How can you navigate marketing without burning out or compromising your values?
Marketing can feel overwhelming. It doesn’t matter if you’re brand-new to business, a veteran coach or strategist, or you’re a marketing pro ready to make your escape from corporate — figuring out your marketing plan or a marketing strategy can feel like an uphill battle.
When you add in the question of whether what you’re doing is even working, it’s no wonder so many people feel stuck.
Why’s that?
To start with, the words “marketing” and “exact science” rarely go together.
While we rely heavily on data, there are lots of wild cards — including the human factor and external events out of our control, including whatever is happening on the world stage. That could mean anything from personal life stressors, weather systems, or even major (unforeseen) geopolitical events—among others.
Even if someone is a perfect fit client, all the best planning and data in the world can’t account for all of the potential variables that affect people’s buying decisions.
To add to the confusion, there are a lot of moving parts and endless marketing options. If you were to follow all of the so-called best practices, you’d take on several full-time jobs just to keep up, and you wouldn’t have any time to run your business. I’ve seen it hundreds of times over the last 15 years.
To add fuel to the fire, there’s a lot of really bad advice out there. And of the good advice, it’s not all a perfect fit for every person or business.
So, how can you navigate marketing without burning out or compromising your values?
The answer lies in understanding the difference between your marketing strategy and your marketing plan–and making sure yours aligns with your business, your personality, your audience, and your bandwidth.
Some people use the terms “marketing strategy” and “marketing plan” interchangeably. However, it’s important to understand how they are different and can work together to support your goals. Why? So you can grow a business that meets your needs, brings you joy, and helps you deepen your impact.
Good news—that’s exactly what we’re doing here today.
The Great Debate: Marketing Plan vs. Marketing Strategy
Let’s get one thing straight — there is no one “right” way to market your business.
What works today may not work tomorrow. And you may find that your marketing needs to fluctuate seasonally with your business and your life. That’s all normal and productive.
What’s not productive?
Throwing spaghetti at a wall and hoping something sticks with no plan, no strategy, and no sense of the “why” behind it. If you don’t have a targeted approach, it’s tough to measure success or truly understand what’s working.
So where do you begin? Do you need a marketing strategy or a marketing plan?
If you sat up and shouted, “Both!” you’re in the right place! A marketing strategy is not the same thing as a marketing plan. While closely related, they serve different purposes.
When I teach marketing to clients, I talk about how your strategy is the blueprint that speaks to your big-picture goals, answering questions like:
- What are we setting out to accomplish?
- Why are we doing this?
On the other hand, your plan is a tactics-driven playbook that uses your strategy as a foundation for specific marketing activities you’ll take on to reach your strategic goals, answering questions like:
- What are we going to do?
- When are we going to do it?
- How will we measure success?
The specific marketing efforts absolutely matter. However, if they’re not working together or if they’re not focused on clearly defined goals, it’s going to be harder to achieve what you’re setting out to do.
And I can say from years of experience that the absolute last thing you want is to feel like you’re doing all the things and that nothing is working.
What’s a marketing strategy?
So let’s get down to it.
A marketing strategy is a high-level framework that aligns with your long-term goals, speaks to the “why” and “how” questions, and grows and evolves with your business.
In your first year of business, your marketing strategy should involve:
- Defining your target market and perfect-fit clients.
- Identifying your positioning and messaging.
- Creating your signature offer.
By putting your strategy front and center, you can prevent yourself from getting scattered or working from a reactive place. Your plan, then, becomes all about visibility.
In more established businesses, it’s about fine-tuning and repositioning to help your business be more effective. It might involve things like:
- Aligning your business more closely with your values and mission.
- Repositioning your brand, your offers, your market.
- Identifying customer needs and expanding offerings to meet them.
- Finding and filling gaps in the customer journey.
Again, there’s no single right way to create your marketing strategy.
However, lots of businesses I work with choose 3-4 high-level goals they want to work towards in a given 1, 3, or 5-year period and set tactics to make it happen.
Need help getting clear on your strategy or where to start? We can help! Set up a free strategy call with Amy, and she’ll help you define your next steps!
What’s a marketing plan?
A marketing plan is a tactical document that you can use as a step-by-step guide for executing your marketing strategy to grow your business according to your goals.
So what tactics go into your marketing plan? You might include things like:
- Creating a lead magnet and nurture sequence
- Sending your audience one email a week
- Launching a website or email newsletter
- Establishing a social media presence on one platform
- Going live on social media
- Speaking at summits and other online events
- Posting and engaging on specific social platforms
- Creating a podcast
- Writing content for your blog or to guest-post or cross-post
- Hosting in-person workshops and events
The list of marketing activities is virtually endless and depends on a ton of factors, including how you show up best and most authentically as yourself and where your audience hangs out.
Pro Tip: We’ve identified 171 marketing activities across five primary content Content Personality® types.
Most people have zero desire to consider that many activities.
