marketing-plan · plan-template

Plan Template — The 13-Section Structure

The canonical template for every marketing plan generated by this skill. Each section has a purpose, a structure, and inline prompts for what to draft.

The Quietude plan (see references/example-quietude.md) is the canonical reference implementation.

Title block

# {Client} — Marketing Plan v1

**Prepared by:** {Author / fCMO name}
**For:** {Founders / leadership team}
**Date:** YYYY-MM-DD
**Status:** Draft v1 — for team review

Section 1 — Executive summary

Purpose: Lift-and-share. A founder should be able to paste this into a board update or investor email without editing.

Length: 400–700 words. Tight.

Structure:

  1. One-sentence frame. What does this plan optimize for? Not "more revenue" — something specific to this client at this stage.
  2. Three big bets, ranked by leverage. Each is a paragraph. Bet = a high-conviction thesis about where the team should focus capital and attention.
  3. What twelve months looks like, plausibly. Bullet list. The plausible outcome state at end of plan horizon. Investor-readable.
  4. 90-day priorities. Numbered list. The six (give or take) moves that ship in the first quarter.

Voice notes:

Section 2 — Strategic frame

Purpose: Distill positioning, ICP, business-model logic, and brand voice into a single page that any team member or new hire can read to orient.

Length: 800–1500 words.

Structure:

What {Company} is, in one sentence

Pulled from positioning doc / seed deck / founder language.

The category we're claiming

Is the company creating a new category, redefining an existing one, or competing in a defined category? Name it. State the category-defining frame in 2–3 sentences. Reference the source (founder's words, ICP doc, etc.).

Who we're for (ICP, distilled)

Demographics / firmographics + stated problem vs. real problem + what they're actually buying. Tight, 4–6 bullets.

The business model logic

How does the company make money? What's the customer-acquisition unit economics theory? What's the compounding channel thesis (if any)? Pulled from seed deck / financial model / founder narrative.

Brand voice (the non-negotiable)

If the client has documented voice rules, list them. YES / NO vocabulary. CTA rules. Tone. Core method (initiatory, explanatory, narrative, etc.). Every other section of the plan must respect these.

Voice notes:

Section 3 — Current state

Purpose: Anchor the plan in reality. What's the team, budget, in-flight work, and stuck work today?

Length: 1000–2000 words.

Structure:

Team composition (marketing surface area)

Table of every person with marketing surface area:

Person Role Marketing surface area

Be honest about gaps. If there's no dedicated marketing hire yet, name when one becomes necessary and what role (see references/team-and-agency-model.md — first hire should be π-shaped strategist titled Manager or Lead, not VP/CMO).

Marketing budget (current)

State the funding-stage tier this maps to (see references/funding-stage-unlocks.md). Implication: what 90-day plan must produce without lever pulls that require future budget.

Phase of SaaS growth

Name the current phase: $0–10K ARR / $10K–100K / $100K–1M / $1M–$10M / $10M+. Each phase has its own binding constraint and dominant growth pattern (see references/growth-patterns.md). Section 10 sequences the move into the next phase.

What's already done (acknowledge, then build on)

Table:

Asset Status Marketing leverage

This is where past launches, PR moments, content pillars, certifications, notable users get acknowledged. Critical: don't write a plan that ignores work the team is proud of.

What's in-flight (drafted but not shipped)

Table:

Item Status Blocker

Be honest about blockers. Where the blocker is "no time" or "no decision," that goes to Section 13's open decisions.

What's stuck (and needs to unstick this quarter)

Table:

Issue Cost of inaction Action

Stuck things are the most leverage-positive places to focus the first weeks of the 90-day plan.

Audit rubric snapshot

17-section scored snapshot using the embedded current-state rubric. See references/current-state-rubric.md for the full rubric and scoring guides.

If a prior scored audit exists, paste those scores in. Otherwise score from available materials and note "scored from materials" under the heading.

