MKT1 Guide to Annual Marketing Planning
Part 1 of 3: Anatomy of the planning process
👋 This is a monthly free edition of MKT1 Newsletter, and the 1st newsletter in our 3 part annual planning series. Become a paid subscriber to receive an additional newsletter each month, access our archives, post to our job board, use our template library, and attend monthly office hours with Kramer.
I hesitated to write this newsletter because I thought a subject line including the words “marketing planning” might make people unsubscribe instantly—but I’m taking the gamble because I actually love the planning process. Really though.
If you’re at a later-stage startup, marketing planning often feels like a dreaded, check-the-box exercise to satisfy finance and executives. If you’re at an early-stage startup that doesn’t run a company-wide planning process yet, marketing planning feels like a skippable process entirely.
As a result, marketing planning processes miss the mark. Teams focus on coming up with a just few KPIs, not figuring out how marketing can “win” next year. This results in teams doing a bunch of random acts of marketing, making it hard to break out of—or even maintain—your current growth trajectory.
You need to shift your marketing planning process to be more impact-focused. Figure out your strengths as a startup, build a plan around those advantages, map out your big bets, and execute.
I think this process can be—dare I say—fun
If you do planning right, it’s an opportunity to brainstorm huge ideas and campaigns, estimate impact with forecasting models in spreadsheets, play the prioritization game, and get excited about what's to come…so if you’re creative, a math lover, someone who likes being decisive, or an optimist, there’s something here for you!
Maybe I can’t convince you of all of these things, but hopefully I can pass on some of my love of planning, or at the very least eliminate some of the dread. Because it’s the end of September, which means annual planning season is upon us. And instead of checking the boxes and pulling an MQL number out of a hat, I recommend you follow the process in this newsletter. You’ll thank yourself next year.
The pep talk is now over.
This newsletter is part 1 of a 3 part series on marketing planning, here’s what I’ll cover:
Part 1: Anatomy of a marketing plan — how I do marketing planning with startups
Planning mistakes & ground rules for marketing planning
What a “marketing plan” looks like
The process to get to the plan
Part 2: How to run strategy and planning exercises
A deep dive into the strategic conversations and exercises needed to get to the plan described here
Part 3: How to prioritize marketing goals & projects
Unofficial Part 4: Setting budget & tracking efficiency metrics - Added after I finished this series, but this follow-up newsletter is very helpful for setting budget—complete with a template.
Extras for paid subscribers: Marketing plan template doc that you can use to implement what’s in this newsletter. Find it here.
Recommended agencies
If you are interested in sponsoring our newsletter, email us at sponsorships@mkt1.co.
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Set ground rules for the planning process
I thought the easiest way to explain how to do marketing planning was to share how I’ve done it recently. And the good news is, I ran an annual planning process just last year for a late-stage SaaS startup I advised. For convenience and anonymity’s sake, let’s call them DinoCo (my dog’s name is Dinosaur and he’s under my desk, this isn’t a nod to said startup going extinct). I partnered with the CEO, marketing, executives, finance, and rev ops to make it happen.
Here’s how I kicked this process off and got a lay of the land:
I looked at their plan from last year. Their goals and forecast didn’t take into account big projects they had planned, necessary ops and foundation work to help them execute effectively, improvements in conversion rates or average contract value, or what pipeline numbers were even possible given their market share and TAM.
I looked at the levers and assumptions included in the previous plan. They relied on one marketing lever, paid. Therefore their marketing forecast had one input: ad budget.
I got the sense DinoCo wanted to rush into forecasting to satisfy company-wide planning timelines, without going backwards to figure out what marketing strategy would help them win.
So, I warned DinoCo about the common mistakes I see in the planning process:
Making an un-prioritized laundry list of ideas and/or making a list of goals that only represent incremental improvements.
Getting a top-down forecast from finance and sales, using this to come up with some marketing KPIs and calling it a day.
Getting a list of objectives from the company, and using this to back into some marketing OKRs that you never look at again.
Combo of 1-3.
Keeping in mind these mistakes, we established some ground rules for the planning process:
The primary purpose of marketing planning is to determine how to drive revenue growth today, how to set the company up for long-term growth, and how to do this efficiently–and to get everyone in the company on board with the plan.
