Stop Writing Marketing Plans That Expire in Three Months

I grew up on the idea that you make a plan, you stick to it, and you graft. As most of my colleagues and peers can testify to, I am someone that looks ahead; whether that is work or in personal life. I am not just interested in what tomorrow brings, but what the future holds.

That’s still good advice. Up to a point. 

But in marketing, the world moves faster than any tidy 12-month battle plan. The market shifts. Platforms change their rules. Competitors pile in. People behave differently week to week. It’s not that the plan is stupid; it’s that the calendar is slow.

I’m big on theory, proper strategy, not just “what if we try TikTok?”. Because the theory explains why things break and how to fix them. I’m all about learning from the past and how people and businesses have overcome challenging or opportune moments.

If you’ve read any military history, you’ll know we moved from set-piece battles to agile manoeuvre. Same for marketing. The answer isn’t chaos; it’s emergent strategy: keep your direction steady, and let the way you get there evolve as you learn.
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Why annual plans die (and it’s not because you’re rubbish)

Here’s the honest bit. Annual plans freeze the stuff that should flex (audience opportunity, offer, creative) and leave fuzzy the stuff that should never wobble (positioning, who you actually serve, how you measure success). Then the big platforms roll up with their shiny “try this!” and you end up with seven mini plans; CRM, content, paid, PR etc. None of them talking to each other. It’s not malicious; it’s drift.

So, no, you don’t bin strategy. You reconnect it.

What “connected strategy” looks like in real life

Imagine a simple chain you keep tight every week:

• What we’re trying to achieve commercially.
  
  
• The customer problem we’re actually solving.
  
  
• The bet we’re making (who, what offer, which pattern of channels).
  
  
• The execution (assets, spend, who’s doing what).
  
  
• The learning loop (what the signals say, what we’ll change next).
  
  

If any one link goes slack, the team starts second-guessing and each channel tells a different story. Keep the chain tight and it feels like everyone’s rowing the same way; because they are.

Two tracks, one business

I like to run two tracks side by side:

• Next 90 days: fix foundations and pick a few bets that can move numbers soon. Enhance upon leanings we have at our disposal.
  
  
• Longer horizon: call out the bigger, slower moves so the quick wins don’t cannibalise the future. Expand based on the hypothesis we create.
  
  

When boards ask “are we on track?”, you can point to both: progress now, direction intact.

Guardrails and changeables

To avoid brand whiplash, split your world into two:

• What holds steady: positioning, proof points, who you’re for (and not for), and the measurement rules.
  
  
• What evolves weekly: which slice of the audience you lean into, the offer, the creative hook, the channel mix, the trends and catalysts you may be aligning to.
  
  

This is the difference between being agile and being jumpy.

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The ritual that keeps it alive

You don’t need a summit. You need twenty minutes a week where grown-ups make decisions.

Five minutes on whether you’re closer or further from the outcome. Ten minutes on the active bets; do we scale, keep, or kill based on thresholds you agreed before the emotions kicked in. Five minutes on risks and asks. Capture it in a simple decision log so nobody has to “hear it on the grapevine.”

That rhythm matters more than any slide. It turns learning into movement.

Choosing bets without the fluff

Write each bet like you’d explain it to a mate over a pint or with your family over a Sunday dinner:

“People who’ve lingered on that page are nudging to know more. If we show them a follow up message in the next 48 hours, we have more chance of turning them into a customer. Let’s test and we’ll know more in 2 weeks”

Time-to-learn beats time-to-launch. If you can get a read in two weeks, you can run six to eight proper test in a quarter. That compounds. Don’t overthink it or get caught up in inertia. The beauty of marketing is learning what you didn’t know yesterday. If it aligns commercially, just do it.

What tells you to move? Don’t wait for revenue only. Watch a few honest, early signals: qualified engagement, how often this bet appears in assisted conversions, whether people accept the offer. Set tripwires. “if qualified engagement drops below X after Y impressions, we pause”. The budget conversation stops being political and removes the red tape.

One story, many expressions

Every channel doesn’t need its own “strategy.” Give the team a spine: the problem you’re solving, the proof you can wave around, and the single action you want. Paid search mops up high-intent. Social provides the hook. CRM gets the fuller narrative. It’s all the same story, told three ways.

A quick example

We worked with a scale-up running seven separate “strategies.” Lovely slides, very busy people, not much momentum. We collapsed it into one connected plan and added the weekly ritual. Within two cycles we killed a pet creative line that wasn’t qualifying traffic, doubled into pricing-triggered retargeting that clearly showed up in assists, and rewired CRM to trigger offers based on real behaviour. Revenue followed. More importantly, the team stopped arguing about whose slide was right and started pointing towards the leading KPIs.

The one-page version

If it doesn’t fit on one page, it’ll go stale on page two. Keep a live doc (Notion, Google Slide, whatever you and the team actually open - and keep open!):

• North Star (12 months). This is your battle plan. No more, no less.
• Two outcomes for the quarter. Increase net profit? Expand into a new customer cohort? Launch a new product?
• Non-negotiables: positioning, ICP, proof, measurement, brand guardrails.
  
  
• Up to three active bets written in plain English, with a time-to-learn.
  
  
• This week’s moves: what we’re scaling, keeping, pausing, plus names next to them.
  
  
• Signals and tripwires so spend moves aren’t a debate every Friday.
  
  
• Decision log so the story writes itself.
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The point

I’m not anti-planning. I’m a big planner, thinker and theorist. I’m anti pretending the world will respect your calendar. Keep the direction steady. Shorten the loop between what you learn and what you do. Make the decisions small, visible, and frequent. That’s not just “agile” jargon, that’s how you stop good brands drifting into busywork and keep everyone, from the board to the execs to the practitioners, pulling in the same direction.

So the key takeaways? Bring some flex into your thinking. Explore the principles of emergent strategy. Finally, get testing. Don’t rest on your laurels and let the market pass you by. Get in front today to develop a more informed tomorrow.


Ready to rethink your marketing plan?

‍Let’s map where you are today and build a connected strategy that moves with the market.

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