Generating leads, optimizing your conversion funnel, boosting online sales... the best way to reach your business goals is to build a solid operational marketing action plan.
In the face of digital transformation, more and more companies are adopting a digital marketing action plan. This document is essential for building a high-performing online strategy. It helps businesses capitalize on revenue opportunities offered by digital channels. In this guide, we explain how to build an effective marketing action plan.
What is a marketing action plan?
A marketing action plan is an operational document that outlines all the actions to be carried out over a given period—usually the next 12 months—to achieve marketing goals. It breaks down the overall strategy into specific, time-based actions.
This plan helps structure your team’s efforts and ensures consistency. For each activity or phase, the plan details:
- The actions to take (e.g., posting on social media, prospecting, optimizing the website, building a community)
- Who is responsible for the action
- The deadline
- Estimated time needed
- Budget (e.g., define your customer acquisition cost or CAC)
- Resources available
The marketing action plan can be presented in an Excel spreadsheet or integrated into a task management tool.
Why is it important for a business?
An operational marketing action plan allows you to:
- Stay focused—you know exactly what to do, at any time
- Avoid oversights—everyone knows their responsibilities
- Improve clarity—your team focuses on coherent, aligned actions
- Optimize both human and financial resources
- Gain visibility by tracking progress against goals
- Anticipate issues more effectively
- Reassure stakeholders or financial partners by demonstrating strategic structure
Good to know: How long should it take to write a marketing action plan?
If it’s your first time, allow 4–8 weeks to complete it. Then, update it at least once a year—this usually takes 2–3 weeks. Updates are essential to keep the plan aligned with evolving business and customer needs.
Steps to build a marketing action plan
1. Get a full overview of your market position
Start with a SWOT analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) to identify strategic priorities and increase competitiveness.
SWOT breakdown:
- Strengths: Your competitive advantages (e.g., expertise, proprietary tech)
- Weaknesses: Areas that hinder your growth
- Opportunities: Trends, tech, or laws that can help you grow
- Threats: External risks (e.g., competition, regulations, market changes)
Use SWOT to identify priority projects by combining elements:
- S-O: Use strengths to seize opportunities
- S-T: Use strengths to minimize threats
- W-O: Improve weaknesses to capture opportunities
- W-T: Address weaknesses to prepare for threats
Also perform a competitive analysis:
- Identify direct and indirect competitors
- Assess them using the 4Ps (product, price, place, promotion)
- Evaluate their positioning, reputation, staff, partnerships
- Analyze their strengths and weaknesses vs. yours
- Define your competitive advantage
2. Define your customer profiles
Segment your customer base using key criteria. For each segment, identify:
- Current revenue percentage
- Buyer profile
- Decision-making criteria
- Target revenue share in two years
3. Set clear objectives
Use the SMART method to define your goals:
- Specific: Clear, simple, and easy to measure
- Measurable: Include a target value or threshold
- Achievable: Realistic, but ambitious enough to motivate
- Relevant: Aligned with your overall strategy
- Time-bound: Set a deadline
Example: Increase new customer acquisition by 30% next year, from 5,000 to 6,500 clients.
4. Make strategic choices
Use the 4Ps to define your strategy:
- Product: Consider its features, value, use, and positioning
- Price: Set a fair price to balance sales volume and profitability
- Place: Choose the right distribution channels
- Promotion: Pick the most effective communication channels (online and offline)
Choose the right marketing channels for acquisition, such as:
- SEO
- Word of mouth and online reviews
- Paid ads (SEA)
- Email marketing
- Social media
- Influencer marketing
- SMS campaigns
- Co-sponsoring
- Co-registration
- Contests and behavioral surveys
Good to know: Whether your goal is traffic, leads, signups, or sales, Dataventure can design personalized acquisition operations. Our teams manage acquisition channels and offer the most effective economic models: CPL, CPC, C2L, etc. We build tailored acquisition and conversion systems to maximize your ROI. Interested? Get in touch.
5. Define your budget
Prepare a forecasted budget to estimate your required investment. Include:
- Graphic design
- Database rentals
- CRM tools
- Emailing platforms
- Digital agency support
Review available resources:
- Human
- Financial
- Technical/material
6. Schedule your marketing actions
List priorities and deadlines. Categorize actions by timeline:
- Short-term: 0–6 months
- Medium-term: 6–24 months
- Long-term: 24+ months
Then place them on a calendar to visualize execution.
7. Measure performance
Regularly track KPIs to evaluate and adjust your strategy. For example, in lead generation, monitor:
- Qualified leads by channel
- Conversion rate
- Churn rate
- Total contacts (active/inactive)
- Cost per click (CPC)
- Cost per page view
- Cost per lead (CPL)
A marketing action plan is your roadmap for turning strategy into action. It keeps both leadership and teams aligned and avoids operating blindly. When building your plan, avoid two common mistakes: being too vague or forgetting to measure results—both reduce effectiveness.
Let Dataventure help you bring your strategy to life.