A couple KPIs (key performance indicators) is not a marketing plan. These are part of your plan, but not the entire marketing plan.
Marketing’s planning process should be more similar to a product team’s process than a sales team’s: The critical marketing “deliverable” to get right is a roadmap of big bets (like product!).
So, the bulk of planning time should be spent figuring out big bet projects. If DinoCo doesn’t spend time thinking about strategic bets, you won’t make them, and you won’t change the growth trajectory of the company. You’ll fall into the random acts of marketing trap.
Budgeting time for the behind-the-scenes work is critical. If you don’t account for work like hiring, tooling, research, analytics, optimizations, and tests, you’ll misestimate what’s possible.
The forecast will not be made in a vacuum but will depend on the strategy and work we plan. Therefore, we can’t deliver a bottom-up forecast, approve a forecast from finance, or make a budget without doing planning work first.
We’ll set 3 types of marketing goals: KPI goals for metrics you plan to hit, big-bet project milestones, and the completion of behind-the-scenes ops work. Let’s call these “K.P.O goals".
I recommend all marketing teams share this set of ground rules with all stakeholders, including cross-functionally, as you kick off an annual (or quarterly) planning process.
Identify what’s needed in the final plan
Before I laid out the process or started in on the strategy exercises that would help us develop a plan at DinoCo, I wanted them to see what we were working towards.
So I shared a template for a final, shareable marketing annual plan. Of course, we ended up changing it a bit to accommodate their company planning and OKR structure, but it was a good preview.
You can use the same template we started with at DinoCo—available here for paid subscribers.
My template is in doc form, but you may decide to make them in slides. Either way, here’s what goes into the final plan (lots more details below the diagram):
Vision & strategy overview
Purpose: Tell a story of what marketing will achieve in the next year—to get both the marketing team and cross-functional teams on board with your plan and excited about it. This is where you hype people up and show off the strategy you’ve developed.
Notes: To do this work, you’ll have to identify what will change about your marketing strategy this year. So, while it’s first in the final plan, you’ll likely write this section last. If you have an opportunity to share your plan company-wide, say a version of this out loud!
What to include:
Vision statements for the end of the year: “By the end of 2025, every employee at DinoCo and top customers should be able to explain how DinoCo is different from competitors” or “If marketing succeeds this year, x will be true”
Any high-level changes to your strategy: “We’ve noticed [this regular tailwind], and are doubling down on promoting our compliance functionality” or “We will launch self-serve to increase conversion rates for our core business: ecommerce SMBs”
Word this in whatever way you think works best for your company. E.g. At Asana, we used the language “if x activity is wildly successful…” because we used that language company-wide.
Summary of Goals
Purpose: Share your list of goals for the year in a way that’s understandable for the rest of the company. Set goals not just for the KPIs you are trying to hit, but also the big-bet projects and ops work that set you up for success now and in the future (I call these K.P.O. Goals). If you don’t set a goal for it, it likely won’t get prioritized!
Notes: I don’t care if you set objectives and nest key results underneath or if you just set goals, but no matter what you do make sure the goals are measurable and time-bound. Marketing may have a similar but more detailed list of goals in a work management tool.
What to include:
“Why” you decided on each goal
How you’ll achieve it–at a high level, referencing strategy decisions if needed.
Goals should be categorized into 3 buckets: KPIs, Projects, Ops.
It’s also helpful to state non-goals and why they didn’t make the cut this time; and stretch goals that could be hit if certain conditions are met (like hiring, budget, product features, etc).
For more on goal setting, read this newsletter.
Bottom-up forecast summary w/ budget requirements
Purpose: Use a bottom-up forecast to determine what revenue target is possible, given the the planned marketing activities and goals.
Notes: 2 forecasts are typically created during planning cycles: a top-down forecast from finance & sales and a bottom-up forecast created by marketing & finance. These 2 forecasts use different methodologies and aren’t the same thing.
Bottom-up forecasts start at the very top of the funnel (web traffic and/or accounts in addressable market), then forecast revenue based on historical data and planned increases in volume and conversion rates. (And yes, I agree it is confusing that bottom-up forecasts start from the top of funnel!)
