Marketing implementation plan: How to turn your strategy into a reality

You’ve got a marketing plan written down on a piece of paper (old school), in your head (risky), or perfectly documented in a shared platform (nice work). Now what?

Rolling out your marketing implementation plan, that’s what.

Without a plan like this in place, all those amazing ideas within your marketing strategy can go to waste... just like all those pencilled to-do lists in that notepad next to your desk.

In this guide, you’ll find out everything you need to know about marketing implementation plans, from creating one (and what to avoid) through to executing on one.

We’ll start with the basics.

What is marketing implementation?

Marketing implementation is the process of taking your marketing plan and turning it into a reality. To do this well, this takes another kind of plan: a marketing implementation plan.

This plan will let anyone involved know:

• What’s needed to hit each of the marketing goals

• Who is doing what in the team with planned workflows

• Where to find all the information and (inevitable) updates

All these points are crucial to successful marketing implementation — without them you’ll find bottlenecks, blockers, or complete stoppers when trying to roll out your marketing plan or strategy.

Why do businesses need a marketing implementation plan?

Too many businesses will create a killer marketing strategy, not know how to implement it effectively — if, at all — and ultimately, see disappointing results.

Does any business want disappointing results? Absolutely not.

For business growth and business success, you need to lay the groundwork before any of the marketing activities begin. This will streamline your team members, and ensure for complete alignment across your strategy’s marketing objectives, marketing projects, and overall action plan.

4 common mistakes to make with your marketing implementation

Having a marketing implementation plan is one thing, but having an effective plan is another. Here are 4 common mistakes you make when it comes to marketing implementation.

1) Not having a marketing strategy

A marketing strategy is the “why are we doing this” behind your marketing activities, and it should come before your marketing plan gets going.

Too many businesses create marketing materials like brochures, newsletters, one-pagers without having a strategy, and this only leads to missing the mark with your target audience.

2) Failing to update your marketing plan

When planning ahead, things do change.

It’s far from uncommon for effective marketing plans to be edited as time goes on, but it’s important that it is updated — and updated for the entire teams and stakeholders to see.

If anyone is running off an outdated campaign, time and money is quickly wasted.

3) Not tracking marketing results

If you’re not tracking results, KPIs and metrics, you don’t have a strategic marketing plan.

Ideally, you want to learn from everything you do because then, you can optimize and optimize and optimize... until you’ve reached marketing perfection (if such a thing exists), or see better results.

This includes learning more about target personas, demographic, search engine optimization, marketing channels, customer satisfaction, brand positioning, brand awareness... the lot!

4) Spending too much on big-budget marketing

Sometimes, we get caught up in the idea of having the biggest and boldest marketing automation tools. And a lot of those times, it’s really not necessary.

The onboarding or learning-how-the-hell-we-use-this can take up time that’s better spent creating content and experiences that you know your audience will love.

Benefits of marketing implementation

We’ve talked about why businesses need a marketing implementation plan and common errors. But what are the real benefits of marketing implementation? Well, here's the answer.

1) Makes deadlines super clear

If there isn’t a tool or person in place telling your team what to do next, marketing efforts will be subpar.

An effective marketing implementation plan means that your team will have a clear date as well as a time frame of what needs to get done and when.

2) Accountability (so you meet goals and milestones)

Marketing teams perform better when they’re operating from a to-do list.

This is exactly what a marketing implementation plan does. It shows what needs to get done, who’s going to do it, and how it needs to be done.

3) Long-term direction for your marketing team

A marketing implementation plan provides a roadmap and shows what marketing will look like in the future.

It ensures that your team can work cohesively, so your campaigns reaches your target market.

4) Gives some life to your marketing plan ✨

It’s not enough for businesses to talk about how they’re going to reach their target audience but actually do it in real time.

Spending additional time honing your marketing implementation plan will ensure that your company’s marketing efforts don’t fall short. And that you can continue to reach your customers as well as see true success.

A marketing implementation template that actually works

By this point, we hope you’re suitably convinced that your company needs a stellar marketing implementation plan because... well, it really does. If you don’t know where to start, here’s our free template to get going with that whole “business growth” thing.

1) Set realistic expectations 

The first step is setting up realistic deadlines and clear expectations for your entire team. This will signpost when things need to get done by, and creates room for experimentation to enhance your marketing efforts.

2) Understand what resources are needed to execute

Before you get started with anything, you need to understand what’s needed to execute your marketing plan. Depending on your marketing budget, this might mean having two lists of “must-haves” and “nice-to-haves”.

Here are 3 common resources that marketing teams rely on:

• Technical skills: This could mean looking into additional tools or new hires with specific skillsets (eg. SEO, graphic design, or other specific tasks)

• Content creation: Content is King (as they say) and very necessary when it comes to marketing - whether case studies, blogs, or email marketing campaigns.

• Social media management: Stay connected with your target audience and keep them engaged with well-thought-out social media promotions.

3) Assign roles to your marketing team

Now is the time to determine who is going to carry out tasks. You can generally do this in two ways: an in-house marketing team or through outsourcing.

4) Thoroughly document your marketing strategy

If you want a successful marketing strategy, you need to make sure it’s thoroughly documented so teams are aligned on the business’ marketing goals.

Spend time crafting a well-defined marketing strategy that targets the right audience at the right time and on the right platform.

5) Create a workflow for content delivery

Workflows are your friend in smart digital marketing. 🤝 If you’re in the process of building your workflow flows, here are a few things to consider: 

• What needs to get done

• Who will be assigned to them

• How long each subtask or task will take to complete

Ensure your workflows are filled with any unnecessary or ‘fluffy’ steps — keep them as simple and succinct as possible. Remember they can be tailored if necessary... if you’ve got yourself a good platform.

Enter: Optimizely Content Marketing Platform.

Providing you with seamless marketing workflows for big or small businesses, Optimizely Content Marketing Platform will take your marketing implementation plan from zero to HERO, with:

• More transparency of where marketing projects are at

• Less bottlenecks and blockers during marketing plans

• No integration frustration with an all-in-one content platform

• Single source of truth for analytics and reporting

See it platform in action with our CMP demo video (you know you want to).