case study marketing plan

Marketing case study 101 (plus tips, examples, and templates)

Summary/Overview

If you’re familiar with content lines like, “See how our fancy new app saved Sarah 10 hours a week doing payroll,” you’ve encountered a marketing case study. That’s because case studies are one of the most powerful marketing tools, showcasing real-world applications and customer success stories that help build trust with potential customers.

More than 42% of marketers use case studies in their marketing strategy. Let’s face it — we love testimonials and reviews. People love hearing customer stories and experiences firsthand. In fact, 88% of consumers view reviews before making a purchase decision. Case studies work similarly by providing prospective customers with real-life stories demonstrating the brand’s success.

Case studies provide a more in-depth view of how your product solves an existing problem — something potential buyers can relate to and learn from.

In this article, we take a closer look at what marketing case studies are, why they’re important, and how you can use them to improve your content marketing efforts. You’ll also learn the key elements of a successful case study and how to turn a good case study into a great case study.

What is a marketing case study?

A case study is a narrative that documents a real-world situation or example. A marketing case study is a detailed examination and analysis of a specific strategy, initiative, or marketing campaign that a business has implemented. It’s intended to serve as an all-inclusive narrative that documents a real-world business situation and its outcome.

Marketing case studies are tools businesses use to showcase the effectiveness of a particular tool, technique, or service by using a real-world example. Companies often use case studies as sales collateral on websites, email marketing, social media , and other marketing materials. They provide readers with a firsthand look into how your product or service has helped someone else and demonstrate the value of your offering while building trust with potential customers.

Some common key components of a marketing case study include:

• Context: A case study begins by describing the business’s situation or problem. This often includes challenges, opportunities, or objectives.
• Strategy: An outline of the tactics or strategy utilized to address the business’s situation. This includes details such as the target audience, messaging, channels used, and other unique aspects of the approach.
• Implementation: Provide information about how the strategy was implemented, including timeline, resources, and budget.
• Results: This is arguably the most crucial part of a marketing case study. Present the results through data, metrics, and key performance indicators (KPIs) to demonstrate the impact of the strategy. The results section should highlight both qualitative and quantitative data.
• Challenges and Solutions: A great case study not only focuses on the successes but addresses any obstacles faced during the campaign. Make sure to address any challenges and how they were overcome or mitigated.
• Customer Feedback: Including testimonials or quotes from satisfied clients is a great way to add credibility and authenticity to a case study. Choose customer feedback that reinforces the positive outcomes of the strategy taken.
• Visuals: Compelling case studies include visuals such as graphs, charts, images, videos, and infographics to make the information presented more engaging and easier to understand.
• Analysis: An optional way to conclude a case study includes discussing key takeaways, insights, and lessons learned from a campaign.

Case studies can help you connect your product to the customer’s needs by providing a real world examples of success and encouraging conversions.

Benefits of marketing case studies

Some of the key benefits of using case studies in your marketing efforts include the following:

• Building trust and credibility. You build trust and credibility with potential clients or customers by demonstrating real world success stories. In-depth looks at how your products or services have helped other businesses or people achieve success can increase customer loyalty and encourage repeat business.
• Learn best practices. Learn from strategies employed in successful case studies and apply similar approaches to future campaigns.
• Enhancing sales and conversions. By highlighting the real world results your products or services have delivered, case studies can be a powerful tool for boosting sales. They can help demonstrate the value of your offering and persuade your target audience to make a purchase.
• Explain how your business generates results. Case studies are a compelling way to share key takeaways with your target audience and showcase your brand.
• Use them as content marketing material. Use case studies as content for marketing purposes on websites, social media, and beyond.

Case studies can help your business stand out and achieve success. By highlighting the real world results you’ve delivered, you can use case studies to boost sales, build customer loyalty, and compellingly showcase your business.

Tips on how to write an effective marketing case study

Are you ready to write a compelling case study? Get started with these tips.

Develop a clear and compelling headline

You have about 10 seconds to communicate your value proposition to keep customer attention. Whether you’re designing a new landing page or making a long-term plan for your brand’s content marketing strategy , the headline is the most crucial part.

