Marketing Tactical Plan: Step-by-step Guide

Marketing Tactical Plan: Step-by-step Guide

A study made back in 2003 concluded that “any generic approach to marketing strategy making fails most companies, and that an organisationally tailored process is required.”

This means that no matter the staff you are working with, if they have a general approach or don’t use the correct methodology to come up with clear objectives focusing on what your company needs, you will fail.

Fortunately, some techniques allow you to define practical, easy-to-follow goals that will help you achieve the performance you’re looking for. One of them is the marketing tactical plan.

This article focuses on this essential development tool and how you can get the proper insight for your business.

Strategic And Tactical Marketing: What’s The Difference?

Tactical marketing is a process that explains how you will achieve marketing objectives. Instead, strategic marketing covers what you’re going to do to reach your target audience.

Marketers explore both approaches to create a complete marketing plan and use resources accordingly. Strategies require specific descriptions of the goals you want to achieve. Thus, strategic marketing and tactical marketing bring you the possibility to brainstorm a plan to use your current marketing efforts.

Some of these actions can be:

1. Increase rankings in Search Engine Optimization results.

2. Boost brand awareness.

3. Identify a new target audience.

4. Re-create buyer personas.

5. Generate leads.


All the examples above are based on a strategic marketing approach. If you wanted to align them into tactical marketing goals, they would look like this:

1. Research competitive keywords, develop 10 SEO-optimized articles, and measure results.

2. Create five weekly social media posts about our brand values.

3. Create online polls on our social media about new products and services.

4. Develop interviews with potential customers to learn their behaviors.

5. Send ten cold outreach emails a day to qualified leads.


As you can see, both are the same objectives but follow different approaches.

Why Is Tactical Marketing Important?

Tactical marketing is essential to understand the steps to take in the company to develop the marketing strategy.

This approach is not discrete. Instead, it focuses on the clear path you need to follow that a strategic marketing plan couldn’t give you.

As a result, you get actionable tasks you and your marketing team can complete to support larger strategic marketing goals.

Who Is Involved In a Marketing Tactical Plan

There are many people involved in a marketing tactical plan for a business. Some of these include:

  • Business Owner.
  • Marketing Manager.
  • Project Manager.
  • Marketing Staff.
  • Marketing Strategist.

They bring the business knowledge in strategic planning, especially if you want to develop solid marketing strategies that work for your company.

Type Of Marketing Tactics

Whether it's about social media promotions, finding a new marketing channel, or creating a sales funnel for your existing customers, there are two types of specific marketing tactics to follow:


Foundational Tactics


These tactics affect the very foundation of your business. This includes values and reputation. You must develop and apply them immediately to create a consistent tone and voice in your brand.


Ongoing Tactics


The ongoing tactics are those that require time to develop. Just like the ones above, they align with your business goal. The difference is that they are continuous during your daily operations.

You must identify tactics that follow your plan to create a great marketing strategy.

How To Develop Marketing Objectives According To Your Business Goals

To find the right marketing objectives, you must pass through a line of thought that includes awareness, consideration, and decision. It’s similar to a sales funnel, but instead of wondering what the customer wants, you must question the best path for your business and how you can do it.

After you’ve developed the strategic plan, you need to develop specific business objectives.

These are actionable steps you take following the SMART methodology ( Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, Timely.)

You can pin-point the gaps you have identified in your business. After that, you should create actionable steps to overcome those breaches. The idea is that you can find ways to gain a competitive advantage over your competitors or solve issues preventing you from growing revenue in your brand.

Some of these examples include:

  • SEO optimization.
  • Content marketing.
  • Pay-per-click advertising.

Apply this to every aspect of your firm, and you’ll find what you need to improve and adapt.

How To Develop A Tactical Marketing Plan

You must follow a series of steps to create and implement a tactical marketing plan. They will help you achieve the next big goal.

Here’s what you need to focus on:

Review Your Business Current Situation

Before you set up larger strategies, you must go through a retrospective analysis of your company. This will help you determine growth opportunities.

Some of the aspects you must consider are:

  • Business goals.
  • Target market.
  • SWOT analysis.
  • Previous and current marketing investment.
  • Marketing position.
  • Prospects approach.
  • Opportunities and initiatives.

Set Up Shorter And Larger Objectives

Once you have assessed your business situation, you can evaluate objectives and priorities.

Ensure you use the SMART methodology to come up with clear goals that you can accomplish. For example, if you want to rank better on Google, you should:

  • Aim to find better targeting keywords.
  • Develop keyword research based on search intent.
  • Start optimizing your current and new content.
  • Look for a more efficient way to maximize content engagement.

Your objectives should follow a schedule. This is how you ensure short-term and long-term goals.

A Strategy For Your Strategic Plans

It may sound redundant, but you must create a strategy for your strategic plans.

Remember, you have limited resources. And as such, to achieve your strategic goals, you need to know what to do. This is a critical step you need to take because it’s where you make your company’s strengths contrast with everything else that needs improvement.

Most companies don’t think this through and execute their plans without a strategy, which is why they fail.

Consider that your plan’s success depends on this, so think about it as a sales funnel involving awareness, consideration, and decision. The idea is that you start translating high-level goals into small steps that you can succeed with.

Execute And Deliver Results

Once you find the best opportunities for your tactical marketing plans, execute them soon – or based on a schedule and budget – and track them.

When you find something that works, invest further. Discard everything else that’s not working. And in case everything fails, start over.

Programs To Boost Effective Marketing Tactics

To develop the best marketing plan, you need effective marketing automation tools.

Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint work perfectly with new ideas. These programs can be used as a project management software to create sheets or documents for your plans. 

And since everything’s online, you can use the cloud version to send the worksheets to the whole team involved in the project.

Create Gantt view charts and drop simplicity to your work.

The thing about these programs is that you need the complete Microsoft Office suite. Usually, you’d need over $250 to get the original license. Fortunately, RoyalCDkeys has official Microsoft Office 2021 CD keys at a discounted price.

With these productivity tools, you can create email campaigns, ads, and data sets that every marketer needs.

Tactical Marketing Plan Template

You can use templates if you don’t want to create a tactical plan from scratch. These are great for defining clear steps in the worksheet without having to think about it too much.

Here are some examples:


Template #1

Tactical Marketing Plan Free Template - Download Link.



Template #2

Simple Marketing Plan - Download Link.



Template #3

Marketing Plan For Startup Business - Download Link.

Marketing Tactical Plan - Summary

The marketing tactical plan helps you boost your marketing fire. This method allows you to find essential – yet subtle – objectives you couldn’t see if you were using a strategic approach.

If you want to engage with new customers, create a service that works or start implementing branding updates that improve your company’s recognition in the industry, you should develop a plan that is easy to understand by everyone involved in the project.

The tactical approach will help you find weaknesses where others see opportunities. This will give you an edge in communicating your values to the market.

So, what are you waiting for? Use the free resources above and start developing your marketing plan!