Your Marketing Plan Should Help You Say No

Everyone has ideas

A new campaign. A different social channel. A sponsorship opportunity. A request from someone in the organization. Plus, there is always, “the competition is doing this so we should too.”

The ideas are endless and everyone wants to be a marketer. There are always more ideas than there is time or budget.

That’s why your marketing plan needs to do more than list a bunch of tactics. It needs to be a filter for all those ideas.

A list is not a strategy

We see this all the time with organizations that are doing a lot of marketing. There may be an annual plan, a content calendar, campaign schedules, email plans, plus a long list of “someday” projects.

When we ask about a specific item, we hear “we’ve always done it” or “someone wanted it” or “we’re trying something new.” Okay, those answers explain why it’s on the list, but they don’t help you decide whether it should be.

A marketing plan should connect the work to what the organization is trying to accomplish. It should help the team decide where to spend time and money, especially when more requests come in.

Good ideas still need to earn their place

A “good” idea doesn’t automatically make it right for your organization right now.

Before adding something new, think carefully. Who is it for? What do you want the audience to do? What business goal does it support? And what is coming off the list to make room for it? That’s a big one.

If you keep adding without taking anything away, you have a giant wish list and everything suffers. Sometimes the right decision is to add the idea. Sometimes it’s better to push the idea to another time. And sometimes you should just scrap it.

Make the plan useful

This is the kind of work we do with our clients. We look at what the organization is trying to accomplish, who it needs to reach, what it’s saying today, and where its marketing efforts are going. Then we help turn it all into a plan the team can actually use.

That means deciding what matters most, what can wait, and what is probably not worth the effort. It also gives the team something to point to when the next request arrives.

If your marketing plan doesn’t help you make those decisions, take another look at it.

You may have a calendar. You may have a list of ideas. You may even have a very busy marketing team. But you may not have a strategy yet.