A lot of small business owners come to me frustrated. They’ve followed advice, downloaded templates, maybe even paid for a few “done-for-you” marketing plans, and they’re still stuck. Not for lack of trying, but because the marketing strategy and action plan they’re working from is surface-level.

It lists channels. Tells them to post regularly. Suggests an ad budget. Maybe even maps out a funnel.

But what it doesn’t do?
It doesn’t actually help them decide what to focus on. What to prioritise. Or how to make sure their marketing is built to support the business they actually want.

Marketing Should Start With the Business Plan, But Often Doesn’t

Too many marketing strategies are built in isolation. They don’t start with the question “what’s the next stage of growth for this business?” or “what capacity do we have right now to make it happen?”

When I sit down with a business owner, we don’t begin with platforms or content. We start with the real stuff:

• What do you want your business to look like in a year?
• What’s the offer that will get you there?
• Who is your ideal client—and are they the same ones you’ve been attracting?
• Do you actually have the capacity right now to grow, or do we need to fix the foundations first?

This is the kind of strategic thinking that’s often tucked away in a business plan—but rarely seen through a marketing lens. And yet it’s essential. Because if you don’t get clear on this first, any marketing plan is just a bunch of activity. It might keep you busy, but it won’t get you where you want to go.

A Real Marketing Strategy and Plan Connects the Dots

Once the business clarity is in place, then (and only then) should we be looking at your actual marketing activity. But even that needs to be done with care.

You need to work out what low-cost, high-impact marketing activities are available to you right now. Things that can stretch your visibility without stretching your resources.
This might include:

• Using AI tools to help generate ideas, repurpose your words, and speed up production
  
• Setting up simple automations that save you hours
  
• Using Canva to batch out posts that stay on brand and get noticed
  
• Learning how to show up consistently without burning out
  

And you need to know what order to do it all in. That’s what turns a vague plan into a working system.

The Best Marketing Plan Breaks Down the Doing

Here’s where I see people get overwhelmed: they get handed a strategy, and it feels like a mountain. So they either try to climb the whole thing in one week, or walk away from it completely.

That’s why your marketing strategy and plan needs to come with a clear action breakdown.

What happens daily?
What’s weekly, monthly, quarterly?
What are the one-off tasks that need to be set up and then maintained?
Where do you build in time to reflect, measure, and adapt?

When we get this part right, your plan becomes a support system. It lets you stay on track even when life (or business) gets chaotic. And it gives you a way to build momentum without burning yourself out.

What a Practical Marketing Strategy and Plan Looks Like in Action

It’s one thing to talk about building a solid marketing strategy and plan—but what does that actually involve in a real small business?

It starts with putting the business lens on first. That means looking beyond marketing ideas and asking:
→ What do I actually want my business to look like over the next 6–12 months?
→ What kind of work do I want more of?
→ What’s bringing in the most profit, and what’s taking too much time for too little return?

These questions shape everything else. They help you choose the offer to focus on—one that fits your current capacity, plays to your strengths, and helps you grow without stretching too thin.

Next, it’s about refining your understanding of your ideal client in a way that helps you confidently say: “This is what they need to hear. This is how they decide. And this is how I reach them with the time and tools I’ve got.”

Once that’s clear, the plan comes into play. But not as one long overwhelming list. A useful strategy breaks down your marketing activity into daily, weekly, monthly, and quarterly rhythms. It includes one-off jobs (like updating your website or setting up email sequences) and the recurring habits that keep visibility and lead flow ticking over.

It helps you prioritise so you  build your business the right way.

This is exactly the structure we work through in the Marketing Strategy Intensive. If you’re curious what a fully fleshed-out plan looks like in practice, that’s a great place to start.

Because the real goal of a strategy is to make your business clearer, calmer, and more capable of growing in a way that feels sustainable.

A Marketing Strategy Should Make Things Easier

When your marketing plan is built the right way round, everything else starts to click into place.
You stop asking “should I be on TikTok?” and start asking “what does my ideal customer need to hear right now?”
You stop switching tactics every month and start seeing what’s actually working.
You stop spinning your wheels and start building momentum.

If you’re ready for a marketing strategy and plan that’s specific, practical, and built for your business (not someone else’s) this might be your time to pause, reset, and build something that actually works.