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Are you looking for a startup marketing plan template? Keep in mind that without a solid marketing plan businesses are just winging it. That’s rarely a formula for success. So, where do you start with a winning process that will get real results?
Check out this Startup Marketing Plan Template to fuel a successful journey.
Here is the content that we will cover in this post. Let’s get started.
Why You Can’t Afford To Not Have A Marketing Plan
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Startups simply cannot afford to step into the arena of business without polishing a startup marketing plan template and making it their own.
Realize that 90% of your success is marketing. It’s not the idea, the capital you have in the bank, the IQ of the team, nor how big the market is. In fact, you can be pretty lean in all of these other departments, and still build an incredibly profitable and valuable business, as long as your marketing is strong.
As with any other area of business, failing to have a plan is planning to fail. If you fail at marketing, your business idea will crumble.
A marketing plan is vital for several reasons. The most obvious is to have direction. Know what you are going to do, and at least test. Use it to direct and give your teams focus. Working through the plan will ensure you haven’t overlooked critical questions. It will give you more clarity on the big picture, validate assumptions, and provide essential detail. Without it you may be going in completely the wrong direction. Most businesses can afford to expend much time and resources in the wrong direction for too long and still survive.
The marketing plan is also a key document for potential investors, and other organizations. It shows that you know what you are doing, have put in the home work, and have a viable and relevant plan, or not.
This plan also provides the foundation of a financial model, so that you can budget correctly and better assess the returns from marketing you will invest in.
What should you include and how should you use a startup marketing plan template?
Marketing Plan Template
Overview
Provide a brief few sentence overview of the plan, and what it is specifically being designed for.
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Goals
What are the goals this plan should help you achieve? What are your A-Z points? Where are you at and what metrics are you shooting for? This is a key ingredient of a startup marketing plan template.
Current Marketing Analysis & Audit
It is really helpful to get a third party to audit your current brand and marketing assets and initiatives. You really want an accurate and unbiased review in this section. What do you have? What is good? What needs improvement?
Competitive Market Analysis & SWOT
What does the landscape of your market look like today? How is it shifting? Where might it behead?
Compare your business with other competitors in the market. Bullet points out your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.
Again, it is really essential this is unbiased, accurate, and based on fresh research.
Target Markets
Based upon all of the previous items, which markets does it most make sense to target first or next?
Drill down here from the total market to the total addressable market as part of understanding the market size, the first/next market you will target. Get granular in describing your ideal customer and expand further within this startup marketing plan template.
Marketing Collateral Needed
What pieces of marketing materials do you need to begin to assemble to start a marketing campaign, or backup one so that you get real conversions?
Marketing Channels
List 3-5 marketing strategies and channels you will begin testing.
Campaigns
What are some of the specific campaigns you plan to run? What are the rough themes, pitches, or taglines?
Scaling
What will the next 2-3 marketing channels be after you master the above? How will you grow these marketing efforts and scale them as they produce results and profits?
Budgeting
What budget do you have to commit to these marketing efforts for the next 3-6 months? This is one of the areas of the startup marketing plan template where you really need to get grounded. If you don’t have a budget, how much capital do you need to raise to fund them until you can hit the next major milestone for your business? Include how much you will pay your marketing team and for the hard costs involved in advertising.
When you are fundraising keep in mind that storytelling is everything. In this regard for a winning pitch deck to help you here, take a look at the template created by Silicon Valley legend, Peter Thiel (see it here) that I recently covered. Thiel was the first angel investor in Facebook with a $500K check that turned into more than $1 billion in cash.
Remember to unlock the pitch deck template that is being used by founders around the world to raise millions below.
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Implementation
Who will do the work of implementing this marketing plan? Who will manage it? Who will do different levels of tasks? What volume will it be done in? If you don’t have a team, where will you find them?
Execution
What are the next five things you need to do to execute on this plan?
Summary
No entrepreneur should be trying to wing it without an organized marketing plan. It doesn’t have to be lengthy, but you do need one to succeed and scale.
Hopefully, this provided some perspective as you are looking for a startup marketing plan template. Below is a video where I cover in detail how to create your marketing plan.
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