10 Essential Steps in the Marketing Plan Process

Small business owners must grapple with many challenges—labor and inventory require the highest costs. Because of these pressing concerns, businesses tend to neglect their online presence, not to mention having a thorough marketing plan process in place. 

If you are currently interested in learning how to start a digital marketing agency, rest assured that there’s a demand for your services out there. For example, one out of three businesses in the U.S. still doesn’t have a website. 

Yet, given the tight budgets, it’s no surprise that small business owners want to see the proof of ROI quickly when it comes to marketing. Following digital marketing strategy steps and crafting a compelling executive summary marketing plan is key to acquiring clients for your marketing agency.

In this article, we will break down the marketing plan process into ten steps and explore how Vendasta’s platform can streamline marketing for marketing agencies.

The Importance of a Structured Marketing Plan Process

It’s unlikely that business owners would agree to pay a digital marketing agency if they don’t have a clear understanding of how marketing will help drive revenue. 

The marketing plan steps include market analysis, goal setting, establishing KPIs, allocating resources, identifying responsibilities, and calculating ROI to ensure that the future client has transparency into how marketing supports their business goals.

Without further ado, let’s dive into the ten steps of the marketing plan process.

Tip: Developing a strong marketing agency strategy is key to standing out in a competitive market and driving revenue for your clients.

1. Conduct a Comprehensive Marketing Audit

One way to pique the interest of potential clients is to perform a marketing audit. This is when you assess a business’s current marketing strategy to identify areas for improvement. 

A SWOT analysis can come in handy at this stage. 

For example, you could point out that while your prospective client has a loyal customer base, they struggle to generate revenue due to a weak online presence. Some golden opportunities this client should consider include investing in website development, review management, and social media marketing.

Vendasta’s Snapshot Report is a great way to gauge a business’s performance in the seven key marketing areas: consistent business listings, well-handled reviews, regular updates on social media, a well-performing website, effective digital advertising, robust SEO, and a smooth Ecommerce experience. 

2. Define Clear Marketing Objectives

Setting SMART goals should be the cornerstone of your digital marketing framework. 

Let’s take a look at an example of how a digital marketing agency can set a SMART goal before running a digital advertising campaign for a small roofing company.

The goal should be specific and achievable. For instance, "Increase the number of roofing repair calls, which currently sit at 14 calls per month, by 20% over the next three months through targeted digital advertising." With a dedicated digital marketing budget of $1,500 per month for Google ads, this goal is realistic considering the average cost per lead of $82.27 in the roofing industry in 2024.

Determine how you will measure progress. For example, you can track the number of phone calls generated from the campaign’s landing page.

Ensure the goal aligns with the broader objectives of the roofing company. For example, the roofing company is based in Florida, and it is hurricane season at the moment. So, the goal of increasing the number of roof repair calls supports the business’s goal of driving revenue.

Set a clear deadline to create a sense of urgency and focus efforts: "The campaign will run from August 1 to October 31, with progress reviews every two weeks to adjust strategies as needed."

Tip: Use a marketing project planner to systematize your ideas. 

3. Identify and Analyze Target Audience

A buyer persona is a detailed representation of your client’s ideal customers based on market research and real data about their existing customers. 

Here are some important characteristics of a buyer persona to keep in mind:

• Demographics: Age, gender, income, education, occupation.
• Psychographics: Interests, values, lifestyle, personality traits.
• Geographic: Location, climate, urban vs. rural.
• Behavioral: Buying behavior, brand loyalty, product usage.

Coming back to our example of a roofing company, here is a sample buyer persona for this client:

Mary, a 30-year-old professional, recently bought a home in Florida and needs a reliable roofing company to address existing roof issues. She prefers companies with strong online reviews and transparent pricing.

Marketing agencies use a variety of methods to gather audience data, including:

• Tools like SurveyMonkey or Google Forms help collect data on customer preferences and behaviors.
• Interviews with a sample of customers provide qualitative insights.
• Google Analytics provides data on website visitors, including demographics, behavior, and source of traffic.
• Facebook Insights and Twitter Analytics offer data on followers and their interactions with the business’s social media content.
• Vendasta's marketplace features a white-label WebID +Person Identification tool, which gives email addresses, first and last names, and up to 37 other attributes of website visitors.

4. Conduct Market Research

Creating a buyer persona is just one step in a comprehensive market research process, which paints a broad picture of a business’s position in the market. 

Conducting market research is important to address one of the top marketing agency challenges, which is the ability to meet client expectations. 

Leveraging public, commercial, and internal sources, digital marketing agencies can examine a business’s competitors, industry trends, public opinions, and more to help their clients succeed amid increasing competition. 

Market research can help uncover ideas for user-friendly website designs, assess a business’s pricing strategy, and understand how a business can differentiate itself from the rest. 

Tip: Effective digital marketing targeting ensures that your message reaches the right audience, maximizing engagement and conversions.

5. Develop a Positioning and Messaging Strategy

A unique selling proposition (USP) is what sets a business apart from competitors by articulating the unique benefits and value the business provides to clients. Here is a framework for creating compelling brand messaging for your clients:

• Pull the information about the target audience’s pain points, motivations, values, and other important characteristics that you have identified while creating the buyer persona.
• Come up with a narrative that resonates with your client’s target audience.
• Ensure all marketing materials and communications consistently reflect the brand’s voice and values.

6. Choose Marketing Channels and Tactics

When deciding what marketing channels to use to boost your client’s online presence, identify where the target audience spends their time online the most. 

While social media has become one of the most highly used advertising channels and is used by 83% of businesses in the United States, it may not be the most effective solution for achieving the goals laid out by your marketing plan process. 