A compelling title should capture readers’ attention and make them want to read more. To craft a compelling headline:

• Understand your audience: Before crafting a headline, ensure you know your target audience — what are their pain points, interests, and needs?
• Highlight the most significant result: Focus on the most impactful result achieved in the case study. What was the primary outcome of the strategy implemented?
• Keep it brief: Keep your headline concise and to the point. Try to keep your headline under 12 words.
• Use action words: Incorporate action verbs such as “achieved,” “transformed,” or “boosted” to convey a sense of accomplishment.
• Include data: Numbers make your headline more credible. For example, if the case study achieved a 75% increase in sales, include that in the headline.
• Emphasize benefits: Focus on the positive changes or advantages the implemented strategy brought to the client or business. Use these as selling points in your headline.
• Make it unique and memorable: Avoid generic phrases to make your headline stand out from the competition.
• Use keywords wisely: Incorporate relevant keywords that align with the case study and your target audience’s search interest to improve search engine visibility through search engine optimization (SEO).
• Consider subheadings: If you cannot fit all the necessary information in a headline, consider adding a subheading to provide additional context or details.

Here are some examples of clear and convincing case study headlines:

• “Achieving a 150% ROI: How [XYZ] Strategy Transformed a Startup”
• “How Optimized SEO Tactics Skyrocketed Sales by 80%”
• “Mastering Social Media: How [ABC] Brand Increased Engagement by 50%”
• “The Power of Personalization: How Tailored Content Quadrupled Conversions”

Write relatable content

Almost 90% of Gen Z and millennial shoppers prefer influencers who they consider relatable. Relatability is part of building trust and connection with your target audience.

When writing your case study, make content that resonates with readers and speaks to their pain points. The best marketing doesn’t just increase conversion rates — it also serves your customers’ needs. To write content that really resonates with your target audience, make sure to:

• Understand your audience: To successfully write relatable content, you first need to understand your target audience — their interests, pain points, and challenges. The more you know about your target audience, the better you can tailor your content to their needs.
• Identify pain points: As mentioned above, identify challenges your target audience may face. Make sure to highlight how the product or service in the case study can effectively address these pain points.
• Tell a story: Create a narrative that follows a standard story arc. Start with a relatable struggle that the customer or business faced and describe its associated emotions.
• Use real customer feedback: Incorporate quotes or testimonials from actual customers or clients. Including authentic voices makes the content more relatable to readers because they can see real people expressing their experiences.
• Use relatable language: Write in a tone to which your audience can relate. Only include overly technical terms if your target audience solely consists of experts who would understand them.
• Use social proof: Mention any recognitions, awards, or industry acknowledgments that may have been received by the customer or business in the case study.
• Encourage engagement: Urge readers to share their own challenges or experiences related to the subject matter of the case study. This is a great way to foster a sense of community.

Outline your strategies with corresponding statistics

Whether you’re showing off the results your marketing team achieved with a new strategy or explaining how your product has helped customers, data and research make it easier to back up claims.

Include relevant statistics in your case study to provide evidence of the effectiveness of your strategies, such as:

• Quantitative data: Use numerical data to quantify results.
• Qualitative data: Use qualitative data, such as customer testimonials, to back up numerical results.
• Comparisons: Compare the post-campaign results with the pre-campaign benchmarks to provide context for the data.
• Case study metrics: Include specific metrics relevant to your industry or campaign if applicable. For example, in e-commerce, common metrics could include customer acquisition cost, average order value, or cart abandonment rate.

By incorporating relatable outcomes — such as cost savings from new automation or customer responsiveness from your new social media marketing campaign — you can provide concrete evidence of how your product or service has helped others in similar situations.

Use multiple formats of representation

People love visuals . It doesn’t matter if it’s an infographic for digital marketing or a graph chart in print materials — we love to see our data and results represented in visuals that are easy to understand. Additionally, including multiple representation formats is a great way to increase accessibility and enhance clarity.

When making a case study, consider including various forms of representation, such as:

• Infographics: Use infographics to condense critical information into a visually appealing, easy-to-understand graphic. Infographics are highly sharable and can be used across marketing channels.
• Charts: Use charts (bar charts, pie charts, line graphs, etc.) to illustrate statistical information such as data trends or comparisons. Make sure to include clear labels and titles for each chart.
• Images: Include relevant photos to enhance the storytelling aspect of your case study. Consider including “before and after” pictures if relevant to your case study.
• Videos: Short videos summarizing a case study’s main points are great for sharing across social media or embedding into your case study.
• Tables: Use tables to help organize data and make it easier for readers to digest.
• Data visualizations: Include data visualizations such as flowcharts or heatmaps to illustrate user journeys or specific processes.
• Screenshots: If your case study involves digital products, include screenshots to provide a visual walkthrough of how the product or service works.
• Diagrams: Use diagrams, such as a flowchart, to explain complex processes, decision trees, or workflows to simplify complicated information.
• Timelines: If your case study involves a timeline of specific events, present it using a timeline graphic.

