How to ensure the success of your future marketing plan | Brilliant noise | Open mic

Here’s a thought experiment for every marketing leader. If your strategic marketing plan was a website and you could measure and track each team’s progress, where would they go? What would they watch first? What would they miss in total? And, over time, which pages would actually get referenced and which would never be seen or heard from again?

That would be interesting – wouldn’t it? Maybe even a little scary. After spending all the time and resources analyzing data, politicizing details, and fighting over budgets, the bottom line report lands in your inbox.

If you could see who was really engaging with what, it might be depressing to find out how rarely most people watch it. If you couldn’t bear to watch, it’s time to start asking yourself why.

So how can you improve and secure future marketing performance by creating a plan your teams will actually use?

Who gives a leaf?

Your strategic planning process involves more than a stack of spreadsheets, detailed documents, and decks of hundreds of slides — all below the fold. The tip of the iceberg is your internal communication.

The way you communicate the plan to your teams should set out a clear, easily referenced vision that will inspire your entire organization through lasting marketing transformation. It’s too valuable an asset to collect dust.

The best things come in small packages

A recent Microsoft study found that the average human attention span is now down to just eight seconds, after being reduced by around 25% in just a few years. And, speaking of websites, research by The Nielsen Norman Group has shown that users will read, at most, 28% words during a site visit.

If these stats tell marketers anything, it’s that the best guidance resources will be those communicated in as few minutes and words as possible.

All the plans created by the wisest of good leaders in times of crisis or pioneers of start-ups have one thing in common: they fit on a single page. Why? Because these leaders have always had to deal with extreme uncertainty as a matter of course.

There’s nothing simple about marketing strategy, but it’s your job as a leader to make it so. The one-page plan provides the ideal visual, repeatable, and flexible format needed to eliminate confusion or distraction around your organization’s goals, culture, and strategy.

How to create a plan and actually use it

The one-pager is your internal communication. If you don’t have a lot of time and resources to waste, you need to get it right.

Step 1: Choose your model – With a huge range of one-page formats already tried and tested and used in the wild, much of the design work has already been done for you – the strategy is up to you. From the Gartner Model to the Business Model Canvas, they all have their pros and cons, so experiment and play around to figure out what works for your team.

Step 2: Say it loud – If the plan of a page is the promise, then using it in every key interaction is how to keep it. Consider when and how it can appear and grow stronger at every opportunity – in regular team meetings, one-on-one, in communications, etc.

Step 3: make it visible – The plan must be seen in the hands of leaders – literally. Print one out to use in meetings or hang a large version on the wall near your desk to be easily referenced and read with pride.

Step 4: Let it evolve – Sometimes a one-page document will need to be updated. Don’t be discouraged – it just means it lives, breathes and is used. A plan with a new purpose through new knowledge is better suited today than it was yesterday.

Your next marketing plan for 2022 and beyond can and should be an exciting and transformative process for your entire marketing operation.

You want to know more ? If you’re ready to downsize, click here to download our brand new, more in-depth guide to planning a page, including our own template ready to try now.

Questions? Contact us to find out what else we can do to help you.