Marketing Plan

---
name: marketing-plan
description: Use when creating a content marketing plan after product-market fit
tags: [marketing, content, audience, social-media, email]
related_skills: [first-customers, find-community, mvp]
---

# Marketing Plan

## Core Principle

**Marketing is sales at scale.** But don't confuse marketing with advertising. Marketing is about making fans, not headlines. Start by spending time, not money.

## Prerequisites

Before marketing, you should have:
- A community you belong to
- A product people are paying for
- ~100 customers (repeat customers = product-market fit)
- Experience selling one-on-one

## The Three Levels of Content

### Level 1: Educate
- Share what you've learned from building your business
- If you have 100 customers, you've learned 100 things worth sharing
- It doesn't need to be polished — just consistent

### Level 2: Inspire
- Go beyond teaching into motivating
- Share your journey, struggles, and successes
- Be vulnerable and authentic

### Level 3: Entertain
- The hardest but most far-reaching
- Entertainment is the king of content on every platform

## Email: Own Your Audience

- Social media = rented land (algorithms change, accounts shut down)
- Email = owned land (no algorithm)
- Start building an email list immediately
- Offer something valuable in exchange for an email

## Code Example: Content Calendar

```
Platform: Twitter/X + Email newsletter
Posting: Twitter M/W/F, Newsletter bi-weekly

Educate: "How we reduced churn by 40% with one change"
Inspire: "The month we almost shut down (and what saved us)"
Entertain: "Entrepreneurship: work 60hrs so you don't work 40hrs"

Email lead magnet: "10 lessons from our first 100 customers" PDF
```

## Common Pitfalls

| Pitfall | Solution |
|---------|----------|
| Spending on ads before organic traction | Build organic audience first |
| Trying every platform at once | Pick one platform and do it well |
| Ignoring email list building | Email is owned land — start immediately |
| Polished content over consistent | Consistency beats perfection |
| Marketing without product-market fit | Sell manually first, market second |

## Verification Checklist

- [ ] Product-market fit confirmed (~100 paying customers)
- [ ] Primary content platform chosen
- [ ] 5 content ideas per level (educate, inspire, entertain)
- [ ] Email list strategy defined
- [ ] "Build in public" plan created
- [ ] Posting schedule established