Sales and finance create a top-down forecast starting from an ideal revenue target, then work backwards to determine what metrics earlier in the funnel (like pipeline $) must be achieved to hit that revenue target.
The challenge with top-down forecasts: they don’t take into account what’s possible at the top of the funnel, which is why the bottom-up forecast is also necessary.
Put simply, If finance says, “We need $10M ARR,” marketing needs to map if that’s realistic with planned activities with a bottom-up forecasts is then needed. If marketing does the forecast and thinks only $8M ARR is possible, it’s time for a cross-functional chat!
What to include:
Based on the bottom-up forecast, marketing should share the final numbers they believe are possible, potentially with low, medium, and high scenarios.
Include a summary of assumptions and inputs (that directly map to your goals & plans).
Include the marketing budget necessary to make this forecast a reality (you’ll include the headcount needed in the next section). Someday I’ll write a newsletter on marketing budgets—in the meantime, if you have an amazing template I’d love to see it.
Link to a spreadsheet model (or BI-tool model) that shows all the details.
Headcount plan
Purpose: Make it clear who is needed to achieve the marketing plan & goals (and be sure to include it in the budget).
Notes: I think it’s nearly impossible to list specific titles and roles needed for a whole year, so I prefer to classify them into sub-function buckets and figure out exact roles as the year progresses. For more on marketing org charts, read this recent newsletter.
What to include:
Include any hires needed, by sub-function and rough level of seniority.
Potential goals or big bet projects new hires will work on (if they would help with stretch goals, not on the final plan, indicate that as well).
Big projects & initiatives timeline
Purpose: Indicate what high-impact initiatives you plan to focus on throughout the year—these are the things that can change your growth trajectory. I recommend having 1-2 per quarter. This helps bring the plan to life and illustrates if your scope of work is achievable.
Notes: This will be slightly duplicative of your project goals, but this list may include more projects and more details about each project.
What to include:
I think this is best presented in a table by quarter (making it clear the timelines can change of course)
A summary of each project, including the goal of the project and the primary audience.
Any contingencies for each project, e.g. product launch timelines
Plan Appendix
Purpose: Link to more details for anyone who may want to dive deeper into the process.
What to include:
Links to work done to develop the plan: strategy exercise notes, research, reports
Links to source of truth marketing strategy and foundation docs: positioning, ICPs, funnel map, etc.
Links to actual plans: Detailed forecast, budget, headcount plan, goals in a project management tool, roadmaps, briefs, etc. Note: these may not be ready when the planning doc is initially shared, but you can add to it later, so this doc remains a source of truth.
Mapping the planning process
Now that DinoCo understood the purpose of planning and what the final product would look like, we defined a 3 phase process.
Phase 1: Develop your plan inputs
Next week’s newsletter will focus here!
Purpose: Make time for strategic conversations to help you you start ideating on the work you’ll do in the future.
If you don’t do this strategy work, you’ll like create a plan that is just a copy of another company’s playbook or a copy of what you did last year. You’ll end up doing random acts of marketing and missing targets.
Timing: Concentrate into 1-2 weeks of meetings if possible—move 1:1s, team meetings, and other recurring meetings off the calendar to make room for this.
Process: Re-evaluate strategy, include marketing and cross-functional stakeholders in focused strategy meetings of 3-6 people. Use this to create a draft of the work you’ll do next year.
Strategy exercises I recommend: 3 drivers of marketing strategy, identifying marketing advantages, writing perceptions, ranking growth & revenue levers, defining fuel strategy (aka content, brand, positioning), and defining engine strategy (aka growth).
Phase 2: Turn ideas into goals
Purpose: Goals should help you track progress throughout the year, and make sure you are focusing on the right things—that help you drive short-term growth, set yourself up for long-term growth, and improve efficiency.
Timing: Refining goals can be done in 1-2 days by marketing team leaders. Don’t drag this out. The forecast will take longer to get right—commit to a format and finesse over time!
Process: You can’t just set KPI goals, you need to set K.P.O goals (which stands for KPIs, projects, ops). Determine what current “core” work you’ll start, stop, and continue, refine your list of big-bet projects, and figure out what you need to do behind-the-scenes to hit these KPI and project goals.
