Creating a ‘Marketing Plan’ can be a bit of a head-bender.

SWOT analysis and SMART goals, and templates.

And that’s not how I plan at all anyway.

I have a lotta Life Stuff, so I don’t need a plan, so much as a co-ordinates, a compass and a well-stocked backpack.

That way I can flex the details as and when Life Stuff happens.

Otherwise, I’d spend more time perfecting the plan than I’d ever have to execute it.

So instead, there’s a collection of questions I use:

• Anytime I want to think about what my marketing will look like longer-term and the more immediate actions I need to take
• When I’m planning a marketing strategy/approach with a client (either a mentoring client, or a One Hour consult).

The questions create a little space for reflection and idea generation, and then the right plans will bubble up and make themselves known, and I find that much more exciting and inspiring than starting with the task ‘I need a plan to get me from here to here’.

Even if you want to create a more formalized marketing plan, these questions will give you a good starting point.

20 Questions To Kickstart Your Marketing Planning

1. What marketing have you enjoyed doing in the last 3/6/12 months?
2. What marketing would you rather not bother with again?
3. What is the offer you most want to sell? And how can you encourage more people through the sales funnel (or buying journey) towards that offer?
4. Is there anything new you’re thinking of releasing?
5. Is there anything you’re currently selling that you’re not totally in love with?
6. Do you want to grow your online audience? And what ideas have you got for that? What’s worked in the past? What looks fun to try out?
7. What’s sticky about your business? Once someone knows you exist, how do you keep on getting in front of them and keeping them engaged and interested in what you share and what you sell?
8. What are the lowest friction offers people can buy from you? That require the least cost / time / commitment? If you don’t have any Low Commitment Offers, do you have any ideas for them?
9. Are there any key dates coming up for you, your audience or anyone you collaborate with or an affiliate for?
10. Do you want to do any live events, like free challenges, summits, group programmes, retreats?
11. Do you want to do any sales or promotions (Black Friday, birthday flash sale, buy one get one free)
12. Is there a new marketing activity you’d love to try out but keep back-benching?
13. How will you know if what you’re doing is working?
14. Do you have a budget to advertise or outsource? And how will you know this investment is paying off?
15. How will you collect and use client testimonials?
16. Are there any questions you answer over and over that would be handy to have content created for?
17. Is there any pre-work or research you wish your clients had done before they get in touch with you?
18. If you could change one thing about your business right now, what would it be?
19. What’s the big scary thing you believe would make a huge positive impact on your business / audience / clients but the thought of really going for it makes you feel a bit grim?
20. What connections or relationships do you already have, that you could be leveraging to grow your audience / business?

Not a well-thought-out process - just a bunch of questions.

That’s how my brain works.

I like to gather all the raw material (by answering these questions).

And then set my brain a task: ‘In the next 12 months I’d like to achieve this in my business’, or ‘I want to work with more of these type of clients’, or ‘I want to earn this much money, working in this kind of way’…. and then as I get on with the rest of my life, my brain is chewing through the data and coming up with ideas and solutions.

And then I’ll have some detailed ideas of what to do over the next 6-12 weeks, and a hazier outline of what comes after that.

That’s as much detail and planning as I bother with, because otherwise by the time I’ve nailed down a very thorough 12-month plan, something significant will have changed in my life (because that’s what my life is like) and then I’ll have to start all the detailed planning over again.

I hope the questions are helpful to you too, even if it’s just to start getting a rough idea of what you’d like to be doing in the next few months.

Where would you like to go next?

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