impressions, mentions)

Email metrics

Post-event survey feedback

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Target Markets: Wide net, broad approach

Objectives: yes

Positioning: As an accessible hub for business guidance and resources.

Processes: With the rise of AI, we may lean towards AI automation to boost the efficiency and productivity of various marketing and operations processes.

Partnership: We partner with companies that resonate with our mission and vision, as well as those who share industry interests alongside a substantial database for us to utilise through marketing strategies.

Sequence: RACE, we aim to both maintain the customers who have experienced our events, as well as continue to grow by attracting and acquiring new customers.

Experience: We're promising the presence of hundreds of informative and insightful exhibitors, speakers, and resources.

Engagement: Through website analytics, tracking codes, email & social analytics, and reviews.

Data: We ensure data is processed in an orderly manner, utilising CRM and spreadsheets to keep things orderly. We also ensure data is accurate and up to date by 'cleaning' it and updating it when new information is acquired.

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Target

Primary audience: Adults 50+, homeowners, affluent, located in areas like Devon, Guildford, Oxford; value quality, craft, and garden lifestyle.

Secondary audience: Younger homeowners (30s–40s), aspirational buyers on Etsy/B&Q, interested in outdoor aesthetics and sustainability.

Objectives

-Hit 10.1m in revenue by December

-Grown Instagram by 20% to target younger demographic

-Increase retailer sales by 40%

Positioning

-Premium, handcrafted, British-made outdoor furniture

-Position Ruby as a lifestyle choice, not just a product (customer retention)

Processes

-Training

Partnership

-Partners with builders merchants who set up trade shows for us - as an online retailer this broadens the reach.

Sequence

- AIDA

Experience

- All touchpoints need to feel personal.

-Friendly, reliable customer service

Engagement

-Email engagement tracking

-google ads reports

Data

-Daily reports from all departments

-Segment audiences regionally.

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1. % of Sales: A budgeting method where a fixed percentage of past or projected sales revenue is allocated to marketing.

Factors Influencing Choice:

Company revenue stability

Past performance trends

Management’s comfort with risk

Seasonality of sales

Typical Industries:

Retail

Consumer goods

Hospitality

Typical Company Size:

Small to medium-sized businesses

Companies with consistent sales patterns

2. Objective & Task: A budgeting method where spending is based on the cost of achieving specific marketing objectives and tasks.

Factors Influencing Choice:

Clear strategic goals

New product launches

Need for high accountability

Performance measurement

Typical Industries:

Technology

Healthcare

B2B services

Typical Company Size:

Mid-sized to large companies

Startups with goal-oriented campaigns

3. Competitive Parity: Budgeting based on matching or aligning with competitors’ spending levels or market share.

Factors Influencing Choice:

Competitive market pressure

Benchmarking practices

Industry norms

Risk of falling behind

Typical Industries:

Telecommunications

Automotive

FMCG (Fast-Moving Consumer Goods)

Typical Company Size:

Medium to large companies in competitive markets

4. Zero-Based Budgeting: A method where the marketing budget starts from zero, and all expenses must be justified for each new period.

Factors Influencing Choice:

Desire for cost control

Need for efficiency and ROI tracking

Avoiding wasteful spending

Economic uncertainty

Typical Industries:

Financial services

Manufacturing

Government or non-profit

Typical Company Size:

Large corporations

Companies undergoing restructuring or optimisation

5. Incremental Budgeting: A method that uses the previous period’s budget as a base, with incremental increases or decreases applied.

Factors Influencing Choice:

Predictable business growth

Historical budgeting habits

Stable market conditions

Typical Industries:

Education

Utilities

Traditional service industries

Typical Company Size:

Established small and medium businesses

Large organisations with routine operations

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Percentage of Sales

Definition: Allocates a fixed percentage of current or projected sales revenue to the budget, often used for marketing and advertising expenses.​

Factors Influencing Choice:

Revenue predictability

Industry standards

Historical spending patterns

Typical Industries:

Retail

Consumer goods

Automotive

Typical Company Size:

Small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs)

Larger companies with stable sales

2. Objective and Task

Definition: Establishes specific objectives and determines the tasks and resources required to achieve them, often used in marketing and project planning.​

Factors Influencing Choice:

Strategic goals

Project complexity

Resource availability​

Typical Industries:

Marketing and advertising

Project management

Consulting

Typical Company Size:

Medium to large organizations

Companies with project-based operations

3. Competitive Parity

Definition: Sets the budget based on competitors' spending, aiming to maintain market position without overspending.

Factors Influencing Choice:

Market competition

Industry norms

Brand positioning​

Typical Industries:

Consumer products

Telecommunications

Financial services​

Typical Company Size:

Large enterprises

Companies in mature markets​

4. Zero-Based Budgeting (ZBB)

Definition: Requires justifying all expenses from scratch for each budget cycle, regardless of previous budgets

Factors Influencing Choice:

Cost control objectives

Operational efficiency goals

Organizational culture​

Typical Industries:

Consumer goods (e.g., Procter & Gamble, Unilever)

Retail

Healthcare

Technology

Typical Company Size:

Large corporations

Organizations aiming for significant cost reductions#

5. Incremental Budgeting

Definition: Uses the previous period's budget as a base, making incremental adjustments for the new period.​

Factors Influencing Choice:

Stable operational environment

Predictable revenue streams

Desire for budgeting simplicity

Typical Industries:

Education

Government

Large organizations with stable operations

Typical Company Size:

Large institutions

Organizations with long-term projects​

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% of Sales

Budget is a fixed % of past or expected sales. Best for small to mid-sized companies with steady sales. Used when sales are predictable, low risk tolerance, or seasonal patterns exist.