However, we’ve simplified it. We’ll show you how to crack the code and determine which marketing activities are naturally based on the things you enjoy and how you best connect with people.
When you know your Content Personality®, you can narrow that list considerably and focus on tactics that work for you.
Wondering how you show up best? Take our quiz to find out your Content Personality® and discover your most effective marketing mix.
What is the best way to create a marketing plan?
Ultimately, the best marketing plan is one that works with your strengths and towards your objectives. That means your plan will inherently be different from mine and from any other business owner out there.
Because of that, we teach a method for building your marketing plan — not something that’s set in stone.
Our 4-step framework for building your marketing plan is designed to help you do so as efficiently and effectively as possible so you can focus on your mission without burning out on marketing:
- Step 1: Increasing your visibility.
- Step 2: Nurturing your relationships.
- Step 3: Curating community experiences.
- Step 4: Signing clients and helping them get results.
It’s completely free and includes four videos as well as Cliff’s Notes style takeaways from each step.
Is your marketing plan something you can and should DIY, or is it better to hire this out to get an outside perspective?
Again, there’s no single way you have to create your marketing plan.
However, while lots of people attempt to DIY their plans, most I talk to find that they are too close to it. They find they need some sort of outsider perspective to gain the clarity they need.
Sometimes, all people need is someone to mirror what they’re thinking and saying. More often than not, they need someone to ask the right questions and share strategic feedback to help them identify their core strategies and tactics.
Are different variants (types) of marketing plans appropriate for different businesses?
Yes. Irrevocably, yes. In addition to playing to your strengths (aka your Content Personality®), your marketing plan should be sustainable. This means it’s something you have the time and energy for and even look forward to doing!
What specific resources can help you create a marketing plan for your business?
There’s a lot of great stuff out there. And the truth is that first, you should find someone whose approach resonates with you. For example, if bro marketing tactics make you want to run in the other direction, avoid the bro-ey coaches and their transactional advice.
On the other hand, if you’re looking for an approach that feels more authentic and relationship-focused, find someone you can relate to. If this is you, you might find some of my resources helpful.
- Grow Your Business for Good Podcast — Amy and I host a podcast with short seasons of 6-8 episodes, with topics like email marketing, messaging and positioning, behind-the-scenes of live events, and more.
- Our Email Newsletter — 1-2 times a week, you’ll hear from us with tips, strategies, and resources, as well as first looks at our upcoming events—both free and paid.
- Monthly Marketing Office Hours — each month, we host opportunities to ask us any questions about marketing your business.
- The Practical Joy Book — while not specifically marketing-focused, my book offers some insights into building a life and business you love.
- The Content Personality® Club — our paid membership is designed to help you double your income with one email a week through a blend of hands-on instruction and feedback to get
How long should your marketing plan be? How often should you revisit and revise it?
We teach a 90-day marketing plan and have a template and full-color workbook to get you started. The Joy Fueled™ Marketing Plan walks you through the four-step framework I mentioned above in great detail and shows you how to create content based on your Content Personality®.
Why 90 days?
We’ve found that 90 days (or 1 season) is the perfect amount of time to focus on specific tactics — we re-evaluate every 90 days to see what’s working and what’s not and decide on any new things we want to try.
It’s also short enough that we can put shiny objects on hold and decide if they’re really something we want to pursue.
Do you really need a marketing plan?
Yes. Full stop. 🙂
Is there a gray area between a marketing strategy and a marketing plan?
Inherently, yes. Because there are some initiatives that can bridge strategy and tactics.
For example, you might look at deepening customer relationships, enhancing the experience, or increasing retention as either strategic or tactical.
They’re usually more strategic, with specific tactics like customer journey mapping, refining email nurture sequences, or creating new communities to help you achieve those goals.
However, if your strategy is to cross-sell more, then the same items could be tactics to help you grow your sales.
Is retention a good marketing plan or strategy?
Unpopular opinion time: I don’t like retention as a strategy, especially in the online space. There are too many coaches, consultants, and strategists holding back valuable information, so their clients renew, year after year.
I don’t like it. We don’t even include retention as a metric here at Joyful Business Revolution. My whole goal is to “graduate” people from our business, giving them the support they need so they can go off and reach their goals. As their business evolves, they usually come back to us for another round of strategic marketing consulting or messaging support.
How about just starting with marketing tactics?
The unfortunate truth is that too many people lead with tactics, not strategy. And while it might get them further down the road, there’s a heck of a lot of spinning their wheels and getting nowhere.
That’s the problem with marketing tactics vs strategy. Sure, you can just get in the car, hit the road, and have an excellent adventure. But if your goal is to get from Point A to Point B, it’s a good idea to know where you are and where you want to go (your strategy) and then have turn-by-turn directions and a backup route (your plan) to make sure you get there.
If that sounds like something you’d like our help with, please get in touch. We’d love to help you create a strategy and a plan that works for you.
