How to create a marketing plan (examples + templates)
Summary
A marketing plan helps your team turn plans into results. This guide breaks down what to include, how to create a marketing plan step by step, and offers a free template to get you started today.
A few months ago, a team came to us with a familiar challenge. They had big ideas, a tight-knit team, and real excitement about their next campaign, but no clear marketing plan. Tasks were scattered, timelines kept slipping, and no one was sure how the work connected to their goals.
They didn’t need more ideas. They needed a structure.
In this guide, we’ll walk through how to write a marketing plan that turns your ideas into action. You’ll learn what to include, the types of marketing plans you can use, and how to adapt them to your goals. We’ll also share a marketing plan example and a free template to help you get started, so you don’t have to build it from scratch.
So, grab your free Asana marketing plan template, and let’s get started!
Level up your marketing plan to drive revenue in 2024
Learn how to create the right marketing plan to hit your revenue targets in 2024. Hear best practices from marketing experts, including how to confidently set and hit business goals, socialize marketing plans, and move faster with clearer resourcing.
What is a marketing plan?
A marketing plan is a strategic document that outlines how your team will promote a new product, expand into a new market, or connect with your target audience. It combines your brand’s mission statement, value proposition, and specific marketing objectives into one actionable framework. A well-built plan aligns every part of your marketing strategy—from content marketing and email campaigns to social media and public relations—to help you reach your business goals and grow your customer base.
What’s the purpose of a marketing plan?
The main purpose of a marketing plan is to turn high-level goals into clear, focused marketing activities. It helps your marketing team make smart decisions, track progress, and work together toward shared outcomes. With a detailed plan, you can prioritize your marketing tactics, allocate your marketing budget, and connect with potential customers on the right marketing channels. It also keeps stakeholders focused on long-term growth instead of short-term guesswork.
To be successful as a marketer, you have to deliver the pipeline and the revenue.”
What’s included in a marketing plan?
A marketing plan includes eight key elements that give your team structure, insight, and direction. Each one helps you reach the right audience at the right time and measure real impact.
1. Target market and customer personas
Define who you're trying to reach. Your target market section should include detailed demographics, pain points, and motivations, often captured as personas, to help tailor your message and guide your marketing efforts.
2. Mission statement and value proposition
Clarify what your company stands for and why it matters. Your mission statement sets the tone, while your value proposition explains why your product or service is the right fit for your target customers.
3. SWOT analysis
Use a SWOT analysis to examine internal strengths and weaknesses, along with external opportunities and threats. It helps you position your brand in a competitive landscape and adjust your marketing strategy accordingly.
4. Marketing objectives and business goals
Outline your specific marketing objectives and how they connect to broader business goals. These should be time-bound, measurable, and clearly aligned with the outcomes your company is working toward.
5. Marketing mix and channels
List the types of marketing tactics and marketing channels you'll use, like social media, email marketing, content strategy, and search engine optimization (SEO). A marketing mix defines how you'll deliver your message and attract new customers.
6. Budget and resource allocation
Break down your marketing budget and show how you'll invest in people, platforms, and tools. A clear budget helps set expectations for the marketing team and prevents overspending across campaigns.
7. Timeline and roadmap
Provide a high-level roadmap of your marketing campaigns, including major phases and milestones. This timeline keeps the work moving forward and gives visibility to stakeholders.
8. KPIs and metrics
Identify the key performance indicators (KPIs) and success metrics you’ll use to track performance. These might include conversion rates, market share, or brand awareness—anything that proves your marketing plan is working.
How to create a marketing plan step by step
The teams at Asana once worked with a small company launching a product they believed in. They had the right energy, a solid budget, and a fixed launch date. What they didn’t have was a plan. Without clear goals, timelines, or a shared strategy, they missed key deadlines, overspent, and struggled to connect with the right audience. It’s a story we see often. A clear, effective marketing plan could’ve made all the difference.
Here’s how to build a marketing plan that keeps your work focused and your team aligned.
Step 1: Define your mission, vision, and value proposition
Start by writing down why your company exists, your vision for the future, and what makes you different. These three elements help guide every decision that comes next and make it easier to communicate your value to others.
Step 2: Identify your target market and customer personas
Figure out who you want to reach. Gather real market data, look for patterns, and create customer personas that represent your ideal buyers. Include basic traits like job role and industry, problems they’re trying to solve, and platform preferences—whether they spend time on LinkedIn, YouTube, or elsewhere. Understanding customer needs will shape everything that follows.
Pro tip
Struggling to define your target audience? Try the bullseye targeting framework. It helps you narrow in by industry, location, company size, demographics, and more.
Step 3: Set measurable marketing objectives
Decide what success looks like. Your business goals should be specific, time-bound, and trackable, with clear deadlines and owners. For example, “Increase newsletter signups by 15% this quarter” or “Double engagement on Instagram in the next 60 days.” In Asana, you can link each initiative to a company or team-level Goal, so your progress is automatically updated as work moves forward.
Step 4: Research your competition
Before you start building a marketing plan, take time to understand who you're up against. Conduct a competitive analysis to see how others position themselves, what kinds of campaigns they're running, and how they’re engaging with their audience. A competitive analysis gives you a clearer picture of the landscape and helps you figure out where you can stand out. If you want a quick way to map competition, try using a SWOT analysis to sketch your strengths and areas of risk.
Pro tip
Use a SWOT analysis to identify strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. It’s a fast way to sharpen your marketing plan and respond to market trends.