Objective & Task

Budget is based on the cost to achieve specific goals. Best for goal-driven companies or start-ups. Used when: Clear goals, new products, or a need for accountability.

Competitive Parity

Budget matches competitors’ spending. Best for medium to large firms in competitive spaces. Used when benchmarking and keeping up with competition is key.

Zero-Based Budgeting

Budget starts at zero with all expensed justified for each starting period. Best for large or restructuring companies. Used when focus is on efficiency, cutting waste, or navigating uncertainty.

Incremental Budgeting

Builds on last period's budget with small changes. Best for established and stable businesses. Used when business is steady, and historical budgets are reliable.

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% of Sales

-refers to a method where companies allocate funds to various departments or expenses as a fixed percentage of projected or historical sales revenue. While not explicitly detailed in the provided sources, this approach is commonly understood in financial planning as a proportional allocation strategy.

Objective & Task

Defines specific objectives it wants to achieve (e.g., increase brand awareness by 20%, generate 500 new leads).

Determines the tasks required to meet those objectives (e.g., run a Facebook ad campaign, hire influencers, create blog content).

Estimates the cost of each task.

Adds them up to create the final budget.

- eCommerce, tech, consumer goods, agencies

Competitive Parity

-Competitive Parity Budgeting is a method where a business sets its marketing budget based on what its competitors are spending — usually to stay on a level playing field in the market.

Rather than basing the budget on internal goals or available funds, the company tries to match (or slightly exceed) the marketing spend of key competitors.

-insurance industries with intense competition

Zero Based Budgeting

- a budgeting approach where every expense must be justified from scratch — starting from zero — rather than basing the new budget on last year’s figures.

-NFP's where budget justification is crucial

Incremental Budgeting

- a budgeting method where you take last year’s budget as a starting point and then make small adjustments — usually adding or subtracting a percentage based on performance, inflation, or growth targets.

-traditional industries with predictable revenue/spending.

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% of sales - fixed percentage of past and projected sales.

typical industries - retail - consumer packaged goods, food & beverage

Factors influencing choice - sales predictability, simplicity, financial conservatism

Size - small-medium more likely but not very early starups

Objective & task - Set specific marketing objectives, then determine the tasks needed to achieve them, after that, estimate the cost of those tasks.

Typical industries - media, tech, retail

Factors influencing choice - clarity of marketing goals, desire for strategic alignment, need for accountability and ROI tracking

Size - med to large

Competitive parity -  this is based on what competitors are spending -

Typical industries - consumer goods, tech, automotive

Factors influencing choice -

Size - medium to large

Zero based budgeting - every expense must be justified from scratch. Every cost must be reviewed, justified, and approved, regardless of past spending.

Types of industries - almost every industry

Factors influencing choice -

size

Incremental budgeting - is based on the previous period's budget, with adjustments made for the new period

Typical industries - manufacturing industries, healthcare

Factors influencing choice

Size --

# data[].attributes.body
Primary -  refers to original data collected directly by a researcher or organization for a specific purpose.

Secondary - Secondary data refers to data that has been collected, analyzed, and published by someone else for purposes other than your current research

List sources of primary data - surveys & questionnaires, interviews, observations

What is the difference between qualitative and quantitative data?

Qualitative - is non-numeric information that describes qualities and characteristics. Is usually descriptive - usually via open ended questions.

Quantitative - numerical information that can be measured. Usually found via closed questions/survey

List of types of primary quantitative data - numerical data, ratio, interval

List of types of primary qualitative data - audio, visual, observation

List sources of secondary data - reports, articles, databases, company records and internal reports

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What is Primary and Secondary Data?

Primary Data:
Information collected first-hand by you or your team for specific research.

Secondary Data:
Information that has already been collected and published by others. It’s used to support or complement research.

Sources of Primary Data

Surveys and questionnaires

Interviews (face-to-face, phone, video)

Focus groups

Observations

Experiments or test marketing

Online polls

Field trials

Difference between Qualitative and Quantitative

The difference between qualitative and quantitative data is that qualitative data is non-numerical, like feelings and opinions, while quantitative data measures numerical values and statistics to show patterns or trends.

Types of Primary Qualitative and Quantitative Data

Primary Qualitative Data

In-depth interviews

Focus groups

Open-ended survey responses

Observations (e.g., body language, environment)

Ethnographic studies

Primary Quantitative Data

Structured surveys with closed-ended questions

Online forms with numeric responses

Experiments with measurable results

Observational counts (e.g., how many customers enter a store)

A/B testing results

Sources of Secondary Data

Government publications (e.g., census, economic reports)

Industry reports (e.g., IBISWorld, Statista)

Academic journals and research papers

Trade associations

Company financial reports

News articles

Online databases (e.g., Google Scholar, JSTOR)

Market research firms (e.g., Nielsen, Gartner)

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1. Primary data is data you collect first-hand for specific purposes.

Secondary data is data that has already been collected by someone else, for other purposes, but you can still use it.

2. Sources include:

Interviews with trade partners or influencers

Customer surveys

Observations on how customers interact with website

3. Quantitative data is numerical - it can be measured, counted and statistically analysed, whereas qualitative data is descriptive and captures opinions, feelings and experiences.

4. Primary quantitative:

Short surveys

Polls & quizzes

Website analytics

Primary Qualitative:

Open-ended survey questions

Customer interviews

Social-media listening

5. Sources include:

Industry reports

Govt. data

Sales reports from retailers

Research articles