Use a consistent design style and color scheme to maintain cohesion when incorporating multiple formats. Remember that each format you use should serve a specific purpose in engaging the reader and conveying information.

Get your case study in front of your intended audience

What good is a compelling case study and a killer call to action (CTA) if no one sees it? Once you’ve completed your case study, share it across the appropriate channels and networks your target audience frequents and incorporate it into your content strategy to increase visibility and reach. To get your case study noticed:

• Take advantage of your website. Create a dedicated section or landing page on your website for your case study. If your website has a blog section, consider including it here. Optimize the page for search engines (SEO) by including relevant keywords and optimizing the meta description and headers. Make sure to feature your case study on your homepage and relevant product or service pages.
• Launch email marketing campaigns. Send out the case study to your email subscriber list. Be specific and target groups that would most likely be interested in the case study.
• Launch social media campaigns. Share your case study on your social media platforms. Use eye-catching graphics and engaging captions to draw in potential readers. Consider creating teaser videos or graphics to generate interest.
• Utilize paid promotions. Use targeted social media and search engine ads to reach specific demographics or interests. Consider retargeting ads to re-engage visitors who have previously interacted with your website.
• Issue a press release. If your case study results in a significant industry impact, consider issuing a press release to share the exciting news with relevant media outlets or publications.
• Utilize influencer outreach. Collaborate with influencers who can share your case study with their followers to increase credibility and expand your reach.
• Host webinars and presentations. Discuss the case study findings and insights through webinars or presentations. Promote these events through your various marketing channels and make sure to encourage participation.
• Utilize networking events and conferences. Present your case study at industry-related conferences, trade shows, or networking events. Consider distributing printed or digital copies of the case study to attendees.
• Utilize online communities. Share the case study in relevant online forums and discussion groups where your target audience congregates.
• Practice search engine optimization (SEO). Optimize the SEO elements of your case study to improve organic search ranking and visibility.

Remember, the key to successfully promoting your case study is to tailor your approach to your specific target audience and their preferences. Consistently promoting your case study across multiple channels increases your chances of it reaching your intended audience.

Marketing case study examples

Let’s look at some successful marketing case studies for inspiration.

“How Handled Scaled from Zero to 121 Locations with HubSpot”

Right away, they lead with compelling metrics — the numbers don’t lie. They use two different formats: a well-made video accompanied by well-written text.

The study also addresses customer pain points, like meeting a higher demand during the pandemic.

“How AppSumo grew organic traffic 843% and revenue from organic traffic 340%”

This case study from Omniscient Digital leads with motivating stats, a glowing review sharing a real user experience, and a video review from the AppSumo Head of Content.

The case study information is broken down into clearly marked sections, explaining the benefits to their target audience (startups) and providing plenty of visuals, charts, and metrics to back it up.

“How One Ecommerce Business Solved the Omnichannel Challenge with Bitly Campaigns”

Download this Bitly case study from their site to see the details of how this company made an impact.

Not only is it well designed, but it also tackles customer challenges right away. The most compelling types of case studies serve their audience by showing how the product or service solves their problems.

Bitly nails it by listing obstacles and jumping right into how the brand can help.

Marketing case study template

Use this basic template to better understand the typical structure of a business case study and use it as a starting place to create your own:

Case Study Title

Date: [Date]

Client or Company Profile:

• Client/Company Name: [Client/Company Name]
• Industry: [Industry]
• Location: [Location]
• Client/Company Background: [Brief client or company background information.]

Introduction:

• Briefly introduce the client or company and any necessary context for the campaign or initiative.
• Problem statement: Describe the specific challenge or problem faced by the client or company before implementing the campaign or initiative.
• Strategy: Explain the strategy that was implemented to address the challenge. Include details such as target audience, objectives, goals, and tactics.
• Implementation: Provide a timeline of the strategy’s implementation, including key milestones and other notable considerations taken during execution.
• Outcomes: Present the qualitative and quantitative results achieved through the implemented strategy. Include relevant metrics, statistics, and key performance indicators (KPIs).
• Comparative data: Compare the post-campaign results to pre-campaign benchmarks or industry standards.