Step 5: Choose your marketing mix and plan your content
Now it’s time to connect the dots. This is when your team chooses which marketing channels to use—social, email, paid ads, partnerships—and starts planning what to say and when to say it. Think about formats: blog posts, videos, infographics, or product tutorials. Asana can help you map out campaigns, assign content owners, and manage your publishing schedule in one place. You can tag each task by type, goal, or timeline, which helps team members stay on the same page.
Step 6: Set your marketing budget
Think of your budget as a market planning tool, not a restriction. Decide where it makes sense to invest—across tools, channels, campaigns, or people—and make sure there’s room to adjust if priorities shift. Don’t forget to factor in platform costs, contractor time, and ad pricing. A clear, realistic budget helps you focus on what’s worth the investment.
Step 7: Build your roadmap and campaign calendar
Turn your marketing plan into a working timeline. Map out your campaigns, key milestones, and who’s responsible for what. This calendar becomes your source of truth. It keeps your marketing team moving in sync and helps everyone see how the pieces fit together. Whether you’re making a marketing plan for a month or a year, clarity and timing are key.
Step 8: Choose your metrics and KPIs
Decide how you’ll measure progress. Depending on your goals, you might track signups, engagement, revenue, conversion rate, return on investment (ROI), or something else entirely. What matters is choosing numbers that reflect whether your plan is working—and being consistent about how you track them.
Read: 27 business success metrics you should be trackingStep 9: Share with stakeholders and adjust often
Once your plan is in motion, keep it visible. Share progress with your team and stakeholders, and make adjustments when priorities change. Asana makes this easier by helping you assign work, track updates, and adjust timelines without losing momentum. Developing a marketing plan isn’t a one-time task. Review it regularly so the plan reflects your actual work.
See marketing planning in action
With Asana, marketing teams can connect work, standardize processes, and automate workflows—all in one place.
Marketing plan examples from world-class teams
Looking for inspiration? The best brands bring their marketing plans to life every day. Below are marketing plan examples from top-performing teams that showcase creative strategies and impactful execution.
Autodesk
Challenge: Autodesk needed to transform Redshift, its small business blog, into a premier owned-media platform.
Redshift’s mission was to share in-depth thought leadership in architecture, engineering, and manufacturing while driving traffic and authority back to Autodesk’s core brand. Scaling this initiative required globalizing content production and streamlining workflows to meet growing demands.
Key marketing strategies:
Scaled content production to support seven additional languages and global audiences.
Standardized workflows to streamline content creation and approvals.
Centralized all content conversations in one tool to improve collaboration across marketing teams.
Results:
Published 2X more content monthly.
Increased site traffic by 30% year-over-year for three consecutive years.
Takeaway: This example marketing plan shows how strategic content scaling and streamlined workflows can transform a niche blog into a global thought leadership platform. Read the case study to learn how Autodesk runs a well-oiled content machine.
Trinny London
Challenge: Trinny London, a fast-growing beauty brand, faced the challenge of efficiently acquiring new customers through social media while maintaining a strong sense of community.
With the competitive landscape of consumer brands, it was critical to ensure their ad spend was laser-focused on reaching the right audience segments. This is one of the most compelling examples of marketing plans for social media success.
Key marketing strategies:
Used a work management tool to centralize the creation, testing, and execution of ads.
Targeted ad spend to hone in on the most relevant audience segments.
Leveraged multiple social channels to grow brand affinity and audience engagement.
Results:
Improved ad efficiency and drove better performance across campaigns.
Increased likes and subscriptions on YouTube.
Takeaway: This marketing plan example demonstrates how centralized ad management and refined audience targeting can drive results in competitive consumer markets.
Read the case study to see how Trinny London capitalized on paid advertising and social media.
Types of marketing plans
Understanding how to create a marketing plan starts with choosing the right type, whether you're working on content, digital marketing, launching a new product, or planning for the year ahead.
Annual marketing plans lay out your goals and key work for the year. Yearly marketing plans often match company-wide priorities and help with budget planning.
Content marketing plans cover blogs, videos, infographics, and other materials. They help your team share useful ideas and tell your brand story.
Social media marketing plans list what you’ll post, when you’ll post it, and where, like LinkedIn, Instagram, or TikTok. They also help track how people respond.
Product launch plans show what needs to get done before something new goes live. They help teams stay in sync and meet tight deadlines.
Email marketing plans keep your newsletters and promos organized. They help you send the right message to the right group at the right time.
Organic marketing plans focus on things like blog posts and website updates that help people find you through search engines.
Campaign-specific plans are short-term plans for things like holiday sales, events, or new ads. They keep everyone on track during busy times.
Turn your marketing plan into marketing success
Creating a marketing plan promotes clarity and accountability across teams—so every stakeholder knows what they’re responsible for, by when. Reading this article is the first step to achieving better team alignment, so you can ensure every marketing campaign contributes to your company’s bottom line.
Level up your marketing plan to drive revenue in 2024
Learn how to create the right marketing plan to hit your revenue targets in 2024. Hear best practices from marketing experts, including how to confidently set and hit business goals, socialize marketing plans, and move faster with clearer resourcing.
Use a free marketing plan template to get started
Once you’ve nailed down your strategy and understand how to make a marketing plan, our marketing templates can help you put it into action.
With Asana, you can track every detail in one place, from creative requests to approvals. Customize your project roadmap, assign tasks, and build timelines or calendars to stay organized.
When you use a template to create a marketing plan, it’s easy to loop in stakeholders, keep teams aligned, and connect day-to-day work to project goals. Everything stays clear, coordinated, and ready to execute.
Choose the best marketing plan template for your team:
