🎯 What's the first step in creating a marketing plan?

Hello Reader,

Andrea and I were chatting yesterday, as we were doing planning for our own company, about the phenomenon of folks wanting to work with us, but saying that they "don't feel ready." This had just come up in one of my "ask me anything"-style strategy sessions as well, that question, "What do I need to do to be ready?"

There are lots of specific reasons why different people feel this way, but the crux of it is that they believe undertaking strategic marketing planning requires they have a lot of answers already. (Spoiler alert: you don't need to come with answers—that's the whole point of planning!)

If you're an overachiever who needs to get not only an A+, but multiple gold stars, on your homework (ahem), here's my pro tip for feeling ready to create a marketing plan (whether you're getting help, or going it alone): Define Your Destination.

What does this mean?

It's nearly impossible to strategically plan your marketing if you don't have:

1. A clearly defined goal for yourself;

2. A clearly defined outcome/transformation for your audience.

This definition focuses your messaging, fuels your next best action steps, and is the driving force for your content and SEO. We adhere to the discipline of Movement Marketing, and in this framework, that clarity is even more important.

If you skip this first step in creating your marketing plan (and, yes, you have to define both sides of that destination—your own goals and your audience's outcome/transformation/etc), everything that follows will feel HARD. Like really, really hard. I hate hard—and I bet you do, too.

So, put your marketing planning on easy mode (we love easy) and Define Your Destination.

Talk soon,

Sarah

👉 BTW - We have another new article up on the site as part of our continuing series about analytics. This one is for all our pals in the nonprofit world. Check it out or pass it on to your favorite nonprofit org as a free, accessible resource to get them started with understanding their website audience's behavior.