Analysis and Insights:

• Key insights: Summarize insights and lessons learned from the campaign and discuss the campaign's impact on the client or company’s goals.
• Challenges faced: Address any obstacles encountered during the campaign and how they were mitigated or overcome.

Conclusion:

• Conclusion: Summarize the campaign’s overall impact on the client or company. Highlight the value that was delivered by the implemented strategy and the success it achieved.
• Next Steps: Discuss potential follow-up actions, recommendations, or future strategies.

Testimonials:

• Include quotes or testimonials from the clients or customers who benefitted from the campaign.
• Incorporate relevant visuals to illustrate key points, findings, and results.

The above template is a great way to get started gathering your ideas and findings for a marketing case study. Feel free to add additional sections or customize the template to match your requirements.

Craft a compelling marketing case study for your business

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Choose from our library of designed templates, or make it yourself with powerful tools and a library of ready-to-use graphic elements.

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What Is a Case Study in Marketing and How to Build One (Examples)

A marketing case study allows you to illustrate and explain how you achieved enormous success in a specific situation.

For instance, last year, Jacob McMillen wrote about how Pronto used Crazy Egg to increase leads by 24 percent .

That’s a big number.

It’s not a full case study , but it demonstrates the goal of a marketing case study. You want to shock your audience, then explain exactly how you achieved your results — preferably with proof.

You might have read lots of case studies over the years without realizing your business could benefit from them. Lots of entrepreneurs are put off by the hard work and long hours required to build a marketing case study.

However, think about how many leads you might convert by proving your track record, establishing trust, and attracting traffic through SEO .

Let’s look at how marketing case studies can impact your business, discuss how to write one, and check out a few examples.

What Is a Case Study in Marketing?

A case study in marketing is a document or web page that includes several basic parts:

• Description of the subject : Explain your customer’s or client’s history and pain points.
• Subject’s goal : Identify your customer’s or client’s goal for the project so readers understand what to expect.
• Hypothesis for strategy : Tell your audience what you expected to happen after you implemented your strategy for the customer or client.
• Implementation of strategy : Take the reader through the step-by-step process you used to help your customer or client.
• Results of strategy : Deliver the results in as much detail as possible, preferably with a quote from the client or customer.
• Concluding findings : Explain what this case study has taught your specifically and how it can help other people.

You don’t have to include every category, but the more detail you add, the more effective your marketing case study becomes.

Most of the time, you’re conducting a case study for your own business. You want to show the world how your product or service has helped a customer in a huge way.

For that reason, it helps to know you’ll perform a case study from the beginning. In other words, try not to reverse-engineer a case study from a great result. Instead, track your arrangement with your customer throughout the process.

The Importance of Creating Case Studies to Convert Leads into Customers

Think of a marketing case study as a lure. It’s a way to dangle amazing results in front of your leads so they’ll decide to convert .

Imagine that you’re a customer who’s trying to decide between two businesses, each of which offers time management software. One company has a marketing case study that illustrates how it helped a customer save four hours per week. The other company has no case study.

Which company would you trust most?

You can use that consumer logic to inform your business decisions. Thinking like a customer can help you achieve new insights into marketing.

Creating a marketing case study gives you an edge that your competitors might have. It can also help your leads make more informed decisions.

Too many businesses copy their competitors or other businesses. Instead, you should spend time being more creative and innovative. Below is a video by Neil Patel that illustrates why you need to quit copying digital marketing strategies.

If you’re bold enough to be different, you can convert more leads. A marketing case study gives you that opportunity because nobody else can duplicate it.

Why is it so important to build trust?

Anybody can throw testimonials on their site by Ron R. and Jennifer K. Anyone can also make them up.

Trust is tenuous in the digital marketing world. If you can’t create it, you likely won’t convert leads into customers.

Think about all the companies that have experienced data hacks. Their stocks plummeted, consumer sentiment turned ugly, and profits dwindled. That’s because consumers lost trust.

Similarly, any company can make bold claims about its products or services. Consumers have become numb to superlative-littered copy and hyped-up videos. They want to see evidence.

If you can prove that your product or service delivers powerful results, you’ll gain your leads’ trust.

