From Plan to Post: Marketing Plan Execution Made Simple
A strong marketing plan isn’t just about seeing goals and timelines, it’s about establishing your decisions using real audience insights. That’s why, in an earlier blog, I explained why every marketing plan needs UGC. UGC doesn't just showcase your product, it reveals what your audience values and what motivates them to act. If you missed that one, you can check it out here.
This blog builds on that idea by walking through the five core parts of a marketing plan and showing how each step connects back to creating effective strategies.
The 5 Parts of a Marketing Plan (and what they mean for content)
Executive Summary: The “big picture”. This is where you’ll lay out your mission, vision, and objectives. For creators and marketers, this step ensures every campaign ties back to a bigger purpose. For instance, a brand having launched a fitness app, seeks to expand its subscriber base by using UGC to demonstrate real transformations achieved with its app. Their goal could be increasing conversions by 15% within the next quarter.
Market Research: This is where data comes in. Understanding your industry, audience, and competitors allows you to make informed decisions. For example, a skincare brand looks through Instagram hashtags to see how real users describe its product.
For UGC campaigns, market research might also mean studying what competitors are doing and missing.
Strategy: Here’s where segmentation, budget, and timelines come into play. This means setting up a realistic budget for campaigns and mapping out your mix of content formats.
Execution: This is where we create, test, and launch campaigns. For creators, it’s the process of filming UGC and publishing. For brands, it’s making sure they align with the strategy while also being able to pivot if something isn’t working as expected.
Analytics: Execution is not complete until we measure results. Analytics help determine what worked and what didn't. Using the same example used in the ‘executive summary’ piece, the fitness app brand can measure things like app downloads and retention (monitor if new users acquired through UGC remain subscribed after 30 days).
Your marketing plan execution is the framework that ensures content drives actual business results. By breaking it down, both creators and brands can align on vision and adapt based on data. These five steps are the secret to turning ideas into measurable success.
