Market Plan Outline: Fill & Download for Free

Your marketing plan translates strategy into execution and always begins with a strategic vision of your customer experience and their needs. It should articulate a clear understanding of your brand positioning and then define offers relevant for your audience. Only then can you gain a realistic understanding of the nitty-gritty tactics and metrics, along with the requisite budget, resources and timeline to successfully achieve your organization’s objectives (most likely emphasizing sales & revenue growth).Below is a framework for starting a go-to-market plan, but the final plan will significantly evolve from this depending on your audience, your offering and your business objectives.Audience:Personify the decision makers of your primary audience as well as their key influencersIdentify customer needsOutline stages of the buying process from your customer’s perspectiveCharacterize your ideal high-value customerPositioning:Identify key benefits and value of your offering from the perspective of your customersDifferentiate your offering from competitive alternatives in the minds of prospectsDevelop clear and concise positioning statement to introduce yourself & echo your messageBrand Story:Outline a narrative theme & key messaging to guide engagement with your audienceIdentify venues and scenarios for telling the storyConsider visual media, including videoOffering:Evaluate possible revenue modelsDefine packaging — what’s in the box, or included against price tiersPrice offerings and promotions, justified with financial analysisDevelop promotions calendar aligned with seasonalityTactics:The recommended tactical actions vary greatly by your audience and your offering. This is just a representative list of considerations. One size does not fit all.Word-of-Mouth — drive referrals & influence prospects in physical settings & across social media, viral, guerrilla, grassroots and experiental marketingContent strategy — create editorial calendar to stay top-of-mind via newsletters, blogs & visual storytellingPublic relations — reach audience via media, events, seminars, speaking engagements, etc.Website — optimize online engagement, expand reach via SEO & SEM, drive traffic and conversionsMobile — extend customer experience on-the-go via mobile web, apps, SMS and Location Based Services (LBS)Direct marketing — reach & influence prospects via physical mailings or emailAdvertising — gain visibility & reinforce image in the appropriate media venuesProfessional associations — enhance reputation via trade events, partnerships, award nominations & industry rankingsSales:Define stages of sales funnel & demand generation / lead managementIdentify channel partner / referral affiliate opportunitiesAlign marketing automation for nurturing customer lifecycleDefine conversion goals to optimize website and ecommerce transactionsCollateral and sales support toolsOutbound marketingMeasurement:Define performance objectivesIdentify key metrics to monitor & manage marketing performanceWebsite analyticsCreate selling opportunities via customer feedback exercisesInstitute metrics across customer relationship management (CRM)Execution:BudgetResourcesTimeframeContingency actions

My first question to you would be, are you sure you need a Co-Founder and not to hire someone like a CTO or Lead Engineer?If you’re looking for a partner who can support a side for equity instead of payment, then you’ll want to deeply consider what that means. A co-founder needs to be someone you trust, know, and can see yourself “married” to. You’ll be spending thousands of hours together building something very hard and it’s not easy to break up once that partnership is made and equity shared.That said, you would want to be patient and network in specific areas that might have the technical level engineering talent you may want to meet. Places like SaaS events, Coding events, and Startup jobs (Seriously getting a job is a great way to meet and network into the area you want to go).You could also hire recruiting firms, go to sites where you can find co-founders looking for business partners, but often times these are built on the wrong foundation (looking for business rather than real trust).I often look to hire a Lead Engineer and pay them salary with limited vested equity and that person be someone who can grow and evolve in their role.This person is usually responsible for building the Minimal Viable Product and get the initial marketing plan outlined so we can get real validation and feedback from the marketplace.As feedback comes in, we’d want to make new features and updates based on customer needs. Once we get to a point where we are validated and found market fit, we can expand and that role can expand by going a funding route or just bootstrapping and beginning new hiring when budgets permit.This is a super generalist way to handle this, but just one idea to think of!

My marketing agency has some marketing template starter tools that may suite what you're looking for.Here's an overview on inbound marketing to give you the framework for your planning:The Inbound Marketing Playbook by Orange Pegs MediaHere's a workbook starter for organizing your content creation and publishing process:Download this free Digital Marketing Plan Outline Template