3 Questions a marketing plan must answer.

Most marketing plans fade away out of sight, out of mind— and out of date in a desk drawer that never sees sunlight, or buried in a folder subtitled “Ignore This.”

Why? Because written plans usually sprout from the seeds of their own demise. Such plans raise sugar plum guesstimates pointed accusingly at the people who wrote them; or worse, have to hit sales quotas and wrestle with contingencies untethered to reality and skewed inside narratives that read like a business fairy tale.

Is there an antidote to the folderol? Yes!

Here’s how it works:

It makes sense to take the reins and turn your responsibilities into results with marketing satisfaction, whether you own a business with employees, forge ahead as a soloprenuer, or hold a senior position in a larger organization.

I say this about written plans: slash and cut most of the words and stick to what you must know in order to make the business work well in real life.

Here are the 3 questions, and some supporting detail on each.

• • •

Question 1. What are your revenue goals for the year?

Question 1a. How will you know when and if you meet or exceed them?

Answer 1. Create a simple 12 month calendar or spreadsheet. Set it up with 13 rows and 6 Columns. Use blank paper or a really basic online calendar or spreadsheet like the illustration below this article.

Column A is your Revenue Target for each month.

Column B is Revenues received for each month.

Column C is the total Expenses to run the business that month.

Update with real results at the end of each month. Quarterly is not fast enough to discover and recover any downturn, or build upon any unexpected momentum.

• • •

Question 2. What marketing budget and expense budget have you committed to achieve your revnue goal for the year?

Question 2a. Is your budgeting sufficient to your goals, and appropriate to your industry and business model?

Answer 2. Get a handle on your real Gross Margin for each month.

Column D is where you calculate Gross Margin at the end of each month by dividing Column C by Column B. In just one full year, you’ll know your real Gross Margin trends by month and year. Too many business owners don’t know this, and it stifles their growth. Or they live in a fantasy football league of “tax strategies” that miss the mark. No plan or quota based on goals, guesstimates, or simulations alone can give you the power to adjust in real time like this simple approach does.

• • •

Question 3. What strategy and structures do you have in place to fulfill on your marketing and business goals?

Question 3a. Have you committed the resources (time, money, labor) required to grow revenues while fulfilling your other business duties?

As a business leader, you are responsible for such key duties as delivering goods and services, product development, customer support, and outwitting contingency risks while protecting your industry credibility and leadership.

Answer 3. Get a handle on your next top marketing priority, and keep that simple too.

Column E is where you list your main Contingency for the upcoming month— what needs be fixed immediately.

Column F is where you list your main Growth Action for the upcoming month— what can be done to prompt growth.

Keep what you list in Column E and Column F simple, short, and sweet. A word or phrase will do, or a single sentence max. This will keep you out of the weeds and prevent negative self-judgement from hindering you taking clear action.

• • •

Business results get measured in numbers.

Just ask the IRS about the role of numbers in assessing profitability (that’s s pretty good sign of viability) versus a narrative plan!

Yet trying to glean what we need to know from accounting software reports often drowns us in data that obscures the marketing landscape.

I had to train myself to love spreadsheets, and found the simpler, the better. (Especially fun once I started color coding the cells and text, haha!) Once I saw how efficient they were in showing me the big picture quickly in numbers, often on a single page, I was happy to make the effort. I stopped feeling guilty about not spending lots of time writing a lengthy, poetic marketing plan.

I’ve seen too many business owners neglect their numbers or try to jettison those duties to others before truly understanding the real rhythms of their business, and I don’t want that to happen to you.

Onward, intrepid one, you can do this!

— Diane A. Curran

P.S. Here’s that simple chart-spreadsheet example I promised you…