# Section Score Note
1 Positioning 0–5
2 Customer research 0–5
... ... ... ...
17 Internationalization 0–5

Total: X / 85 (Y%). Note the shape of strength and weakness — that shape is the gap the rest of the plan closes.

Voice notes:

Section 4 — Acquisition

Purpose: Answer "how do strangers become aware of us?" Map every channel: current state, planned moves, skipped (with reason).

Length: 1000–1800 words.

Structure:

Current state

Brief. What's working today, what's not, what the data shows about channel mix.

The plan

Numbered "Moves." Each move is a paragraph (3–6 sentences) describing the channel, the thesis, and the specific work. Common moves:

90-day acquisition moves

Week-by-week breakdown of the ships in the first quarter.

12-month acquisition outlook

Quarter-by-quarter outcome state (Q1 / Q2 / Q3 / Q4).

Skills + tools

Section 5 — Activation

Purpose: Answer "once someone tries us, do they have an experience that converts?"

Length: 800–1500 words.

Structure: Same as Acquisition (Current state / The plan / 90-day / 12-month / Skills + tools).

Common moves:

Skills + tools

onboarding, signup, paywalls, copywriting, marketing-website-design, ab-testing, etc.

Section 6 — Retention

Purpose: Answer "once someone converts, do they stay and deepen?"

Length: 800–1500 words.

Structure: Same as above.

Common moves:

Skills + tools

emails, churn-prevention, copywriting, paywalls, etc.

Section 7 — Referral

Purpose: Answer "do retained users bring more users, and at what cost?"

Length: 500–1200 words.

Structure: Same as above.

Common moves:

Skills + tools

referrals, social, emails (for ambassador lifecycle), copywriting, etc.

Section 8 — Revenue

Purpose: Answer "what do we charge, who pays, and how does it compound?"

Length: 500–1200 words.

Structure: Same as above.

Common moves:

Unit economics

Required table:

Metric Value Note
ARPC (avg monthly revenue per customer) $X Pulled from Stripe / billing
Blended CAC $X Includes all marketing costs, not just paid
Annual retention rate X% 1 − annual churn
LTV (rough) $X ARPC × 12 / annual churn
LTV / CAC X Health benchmark: > 3

These feed the budget math in Section 10. If any of these are unknown, flag in Section 13 as top open decision.

Skills + tools

pricing, paywalls, sales-enablement, revops, ab-testing, etc.

Section 9 — 90-day roadmap

Purpose: The tactical execution layer. Every move ships within a named week, with an owner.

Length: Tables, not prose. Should fit on one printed page if possible.

Structure: Four 2–3-week sprints:

Weeks 1–2 — Unblock

Highest-confidence, lowest-cost changes. Removing things that are broken.

Move Stage Owner

Weeks 3–4 — Foundation

Pillar/foundational work. Domain consolidation. First content. First flows shipping. First tests live.

Weeks 5–8 — Velocity

Compounding work begins. Content cadence. Repeat tests. Channel scaling.

Weeks 9–12 — Compound

Second-order moves. Layered tactics. 90-day review prep.

Section 10 — 12-month outlook

Purpose: Quarterly milestones with explicit funding-stage capability unlocks named, anchored against a defensible growth pattern.

Length: Four sub-sections, one per quarter. ~250–400 words each. Plus a short framing paragraph at the top naming the budget method and growth pattern.

Framing (top of Section 10)

State explicitly:

Structure (per quarter)

Q{N} — Months {X}–{Y}

Funding state: {tier} per funding-stage-unlocks.md

Focus: One-sentence focus theme for the quarter.

Outcomes by end of Q{N}:

KPI targets: 3–5 specific numerical targets.

Channel/Product/Market S-curve position: Which curves are growing, which are plateauing, which is the next one being staged for this quarter (see growth-patterns.md — layering principle).

Section 11 — Marketing operations stack

Purpose: The fCMO differentiator. Show how a small team + agentic tooling executes the plan without hiring at every channel.

