A one-page marketing plan for your business, with a free template

A one-page marketing plan is eight boxes, filled in one after another, and the template is a single printable page you can download for free. Most marketing plans fail the same way: someone writes forty pages, everyone agrees with them, and nobody opens the file again.

One page is short enough to write in an afternoon, pin above a desk and check every month without holding a meeting about it, and what it gives up in detail it makes up for by actually being used. If you're still deciding whether you need a digital marketing strategy at all, settle that first. This page is the working sheet.

The eight boxes

Write in the boxes as you go. What you type is saved in this browser only, and printing this page gives you the plan on paper.

• 1. Where we are now. Last year's enquiries and sales, and where they came from. Not a feeling; a count. List your last 20 customers, how each found you and roughly what each was worth, and the pattern usually jumps out. If you cannot say where enquiries come from, write that down. It becomes the first job in box 7.

  What a good answer looks like

  Counts, not impressions: how many enquiries and sales last year, and where each came from. The bathroom fitter's box in the worked example is the shape to aim for, with numbers by source and the pattern you spotted, such as a slump in the same months each year.

  Takes about an hour, most of it listing your last 20 customers. Covered in The only five GA4 reports you need.

• 2. Who we are for. Your best customers, described so a stranger could spot one. What they buy, what problem sent them looking, and how they choose between you and the alternatives. Pick the customers you want more of, not everyone you have ever served.

  What a good answer looks like

  A description a stranger could use to spot your best customer: who they are, what they buy, what sent them looking and how they choose. It names the customers you want more of, and it leaves some people out.

  Takes half an hour. Covered in A messaging framework for your business: who you are for, why you, and how to say it.

• 3. What we say. One sentence: what you do, for whom, and why you rather than someone else. If it takes a paragraph, keep cutting. Every other box depends on this one, so there is a whole piece on explaining what you do in one sentence, and a messaging framework for the rest of what you say.

  What a good answer looks like

  One sentence that says what you do, for whom, and why you rather than the alternatives, short enough to say out loud without a breath. Someone outside your trade can repeat it back after hearing it once.

  Takes an hour, mostly cutting. Covered in Can you explain what you do in one sentence? How to fix your messaging.

• 4. The goal. One number and one date. "Twenty more enquiries a quarter by the end of March" can be checked. "Grow the brand" cannot. If you are tempted to write three goals, you have not chosen yet.

  What a good answer looks like

  One number and one date that anyone could check, such as "20 enquiries from new customers in January to March, up from about 8". Only one goal is written in the box.

  Takes fifteen minutes, once box 1 is done. Covered in full above.

• 5. Channels. Two or three at most, each with a single job. Your Google Business Profile to be found by people nearby. Email to bring past customers back. One paid channel to fill a gap, if the numbers support it. Everything else waits. Spread across too many places and you tend to do none of them well.

  What a good answer looks like

  Two or three channels, each with one job written beside it, such as "Business Profile, to be found locally". Anything not listed has been deliberately left to wait.

  Takes half an hour. Covered in Marketing for a small local business: what to do first, and what can wait.

• 6. Budget. Money and hours, both. Hours are the budget small and medium businesses forget, and the one that runs out first. For the money, work up from your own numbers rather than a percentage from a survey; we show how in how much to spend on marketing.

  What a good answer looks like

  A money figure and an hours figure, both. The money is worked up from your own numbers, and the hours say whose time it is and how much a week.

  Takes an hour with your own figures. Covered in How to split a small marketing budget.

• 7. The next ninety days. A list of jobs in order, each with a name against it and a week. The first job fixes the biggest gap you found in box 1. Ninety days is long enough to see something happen and short enough that the list stays honest.

  What a good answer looks like

  A list of jobs in order, each with a name and a week against it, starting with the job that fixes the biggest gap from box 1. It fits in the box without small writing.

  Takes an hour. Covered in full above.

• 8. How we will know. Two or three numbers, checked on the same day each month: usually enquiries, where they came from, and how many became customers. If enquiries are not being tracked, box 7 starts there; our guide to the five GA4 reports you need covers the website side.

  What a good answer looks like

  Two or three numbers, such as new enquiries, where they came from and how many became customers, with the day each month you will check them. If enquiries are not tracked yet, box 7 starts there.

  Takes twenty minutes. Covered in The only five GA4 reports you need.

A worked example

To show how the boxes fit together, here's a plan for a made-up business: a bathroom fitter in Surrey, two people and a van, doing well enough but with enquiries that come and go. Every figure below is invented for the illustration.

Notice what's missing: no social media calendar, no brand refresh, no list of twelve tactics. The plan picks one gap, the January slump in enquiries from new customers, and aims three channels at it. If it works, the next plan builds on it. If it doesn't, box 8 shows you within a quarter, not a year.

Box 5 leans on the Business Profile for a reason: for a local business it costs nothing but the time it takes to set the profile up properly. If you'd like to weigh it against the other channels a local firm can use, start with marketing for small local businesses.

A plan is also where you apply the only test of a new idea that has ever been much use: is it new for us, and does it add value we can point at? That is the definition of innovation I'd keep from 2018.

Keeping it alive

Put the plan somewhere you'll see it. Then, once a month, spend twenty minutes on three questions: did we do the jobs in box 7, what do the numbers in box 8 say, and does anything in boxes 2 to 6 need to change? Every ninety days, write the next list of jobs.

Resist rewriting the whole thing every month. A plan that changes every time you look at it is a to-do list, and a to-do list always fills up with whatever feels urgent.

What nobody has measured

• One page against forty. We know of no published study comparing smaller businesses that keep short marketing plans with those that keep long ones. The case for one page is practical rather than proven: a plan that gets used beats one that doesn't.
• Benchmarks for your numbers. A good enquiry rate or conversion rate depends heavily on the trade, the price and the area, and we haven't found a reliable UK source for businesses of this size. That's why the template starts from your own figures.

If you'd rather build the plan with someone, our 90-day marketing plan is a fixed £2,500 and covers your spend and what it earns, a budget split channel by channel, and ninety days of jobs in order.