Imagine setting out to climb Mt. Everest guided only by intuition. You wouldn’t make it very far without a detailed plan (and an experienced sherpa) to guide the way.
Marketing may not be an extreme sport with life-or-death consequences, but you’ve got big goals to reach nonetheless. And your team’s success relies on a lot more than gut instinct.
That’s why a strategic marketing plan is a must, no matter your industry. Think of it as the roadmap that gets your business where it needs to go each and every year.
Drafting your first marketing plan can feel intimidating, but don’t worry. We’ll walk you through the basics, show you what a strategic marketing plan looks like, and even give you a couple of free templates to get started. Here’s what we’ll cover:
Here’s a basic breakdown of what the Google Docs marketing plan template covers:
Save a copy of the template to your Google Drive or download it as a Word document, and customize it to fit your own strategic marketing plan needs.
A plan’s no good if you set it and forget it. That’s where a gantt chart comes in handy. Use this free gantt chart marketing plan template to track your strategic marketing plan all the way to success.
A gantt chart is a great way to lay your marketing plan out in a simple, visual timeline that’s easy to update as work progresses. It gives you a high-level view of your plan’s major goals and strategies, while enabling you to collaborate on and share your plan with your team and stakeholders.
How you use a gantt chart to put your plan into action is up to you. Build a timeline for the tasks you need to complete as you develop your marketing plan, like the example below.
Once you’ve fleshed out the details of your marketing plan, you can use a gantt chart to define and track your strategic marketing goals. For example, you could break your marketing plan down by quarter to show when specific objectives will come into play and update progress as you close in on your goal. Here’s how that might look.
We’ve created a free marketing plan template for you in TeamGantt so you can jump right in!
Customizing the template is quick and easy, thanks to TeamGantt’s drag and drop simplicity. And since everything’s online, your whole team can collaborate on activities in real time.
Here are a few pointers to help you get the most out of our free TeamGantt strategic marketing plan template.
Configuring your marketing plan is as easy as dragging and dropping tasks—or entire task groups—into their new rightful place. Click and drag the edges of each taskbar to set a new task duration.
Collaboration is easy with TeamGantt's discussion feature. Share documents and chat with your team directly from a task’s Comments section. Use Notes to communicate important information—like goals, target audience, and budget—at the project level.
Have a more formal marketing plan document? Attach the file or link to your project so everyone has easy access to it.
Plans are meant to be shared, so we made it easy to keep even the most inquisitive stakeholders in the loop. Export your plan to a printer-friendly PDF, or share a view-only link to your project so stakeholders can see your marketing plan progress in real time.
Sign up for a free TeamGantt account today, and save time on project setup with this free marketing plan template!
