30–60–90 Day Marketing Plan
When you join a new company, regardless of your seniority level, you should have a 30–60–90 day plan.
It’s great that companies are starting to include what’s expected of new team members in the first three months right in the job description, and interviewers are also asking candidates that question during the interview process.
The plan doesn’t have to be super detailed. It can’t be just yet because you don’t know enough.
BUT, you should have a high-level plan of what you’ll do in the first 3 months to fully immerse yourself in the business, begin establishing trust-based relationships with your team, as well as others, and focus your efforts to support the business’s objectives.
Here is what I recommend (Marketing focused but can apply to other roles):
Do your Homework
Research the company’s history, culture, mission, vision, strategy, objectives, targets, budget, challenges, wins, competitors, opportunities, and the current state of the industry. Understand the problem the company is trying to solve, who are the people it serves, and why this particular role exists within the organization.
Interview Team Members
Throughout my career, I’ve always started any new job by scheduling one-on-ones with different team leaders, even if we won’t be working together directly.
I’ve found it to be a great way of introducing myself, gaining a better understanding of what everyone does and each person’s (and team’s) specific goals, challenges, expectations, and how we can work together to achieve our individual and company goals.
As a Marketing leader, you should establish strong working relationships with the senior leadership team, sales, product, and customer success teams, and leaders as a priority, since those are the people you will be working with the most.
You should also establish good relationships with finance and People Ops/HR who will support you in hiring, budgeting, training, etc. You may be able to help them with their internal communications needs (if this role doesn’t exist in the organization).
Understand the Current State
Dig into the CRM, understand closed-won deals, closed-lost deals, your most loyal/long-standing customers, your newest customers, customer verticals and segments, and prospects in the pipeline.
Identify top customers and partners you should talk to. Talk to sales and customer success teams for guidance in the selection process, and a warm introduction to the customer.
Interview Customers
Once you have a good list of customers, and a warm introduction, reach out and introduce yourself and schedule a one-on-one. Some of the most valuable insights I’ve gotten were from talking directly to customers.
Have a few questions prepared, but let the conversation flow to get valuable insights. The key things to understand are what caused them to look for a solution, what other solutions did they consider (including leaving the situation as is), what made them choose our solution, how was the onboarding, what went well, what didn’t go well.
Record the session (with the customer’s permission), and transcribe it to share internally with the team.
Interview Partners
Most B2B companies have a partner network. Partners are key stakeholders that marketing and sales need to support as they can bring in a significant number of customers.
Much like the customer interviews, have a few questions prepared, but let the conversation flow. The key things to understand are what problem they were solving with this partnership, which other partners did they consider, what made them choose us as partner (may not be an exclusive partnership), what went well, what didn’t go well, and how can we best support them moving forward.
Record the session (with the partner’s permission), and transcribe it to share internally with the team.
Analyze and Present Findings
Once you’ve dug into the CRM, and interviewed the team, customers, and partners, you have enough data to analyze and you start seeing some common patterns. Share your findings and analysis with the team so they can contribute to the strategy.
Create Strategy
You can now create a solid marketing strategy which includes:
Customer Journey Map
Ideal customer profile
Market segmentation
Account segmentation and qualification
Marketing Objectives and KPIs
Content gaps
Positioning
Messaging
Competition
Identify priority tactics and channels
Marketing Plan
Budget
Resources
Begin Strategy Implementation
Once the Marketing team and Sales and Product and Customer Success team are aligned on the Marketing strategy, you can now start implementing it with the team starting with the highest priority initiatives you identified.