Length: Tables + brief explanation.

Structure:

The thesis

1–2 paragraphs explaining the principle: small team + marketing-skills library + MCP integrations = output of a larger team.

Skills mapped to AARRR stages

Stage Primary skills Supporting skills
Acquisition (list) (list)
Activation (list) (list)
Retention (list) (list)
Referral (list) (list)
Revenue (list) (list)
Cross-cutting (list) (list)

MCPs / APIs mapped to stages

Stage Existing connections fCMO tooling layer

A concrete example

Pick one operational moment that proves the stack works (e.g., "Customer.io MCP let the non-technical founder draft a flow live on the kickoff call"). Anchor the abstract claim in a specific event.

Capability unlocks by funding stage

Stage Headcount Tooling Channels live
(current) (list) (list) (list)
(next round) (delta) (delta) (delta)
... ... ... ...

Team and agency model (RACI)

Apply the principle from references/team-and-agency-model.md: strategy in-house, execution often outsourced.

Function Owned by (internal strategic role) Executed by (IC / contractor / agency)
Growth marketing (demand engine)
Product marketing (story engine)
Content marketing (trust engine)

If the team is missing a strategic owner for one of these functions, the first 90-day move (Section 9) should be the hire — Manager or Lead title, π-shaped if possible, not VP/CMO.

If execution capacity is the gap, name the contractor or small niche agency in the right cell rather than the team's existing IC.

Pull from references/funding-stage-unlocks.md.

Section 12 — Tactical idea bank

Purpose: Cross-reference all 139 ideas from the marketing-ideas skill against AARRR stages, with client-specific status.

Length: Long — tables can easily total 150+ rows.

Structure:

Intro paragraph

Explain the cross-reference: Sections 4–8 prescribe what's being done. This section maps what's possible.

Status legend

12.1 Acquisition ideas

By status (Now / Q2 / Q3+ / Q4+ / Skip), tables of relevant marketing-ideas by number.

# Idea Client note

12.2 Activation ideas

12.3 Retention ideas

12.4 Referral ideas

12.5 Revenue ideas

12.6 Cross-cutting / brand foundation ideas

Idea-bank summary

Use references/idea-cross-reference.md as the source-of-truth mapping. Apply client-specific filters during draft (brand voice rules out some; funding stage shifts timing of others).

Section 13 — Measurement, RACI, open decisions, appendix

Purpose: Operational close. Define how the plan gets measured, who owns what, what's still TBD, and where to find the deeper docs.

Structure:

Measurement — the metrics that matter

North star (proposed): One metric that captures the business-model thesis. For Quietude it was blended-LTV-to-blended-CAC; for a B2B SaaS it might be NRR × NPS; for a marketplace, take-rate × monthly transacting users. Make it specific to the company.

Leading indicators by AARRR stage: Table:

Stage Leading indicators
Acquisition ...
Activation ...
Retention ...
Referral ...
Revenue ...

Review cadence:

RACI

Domain Responsible Accountable Consulted Informed

Common domains: strategic plan, brand voice, app/product implementation, lifecycle, SEO content, App Store, founder-led social, events, ambassadors, B2B sales, pricing, investor narrative, future hires.

Open decisions blocking the plan

Ranked by impact. Each is: name + impact + what's blocked.

  1. (highest impact) ...
  2. ...
  3. (lowest impact) ...

Appendix — deep-dive links

Published in this repo / shared with team: {relative paths to docs in the shared repo}

Founder-authored strategic context (internal knowledge base): {names of docs the team has access to outside the plan repo}

fCMO working drafts (not yet published): {names + how to access from author}

Closing line

*{Client} Marketing Plan v1. Prepared by {Author}, {Date}. For team review and discussion.*

Per-section heuristics for "is this section done?"

Source: https://github.com/coreyhaines31/marketingskills/skills/marketing-plan/references/plan-template.md · v1.1.1 · MIT License (c) 2025 Corey Haines.