Template · Marketing Plan
A marketing plan should fit on one page. If it needs fifty, you haven’t decided.
The seven-part structure of a marketing plan that forces decisions instead of listing activities — shown in full, copy it into your own tool.
Most marketing plans are activity lists dressed as strategy. This structure forces the decisions a plan is supposed to contain: who, what belief, what bet, what number. If a section is hard to fill, that’s the plan telling you where the thinking is missing.
A plan is a set of decisions. A calendar of activity is just optimism with dates.
1 · The objective
One business number this plan exists to move, and by when. Not ‘grow awareness’ — a number a CFO would recognise.
2 · The audience & insight
Who, and the one true thing about them the category ignores. This is the engine of everything below it.
3 · The positioning
What you stand for to this audience, and against what. A sentence, defensible, not an adjective.
4 · The strategy
The one or two bets you’re making — where you’ll concentrate force. Strategy is what you’re not doing.
5 · The plan
The specific initiatives, sequenced. This is the only section most plans have, and it’s meaningless without the four above.
6 · The budget
Allocated by expected outcome, not by last year’s split. Every rupee tied to a bet.
7 · The measurement
How you’ll know it worked, reported in the language the board reads. If you can’t measure it, you can’t defend it.
Fill sections 1–4 before you touch 5. If you can’t complete them crisply, the plan isn’t ready — and no amount of tactical detail will rescue it.
Common questions
What should a marketing plan include?
Objective, audience and insight, positioning, strategy, the plan of initiatives, budget by outcome, and measurement. The first four are the decisions; the rest is execution.
How long should a marketing plan be?
Ideally one page. Length usually signals indecision — a plan that needs fifty slides has listed activities instead of making choices.
The practice: consulting · the budget planner · frameworks.