Marketing Plan Timeline Examples & How to Create them?

What Should Your Marketing Timeline Look Like?  

Marketing Timeline Formats

Your marketing timeline is a visual presentation of your marketing plan. Different team members may connect with different formats; a calendar is just one marketing timeline format. Check out how it compares to other options and let individual team members decide what format works best for them if possible.

How Long Should Your Marketing Timeline Formats Be?

The most common marketing timeline formats are either one year or 3 months. Many marketing departments create an annual marketing plan framework for budget allocation and execute it in 90-day sprints throughout the year. In general, 90 days is a long enough period to execute and evaluate the efficacy of most marketing programs, except for longer-term initiatives like loyalty programs, for example.

Marketing Timeline Formats: Calendar

Using a calendar format is familiar to everyone and can help manage daily marketing operations. However, the calendar marketing timeline format can sometimes be challenging if you want to see the overall project status or zero in on resource allocation.

Marketing Timeline Formats: Gantt Chart

A Gantt chart is a bar graph that runs horizontally, with initiatives cascading down over time. Each activity has its own start and end time. This approach provides an overview of activities, assigned responsibilities, and resource allocations on any given day while also providing a sense of progress at a glance.

Marketing Timeline Formats: Table

Using a table as your marketing timeline format can give you a quick and easy overview of your initiatives. You can add as many details as needed to make the format work for you, such as responsible parties, critical dates for deliverables, and dependencies.

9 Steps for Creating a Marketing Plan Timeline

A marketing plan timeline is simply an action plan framework that translates your ideas into smaller steps, each with a deadline, to make the overall task less daunting and the plan more doable. What should your marketing plan timeline include?

1. SWOT Analysis: Review and Evaluate Your Current Situation

Every plan should start with an analysis of your current situation. Even a quick SWOT analysis (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) will give you and your team a realistic view of where your company sits in the marketplace.

2. Define Your Target Audience

Your target audience or ICP (ideal customer persona) are the prospects who can best be served by the product or service you offer. Finding out what your best customers have in common is a great way to begin to define your target audience. Then, develop a persona for that audience to better understand their pain points and motivations for purchase. Creating marketing messages that resonate with your audience and reach them where they spend their time will help optimize your marketing budget.

3. Set Your Marketing Goals

What do you need to accomplish? Most businesses create metrics tied to different revenue goals. You can start by separating those goals into new customer vs. existing customer revenue and then begin to break down and work backward to set your targets. For instance, if you need to drive $100,000 in revenue for the quarter, and each customer's order averages $5,000, you will need 20 customers per quarter to hit that number. Then, expand to look at the average deal close rate, landing page conversions, and views to set metrics throughout the journey.

4. Set a Budget

Nothing happens without a budget. And when you begin a digital marketing campaign with ad spend, expect it to take a while to optimize. Start with a dollar figure, and then you can work to allocate it to the products and services you need to make it happen.

5. Outline Roles and Responsibilities for Team Members

Tasks need to be assigned to team members, or they won't get done. Assigning tasks gives your team a feeling of ownership and allows managers to allocate resources and time appropriately. Ensure you assign a project manager to ensure that project tasks are completed on time and delivered as expected.

6. Set a Deadline for Each Step

People don't take action without a deadline. That holds true for your prospects as well as your team members. If you want to bring your marketing plan timeline to life, you will need actual deadlines to hold your team members accountable for hitting their goals.

7. Create Your Campaigns

Develop campaign concepts and strategies for each essential activity. Once this step is done, you can add executional detail to your timelines. Don't forget to allow time for internal approvals within your organization, including legal, if needed.

8. Schedule Progress Reviews

Add scheduled project reviews to your marketing timeline at the cadence that best suits your team to ensure your team is on track. You may find that weekly meetings are essential during critical phases of the timeline but that you can reduce the frequency after your initial launch.

9. Measure Your Success, Evaluate Your Failures

The digital landscape gives marketers a chance to "fail fast." Today's campaigns allow you to optimize on the fly with ads, lead magnets, and even headlines. What's important is that you and your team constantly monitor how your campaigns are progressing and can apply key learnings to your next marketing plan timeline.

Conclusion:

To drive consistent results, develop a clear marketing plan timeline and stay on track with your objectives. Connect with your manufacturing marketing agency to tailor a strategy that meets your unique needs and maximizes your marketing efforts.