Marketing case studies show how you tackled a problem and overcame it on behalf of your customer or client. It’s that simple. The more detail you give, the more authority you create for your company — and the more your leads will trust your expertise.

4 Case Study Examples

Before we tell you how to build a case study, let’s look at a few examples to get you warmed up. Each of these marketing case studies illustrates the power behind the medium.

They’ll also show you how different case studies can look depending on design, detail, results, and goals.

The Shopify case study by HubSpot demonstrates how a narrative can be woven from a company’s journey. When Loren Padelford became head of sales, he immediately identified weak spots in Shopify’s sales cycle, so he decided to adopt HubSpot.

This case study highlights the ways in which Shopify used HubSpot’s email plugin to save time and improve communication flow. There’s a quote from Padelford in the case study, which can add even more impact in terms of building trust among leads.

Here, we have a fairly vague result. The company — specifically Padelford — claims to have achieved great success with HubSpot’s tools, but there aren’t any concrete numbers to back that up.

There’s nothing wrong with this approach, though, as long as your customer or client can offer a raving quote.

Ecommerce marketing case studies can become extremely valuable. In this case, Bit.ly used a more traditional template for a marketing case study. The PDF document includes several sections that take you through the process of how Vissla improved its omnichannel marketing with Bit.ly.

The results were that Vissla was able to visualize and centralize data in one place. They gained greater control over their social media marketing, which resulted in faster and better improvements in the content they shared.

There’s also a quote from Vissla’s media marketing manager, Keegan Fong: “Bitly Campaigns offers us a whole new way to look at our marketing channels. By giving us an easy-to-use dashboard that instantly displays the results of our multichannel promotions, we can see what kinds of content work on what channel, which channels we should be investing in the most, and what we need to do to optimize our content.” [ For Social: @vissla ]

3. Viperchill

There’s a great marketing case study from Viperchill that you’ll want to check out. It’s a quick, fun read that explains how the author created a squeeze page that generated more than 700 leads and results in a conversion rate of 64 percent.

Notice that he used hard numbers. Sometimes, it’s impossible to boil results down to a figure or percentage, but if you can, do so. People comprehend real numbers faster than lengthy text explanations.

4. MarketingSherpa

This MarketingSherpa case study is super detailed and describes the process by which MarketingSherpa helped a natural foods company boost revenue by 18 percent with a site redesign. You see the entire project from start to finish.

You’ll notice that there are lots of visuals. Since this marketing case study focused on design, visuals were imperative. Let your business and its niche guide the way in which you construct your case study.

How to Create a Case Study Marketing Strategy That Converts

Now that you’ve looked through a few case studies, how do you create a marketing case study of your own?

It starts with a case study marketing strategy that’s designed to convert leads. You don’t want to choose just any project. It should be geared toward other businesses or customers who might benefit from your business.

Let’s take it step by step.

1. Choose a success story that is closely related to your potential customer

You might notice that many companies publish numerous marketing case studies. There’s a reason for that.

Each case study targets a different segment of the company’s target audience. Let’s say that you sell shoes, purses, and hats. A case study about shoes won’t interest someone who’s shopping for hats.

You can either choose a project that has already concluded or one that is starting or underway. It’s always best to start at the beginning, but if you’re anxious, you can take the reverse-engineering route.

Decide which segment of your target audience you want to appeal to first. Next, select a case study subject closely related to that segment. You want your marketing case study to resonate with the leads you most want to convert.

2. Identify the key points of the case study and use storytelling

Decide what parts of the case study you want to highlight. These details will likely appear in the marketing case study’s headline as well as throughout the rest of the text.

For instance, if you helped a customer boost revenue by 200 percent, that’s a highly relevant detail. You’ll want to spotlight it in the headline and several times in the content so you keep it fresh in readers’ minds.

You might have several key points. Think about the struggles your customer was facing before you stepped in, how you approached the solution, and why alternatives weren’t working. When you can provide numbers, do so.

Once you’ve identified those key points, start weaving them into a narrative. Make it exciting! Add sensory details, frustration points, and colorful anecdotes.

A marketing case study shouldn’t sound dry. It needs to engage the reader so he or she keeps going until the end.

If possible, intersperse the copy with images. Make them relevant and easy to see on the screen. Let the images help supplement the story you’ve woven.

3. Highlight the great results

As mentioned above, results are paramount. If you can express them in numeric form, so much the better.

