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If you’ve ever stared at a blank document and thought, “I know I need a marketing plan, I just don’t know where to start,” you’re not alone. It’s one of the most common things I hear from nonprofit and association leaders. They know marketing matters. They’re already doing marketing things. But when it comes to putting an actual plan on paper? That’s where it stalls.
Here’s the honest truth: a marketing plan doesn’t have to be a 40-page strategic document that takes three months to produce. It just has to be yours. And it has to work.
In this post, I’m walking you through the essentials — from understanding why a plan matters, to breaking it into manageable pieces, to the part most people actually enjoy (spoiler: it’s the tactics). I’ve also pulled together some of my favorite short-form tips to pair with each section.
First, let's talk about why you actually need one
A marketing plan gives you a framework for making decisions, so you’re not just reacting to what lands in your inbox. It connects your marketing activity to your organizational goals. And it gives your team (even if that team is just you) something to point to when someone asks, “Why are we doing this?”
Without a plan, you’re making it up as you go. And that’s exhausting. It also makes it nearly impossible to measure whether anything you’re doing is actually working.
Watch this short for a quick overview of what goes into a marketing plan and why it matters:
You can start smaller than you think you need to
One of the biggest reasons marketing plans don’t get written? People try to do it all at once. They sit down on a Tuesday afternoon expecting to emerge three hours later with a comprehensive document, and when that doesn’t happen, they give up.
Break it down. Seriously. You don’t need to write your entire marketing plan in one sitting. You just need to write a piece of it. Your audience analysis. Your goal statements. Your content calendar for Q1. One section at a time, over time, adds up to a complete plan faster than one heroic planning session ever will.
This is the approach I teach in my Marketing Plan Workbook, and it’s the same mindset behind this tip:
Treat each component of your plan like its own small project. Give it a due date. Work on it in focused blocks. Before you know it, you have a plan!
Now for the part everyone actually likes: tactics
Here’s where most people want to start (and why they get in trouble). Tactics are the fun part of marketing planning: the social campaigns, the email series, the events, the videos. The creative stuff.
But tactics without strategy are just noise. They’re sometimes expensive, they can be exhausting, and they rarely move the needle in a meaningful way. The plan you build in the earlier phases is what gives your tactics purpose. It’s what lets you say with confidence, “We’re doing this campaign because it maps to this goal and speaks to this audience.”Here’s where most people want to start (and why they get in trouble). Tactics are the fun part of marketing planning. The social campaigns, the email series, the events, the videos. The creative stuff!
Once you have that foundation, though? Tactics are absolutely the fun part. Here’s how I think about the tactical phase of planning:
Make your own, customized template
There’s no single right way to format a marketing plan. Some organizations use a 12-month calendar. Some use a goal-based framework. Some keep it as a living Google Doc, others as a printed reference. What matters isn’t the format; it’s that it reflects how your organization actually thinks and works.
You don’t need to find the perfect template online and reverse-engineer your strategy into it. You can build your own. And it’s probably easier than you think:
Start with what you know you need to capture: your goals, your audiences, your key messages, your channels, your budget, and your timeline. Everything else is customization. Build a template that your team will actually use, and you’ve already won half the battle.
Resources to help take you further
If you want to go deeper on any part of the planning process, these longer-form videos are a great next step (links go to Youtube):
- 5 Things You Need in a One-Page Marketing Plan
- The 5 Best Nonprofit Marketing Frameworks (For Marketing Planning Success)
- Marketing Goals and the Acronym SMART
- 5 Ways Your Strategic Marketing May Fail (And How to Avoid It)
- Five Steps to Take to Audit Your Nonprofit or Association Marketing
- 5 Crucial Elements of a Successful Marketing Campaign
Ready to start your plan?
If you’ve been putting off your marketing plan because it feels too big, too complicated, or too time-consuming, I hope this post gives you a more manageable way to look at it.
Start with one section. Build from there. When you’re ready for a structured framework, I have two more hands-on resources that can help:
- The Marketing Plan Workbook — a step-by-step guide that walks you through every component of a full marketing plan.
- The One-Page Marketing Plan for Nonprofits and Associations — if you want something leaner that you can actually finish today, start here.
Have questions about where to start? Reach out to me on LinkedIn.