Choose channels that align with your marketing goals. For example, Google ads are most effective for increasing conversions, while email marketing may be the best strategy for increasing brand awareness and nurturing leads. Podcasts, LinkedIn posts, and blogs may be the most effective ways to position a company as a thought leader in their industry.

If your digital marketing agency isn’t a jack of all trades, Vendasta’s white-label Marketing Services are here to help. This is a comprehensive solution for multi-channel marketing that leverages the power of marketing automation to minimize human errors and eliminate inefficiencies.

7. Create a Content Strategy

Content strategy is the hallmark of every marketing plan process. It maps out how your digital marketing agency will go about each of the marketing channels you have picked in the previous step. 

Content marketing strategy also answers the question of how your content will cater to different stages of the customer journey that you consider key to achieving business goals.

Let’s say your digital marketing agency decides to focus on social media advertising to best meet clients’ needs during the awareness stage and PPC advertising to facilitate their decision-making process during the consideration stage. 

In this case, your content marketing strategy will specify what type of social media posts to create. For example, let’s come back to 30-year-old Mary, the buyer persona for a roofing company in Florida. She is a new homeowner, needs to address existing roofing problems, and values online reviews and transparency in pricing the most. 

According to Statista, the majority of Facebook users in the United States are between 25 and 34 years old, so it’s reasonable to assume that Facebook should be a go-to choice for social media marketing. 

Social media posts and digital ad copy should focus on highlighting the roofing company’s stellar reputation and dedication to providing quotes where no fees are hidden. Social media posts could also zero in on client testimonials as well as before and after pictures. 

Tip: Watch this video to learn how to create social media marketing calendars using AI.

8. Set a Marketing Budget and Allocate Resources

Agile budgeting is getting traction like never before.

Since one in five businesses fails within the first year, small business owners can’t afford to allocate resources to marketing strategies that don’t bring sufficient ROI. 

Agile budgeting allows for frequent reassessment and reallocation of funds based on current performance and market conditions. Monthly or biweekly budget planning ensures continuous improvement and adjustment based on results. 

For example, a digital marketing agency using agile budgeting might allocate funds to various campaigns based on their current performance metrics. If a social media campaign is outperforming a PPC campaign, the agency can quickly reallocate resources to maximize the impact of the social media campaign.

Tip: Vendasta’s advertising services include white-label Digital Ads and Advertising Intelligence tools, which enable marketing agencies to create and track hundreds of ad campaigns all in one place. 

9. Implement and Execute the Marketing Plan

We have finally reached the bottom of a goal pyramid, which is one of many handy strategic planning frameworks. The last layer of a goal pyramid is breaking down how your digital marketing agency will use its staff and resources to implement the marketing plan steps.

It is important to clearly define who is responsible for each task to ensure accountability. If during this step, you discover you bit off more than your marketing agency can chew at the moment, you may consider outsourcing some tasks to Vendasta.

10. Monitor, Measure, and Adjust

Depending on your marketing goals and your clients’ industry, you may choose from the following popular Key Performance Indicators (KPIs).

Website Traffic

Total Visits: Measures the total number of visitors to the website.

Unique Visitors: Counts each visitor only once during a specified period.

Page Views: The total number of pages viewed on the website.

Bounce Rate: The percentage of visitors who leave the site after viewing only one page.

Conversion Metrics

Conversion Rate: The percentage of visitors who complete a desired action (e.g., filling out a form, or making a purchase).

Lead Conversion Rate: The percentage of leads that convert into customers.

Sales Conversion Rate: The percentage of marketing-qualified leads (MQLs) that convert into sales.

Customer Acquisition

Cost Per Acquisition (CPA): The cost to acquire a new customer.

Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC): Total marketing and sales expenses divided by the number of new customers.

Customer Engagement

Average Session Duration: The average amount of time visitors spend on your site.

Pages Per Session: The average number of pages viewed per session.

Engagement Rate on Social Media: Includes likes, shares, comments, and interactions on social media platforms.

Email Marketing

Open Rate: The percentage of recipients who open your email.

Click-Through Rate (CTR): The percentage of email recipients who clicked on one or more links in your email.

Unsubscribe Rate: The percentage of recipients who unsubscribe from your mailing list.

Social Media Metrics

Followers/Subscriber Growth: The rate at which your social media audience is growing.

Engagement Rate: Interactions divided by total followers/subscribers.

Social Media Referral Traffic: The amount of traffic driven to your website from social media platforms.

Content Marketing

Content Shares: The number of times your content is shared on social media.

Time Spent on Page: The average time visitors spend reading your content.

Backlinks: The number of external links pointing to your content.

SEO Performance

Organic Search Traffic: The number of visitors who reach your site through a search engine.

Keyword Rankings: The position of your targeted keywords in search engine results.

Domain Authority: A measure of your website's authority in search engines.

Advertising Metrics

Return on Ad Spend (ROAS): Revenue generated from advertising divided by the cost of advertising.

Click-Through Rate (CTR): The ratio of users who click on an ad to the number of total users who view the ad.

Cost Per Click (CPC): The cost incurred for each click on an ad.

Sales and Revenue

Revenue Growth: The increase in revenue over a specific period.

Lifetime Value (LTV): The total revenue a business can reasonably expect from a single customer account.

Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR): The predictable revenue that a company expects to earn every month.

Customer Retention

Churn Rate: The percentage of customers who stop using products or services during a given time frame.

Repeat Purchase Rate: The percentage of customers who make another purchase.

Bringing It All Together

High competition makes the marketing plan process non-negotiable for marketing agencies and their clients. If your agency doesn’t have all the resources needed to execute the marketing plan steps as promised to your clients, Vendasta is here to help. Vendasta’s all-in-one platform can support agencies throughout the entire marketing plan process, from start to finish.