Consider creating a custom graphic to serve as the featured image on your post. That way, people can share the image on social. Add the amazing result to the text on the image to entice people to click.

The point here is to capture attention. If people are willing to pay attention to you, then you’ve won the first part of the battle. As long as you maintain that attention, you have a good chance of converting the lead.

4. Explore different types of design

Design can prove fundamental to a marketing case study’s success. If you’re publishing it as a blog post, break it up with H2s, H3s, and H4s to guide the reader through the story. Add images and leading lines to keep the visitor engaged.

Remember that color matters. Consider using colors for text and images that correlate with your customers’ color scheme or with your own site’s palette.

5. Ask for feedback! What does your potential customer want to learn?

Don’t let the conversation stop at the end of your marketing case study. Open up the forum for more insights.

Invite readers to ask you direct questions about your business, products, services, or methods. Not only that, but respond to those comments. Take each one as a gift.

These comments might tell you what type of case study you should create next or allow you to cement a conversion by answering objections or questions.

Marketing case studies can improve your conversion rate , but you have to put in the time and effort. Yes, a polished case study requires work, but if you can secure sales from its publication, why wouldn’t you give it your full attention?

Remember that trust matters when it comes to converting leads into customers . If you don’t have trust, you’ll lose your leads to your competitors.

A great marketing case study demonstrates your track record. It builds a case for leads to use your products or services over someone else’s.

What are you waiting for? Start creating your first marketing case study now.

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Marketing Results

22 Marketing Case Study Examples (With Template)

February 17, 2016 by Will Swayne

Prospects who aren’t ready to buy – or who are “sitting on the fence” – tend to be resistant to even well-crafted marketing messages.  But a bunch of well aimed marketing case studies can often tip the scales in your favour.

“Sell benefits, not features” is good advice, but benefit-rich copy can actually deter prospects who haven’t reached the decision stage yet.

And too many benefits in the absence of marketing proof elements  can ring hollow in today’s increasingly sceptical marketplace.

We published our first marketing case study back in 2005 and I quickly realised the power of case studies as a versatile and effective marketing tactic.

Why are marketing case studies so effective?

Here are three reasons:

• Case studies show, they don’t tell. Telling you I can get you more qualified leads is one thing. Showing you how a similar company to yours got 145% more leads with 24% lower marketing costs is another.
• Prospects are typically curious to understand how others have achieved the results they desire. They will eagerly devour a well-constructed case study.
• Case studies are also a great tool for closing fence-sitting prospects. For many years I’ve asked prospects why they chose to work with us, and the most common response seems to be, “I was impressed by your case studies” , or “I saw you helped someone in my industry so I figure you can help us too” .

Now let’s look at how to structure and effectively promote a case study, and then some marketing case study examples for you to replicate.

Our Recommended Case Study Template

Here’s the case study structure we’ve adopted which has proven effective:

• Start with a major headline that summarises the key result achieved: e.g. “Investment Property Strategist Triples Leads In 6 Months” . This gets the prospect excited about reading on.
• Then introduce the background . In other words, the “Before” scenario.Don’t bore the reader with too many details about the history of the client. But DO provide an insight into the “trigger” that led to them seeking your assistance. e.g. “The client noticed smaller competitors starting to appear ahead of them on Google”. And,   DO talk about the negative effects of the “Before” state. E.g. “New customer acquisition that had previously been growing by 10% every quarter had flatlined for the last 12 months.”
• Now talk about the solution . Here’s where you explain what you did to achieve the outcomes. I like to list different services or solutions in the form of bullet points. Also, include significant details and facts and figures to add “richness” to the story. Where possible, demonstrate with images, screenshots or other proof elements. Emphasise anything you did differently to the standard approach, or anything that highlights your point-of-difference benefits.
• Now talk about your results . Results are the crux of any good case study.I like to go with a number of punchy bullet points, populated with specific numbers. E.g . “Lead volume up 75%… New customer volume from online sources up 145%… 1,540 more organic search engine visitors per month.”
• Include a testimonial from the client. What was their reaction to your work? The “Before-During-After” approach is a good structure for testimonials. A strong testimonial adds texture and credibility to the data in your core case study.
• End with a call-to-action . This can be relatively low-key. For example, “Contact us to explore how you can enjoy similar breakthrough results.”

