The marketing plan is dead, long live the hustler

It’s probably not a shocker to most marketers, but the marketing plan as we know it, is dead. It simply does not exist anymore in its traditional form, nor is there a real need for it.

Why is that?

No matter which market you’re operating in, what your product or service or your client base, one thing is for sure — the entire business landscape is constantly changing, and your customers’ needs and behaviours are changing quicker than you could adjust any pre-planned strategy or plan. The unpredictable economic situation and ever-changing rationale behind customer decisions do no longer match entrepreneurs’ or marketers’ ability to plan ahead. The customer will always be one step ahead of you — already checking out what your competitors are doing, finding alternatives or simply second guessing if what you’re offering is worth the money they’re paying for it. It is risky to assume that you know what your customer wants, because at any moment their needs and interest may shift and the next thing you know — they might already be requiring something else or looking for solutions you can’t yet offer. Admit it, most of your clients and potential customers are ruthless — they’re constantly judging you, giving you feedback which can push you in unpredictable directions. Constructive criticism is essential to running a business but most consumers will not thing twice about ditching you if you’re not at the top of your game, just as they won’t hesitate to praise you if you’re doing something awesome. Now imagine having a simplistic linear plan for all your marketing activities, which at its core is all about catering to specific customer personas and needs while using channels, messages and methods that have proven to be successful in the past. In such an unpredictable world, it just won’t work.

So, the best plan is not to have a plan at all?

I’m not telling you to make things up as you go along and improvise when trying to market your product or service. It goes without saying, that every marketer needs clear goals and objectives, they have to know how to acquire their customers and keep them happy. Your marketing activities should have a starting point and an end goal — what you want to achieve, but that’s not exactly something you can call a marketing plan.

There is no linear path to success in today’s economic climate. You need to be a hustler with a clear purpose, your plan needs to have at least a dozen sub-plans, many of which leading to different or opposite directions. You need to test every idea you get and tweak your actions accordingly. You have to see the bigger picture as well as the very micro level of everything you do and could potentially do to move a step closer to reaching your targets. You have to simultaneously wear a hat of a strategist, a detective, a psychologist, a diplomat, a sales shark, a storyteller and a conversion marketer. And above all, you have to realize that the customer might not believe what you are telling them or do as you advise, or fall for every trick in your book. This requires a high level of creativity, stubbornness and agility from you as a marketer. Therefore, your perfectly sculpted, one-size fits all, the must-work marketing plan will get thrown out the window sooner rather than later due to the demands of your customers and and the non-traditional workings of the marketing environment.

So no, having no plan is the worst idea ever, but instead of a marketing plan, you need to have ideas and specific knowledge to implement those ideas into something that actually works. Be a hustler with a goal, not a marketer with a plan. How you do it, how you organize your ideas in a way that leaves you with enough flexibility and doesn’t constrain you is all up to you. But the essential part is that whatever you’re doing, it has to work.

Intrigued? This is how you do it…

To become the high-achieving, productive and efficient marketing hustler, you need to

1. Set clear goals and divide them into manageable chunks

2. Read and learn — a lot and often

3. Get inspired and collect ideas

4. Organize them

and

5. Maintain the go-getter attitude and (this one sounds like a cliché) but never give up

Instead of a good old traditional marketing plan, you will need to have a non-linear plan in your head, or better yet, in some other manageable format. Take your ideas, and also take someone else’s, take whatever inspiration you can get or lessons you can learn from your competitors and your clients and make them your own. Be a hustler with a plan, and by a plan I mean, whatever works for you.

To show you that I actually practice what I preach, have a look at this cool collection of ideas I found particularly inspiring when starting off marketing a B2B SaaS product with almost zero budget.