Phase 3: Finalize and share the plan
Purpose: Turn rough goals and forecast into a v1 of your plan, using the structure described above. Share and get buy-in on these plans before finalizing so marketing is aligned with the rest of the org.
Timing: Don’t wait too long to share a version of your goals and plans. After you set goals and plans set a tight timeline for refinement, but recognize you may need to wait on non-marketing stakeholders to finalize.
Process: Put together v1 of the plan (based on the marketing plan format shared in this newsletter), including more solidified goals. Share that both within marketing and with stakeholders across the company. Then refine and finalize.
And finally add the marketing plan to a work management tool (at DinoCo, we used Asana), connect roadmaps and projects to these goals, make briefs for work that reference goals, etc. In short, don’t just set goals and forget them—use them to shape your everyday in marketing!
Adjustments for different stage startups
I chose to describe the process for late-stage startup, DinoCo. So, yes, some of this process should be condensed for earlier stage startups. But I recommend all marketing teams run a version of this planning process–even if the rest of your company doesn’t do planning yet.
Annual vs. quarterly planning, what’s right for me?
I’m less particular on if startups do annual, bi-annual, tri-annual, or quarterly planning—or some combo—just do what works for you. What I am particular about is that marketing teams must set goals, and they must include KPI, projects, and ops goals based on a strategy built specifically for your startup–which is the point of this newsletter!
Smaller startups may want to plan for only 1 or 2 quarters, and just set basic goals, without doing detailed forecasting and setting precise KPIs. You can set KPI goals like improve by x% month over month or quarter over quarter).
Later stage startups will likely want to do annual planning, and then also set goals quarterly to help you hit those annual goals.
When should I start and how long should I take?
I’m assuming a Gregorian calendar situation here that starts in January…although I’m a big fan of fiscal years starting on February 1.
If the whole company does planning, I recommend starting on the marketing strategy portion of planning today (late September)—I’ve been doing this with Heads of Marketing I advise over the past couple weeks.
If you’re a small marketing team running their own goal setting process, you can start in late October or early November. Since you won’t need to coordinate meetings with as many stakeholders and other teams, the whole process takes a shorter amount of time.
Forecasting: Do I really have to?
I think a basic bottom-up forecast is a good practice always, it’s a forcing function to make sure you have KPIs and milestones throughout the customer lifecycle, to get full-funnel analytics set up, and predict the impact of activities on revenue. I wrote more about this in this newsletter.
More questions? Paid subscribers can come to office hours and ask me anything they want on this topic.
Takeaways
Marketers need to focus on driving results and doing work that has potential to drive step-change growth. If you keep doing the same things, your growth will likely be flat. This requires planning. And planning can’t just including setting an MQL, pipeline, or marketing-sourced revenue target.
Taking time to figure out a unique strategy and plan will help you have clear priorities to share with other teams and stay focused quarter by quarter, month by month, and day by day. And hopefully sharing a clear plan will help prevent founders, product leaders, and sales teams from asking you to prioritize random acts of marketing throughout the year—one can dream!
I’ll go even deeper into this process in next week’s newsletter, and if you’ve made it this far thanks for reading about the dreaded marketing planning process!
More from MKT1
🙏 Thanks again to our sponsors: Ten Speed, an organic growth agency; 42 Agency a Demand Generation & RevOps agency; and Closing Media a LinkedIn & Google agency.
✂️ Templates for paid subscribers: Paid subscribers can find planning and strategy templates here and at the very bottom of this newsletter.
📅 Office hours for paid subscribers: AMA on planning on 10/2. If you have questions or want to hear me discuss this newsletter, become a paid subscriber, then RSVP here (paid subscribers: use the code here to register for free!)
🧑🚀 Job board: Jobs from the MKT1 community. Paid subscribers can now add jobs to our job board for free!
🎟️ The <code/> growth conference is tomorrow & Kathleen Estreich, co-Founder MKT1, & now partner at Pear VC is speaking! If leveraging AI more is on your Q4 or 2025 plan (and you’re free tomorrow!) grab your 50% off tickets here using promo code MKT150.
📰 Next newsletter: Planning - Part 2 is coming to your inbox early next week. I will explain how to run the strategy exercises mentioned in this newsletter
Annual Plan Template - Paid Subscribers Only