You can see more examples of different implementations of this concept on our online marketing case studies page.

How To Promote Your Case Study

A case study that never gets read won’t help you.

Here are some of our favourite promotional methods:

• Optimise each case study for search engines . A good start is using a <title> tag on your case study pages in the format: “<INDUSTRY> <SERVICE> case study”. For example, “Accountant online marketing case study” or “Car sales lead generation case study” .   This will tend to rank you well for anyone searching for case studies about your industry.
• Send case studies to your email subscribers . These emails achieve high engagement both as broadcasts, and as “drip emails” within an automation sequence .
• Create a print booklet of case studies to send to prospects and clients via snail mail or distribute at trade shows.
• Case studies make great social media updates and can be recycled every few months using different headlines.

22 Marketing Case Study Examples

1. fuji xerox australia business equipment, tripled leads for 60% less marketing spend.

In 90 days, we doubled web lead flow with lower marketing costs.

Read the full case study here.

Paul Strahl , National e-Business Manager

2. Surf Live Saving Foundation

Surf lottery grows online revenue 47%.

Marketing Results delivered tangible business improvements, including 47% higher revenue from digital, year-on-year.

Yin Tang , Surf Live Saving Foundation

3. ABC Reading Eggs

Integrated search and conversion management for abc reading eggs.

Marketing Results have been instrumental in profitably expanding our ad spend, while removing waste.

Matthew Sandblom , Managing Director ABC Reading Eggs

4. MAP Home Loans

From 70 hour weeks to 40 hour weeks with 100% annual growth.

I now make twice as much money, have less stress and fewer hours.

Craig Vaunghan , Principal MAP Home Loans

5. Inkjet Wholesale

Online advertising roi doubles – in just three months.

We couldn’t be happier – conversion rates are up, costs are down, ROI has doubled.

Glenn Taylor , National Marketing Manager Inkjet Wholesale

6. Breaking Into Wall Street

Info-marketing business achieves 300% revenue growth with 7-figure profits.

Marketing Results provided the marketing support to grow my annual revenue 300%+. They don’t just advise – they implement.

Brian DeChesare , Founder Breaking Into Wall Street

7. LatestBuy

Brw fast 100 online retailer latestbuy.com.au boosts sales by 45.3%.

Revenue had flatlined… Now it is up by 45%, with over 80% of that due to conversion rate optimisation.

Shaun Campbell , Co-Owner LatestBuy.com.au

8. directSMS

More traffic, less cost, lead volume doubles.

More than doubled the number of qualified enquiries via our website for the same ad spend.

Ramez Zaki , Co-Founder directSMS

9. Business Coach and Author, Pure Bookkeeping

Successful marketing automation and 100.95% year on year growth.

50%+ of business comes directly through online channels and none of this would have happened without Marketing Results.

Peter Cook , Business Coach & Author Pure Bookkeeping

10. Positive Training Solutions

Higher rankings plus more, higher-quality leads.

Marketing Results excels in strategic and online marketing.

James Grima , Managing Director Positive Training Solutions

11. Geelong’s Gym

From 5-6 leads a month to 60-70. 10x increase.

We’ve gone from 5 – 6 leads per month to 60 – 70!

Gerard Spriet , Owner Geelong’s Gym

12. Super Finance – SMSF Property

A new pipeline delivering a steady flow of web leads.

Outstanding quality of web generated leads!

Yannick Ieko , Director Super Finance

13. College For Adult Learning – Training Organisation

300%+ more sales with 60% lower cost per sale.

I expect at least another 60% more leads and 80-90% more revenue by continuing to work with Marketing Results.

Rob Golding , Director College For Adult Learning

14. The Gourmet Guardian – Food Safety Programs

4 times more leads and a 269% revenue increase.

Your AdWords strategies have quadrupled leads, almost tripled revenue and reduced my dependence on contract work to zero.

Gavin Buckett , Managing Director The Gourmet Guardian

15. Quick Coach – Life Coaching Courses

More qualified sales plus a facebook roi of 1285%.

The results have been fantastic… I have had over 500 potential students opt in via Google wanting to change their lives and those of their clients.

Glen Murdoch , Founder & CEO Quick Coach

16. Investment House – Property Development

Clients lined up for everything we can find.

We have clients lined up for everything we can find.

Colin Ferguson , Managing Director Investment House

17. Cosmetic Surgery Lead Generation

257% increase in qualified lead volume.

In less than a year, our enquiry volume increased by over 257% while increasing the quality and conversion rate of those leads.

Dee Tozer , Managing Director Medici Clinics

18. All Suburbs Catering

61% roi gain in less than 5 months….

20% more enquiries for 34% less cost – a compounded gain of 61% in only 5 months.

Jeff Veale , Managing Director All Suburbs Catering

19. Trilogy Funding

549 qualified sales leads in 3 months.

549 qualified sales leads in 3 months.

Ed Nixon , Principal Trilogy Funding

20. Customized Stickers

Online revenue rockets by 800%.

With Marketing Result on our side, our website revenue has increased by over 800% in only 18 months.

Anthony Khoury , Managing Director Customized Stickers

21. Technoledge

Engaging ceos of ideal target companies.

We’re routinely seeing CEOs of Australian hi techs with turnover of $5 million to $50 million (our target audience) opting in and proceeding to self-qualify before they contact us for a meeting. This is what digital marketing is supposed to do.

Tracey James , Director Technoledge

22. First Aid Training

Specialist first aid training company doubles revenue in 6 months.

We’ve streamlined customer acquisition, increased customer lifetime value, and doubled our revenue in 6 months!

Dave Hundt , Director Kids First Aid

I encourage you to put these tips into action and see how they work for you.

What other ways have you used case studies effectively in your business?

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Persuasive Marketing Case Study Examples & Templates

Get examples of marketing case study mastery. Learn by example how to engage and convert more prospects and launch your effort with battle-tested templates.

Dominika Krukowska

9 minute read

Short answer

What makes a great marketing case study.

A great marketing case study is a compelling narrative, showcasing real-world success, complete with quantifiable results. It weaves strategy, execution, and outcome into a captivating story that inspires and convinces the reader to take the desired action.

Are your marketing case studies falling flat?

Marketing case studies are an essential step for many prospects to see if they can trust you, if you meet their particular needs, and if tying their business with yours feels right.

Marketing case studies provide prospects a sense of security without which they’ll never convert.

But when done poorly, case studies can become little more than digital white noise. They’ll fail to build trust and confidence, but worse yet, they might just drive prospects to go with your competition.

Too many companies invest time, thought, and money into creating “white noise” case studies without knowing that they may cause more harm than good.

But there’s a way forward. This post will serve as your compass, guiding you to the promised land of persuasive, profit-driving success stories.

Let’s get started!

What is a marketing case study?

A marketing case study is a narrative showcasing a company's successful marketing strategy . It outlines the challenges faced, the solutions implemented, and the achieved results. This tool effectively demonstrates value, builds credibility, and convinces potential customers to take action.

What is the purpose of a marketing case study?

The purpose of a marketing case study is to build trust and authority and inspire action from potential clients. It's intended to present a narrative of success through a transformational business story with measurable outcomes. Its goal is to encourage potential customers to envision their own success with the help of your solution.

1) To present a narrative of success

Think of your case study as a rags-to-riches success story starring your client. They struggle with problems, they stumble on your product or service which guides them back to safety. But here the 'happily ever after' is a measurable outcome.

2) To build trust

A case study shows how you brought tangible indisputable results. It shows the positive transformation you helped bring about for your client. It's like having a credible friend vouch for you—it has an authentic persuasive effect that nothing you say yourself could ever achieve.

3) To inspire action

A good marketing case study nudges the reader to think: 'If it worked wonders for them, why not for me?' It subtly encourages potential customers to envision their own success with your product or service, though they came doubtful.

4) To show relevance

A marketing case study doesn’t just show a specific problem. By highlighting challenges similar to those faced by your potential customers, a case study makes your solution look more than “a good fit” it makes you look like “the best fit”, or even “the only fit”.

Our Head of Marketing has this piece of advice for you:

"When we write a marketing case study we treat it like a personal story we’d share with friends over lunch.

This makes our case studies feel familiar and gives them the credibility of personal experience, which tends to inspire others to act the same way."

—Amotz Harari, Head of Marketing at Storydoc

What should a marketing case study include?

Looking to craft a marketing case study that grips, convinces, and converts? Here's your blueprint.

A compelling marketing case study should include:

A captivating title: Much like a great book, your case study needs an intriguing title. One that grabs attention and promises an interesting story - a story of a problem solved, a challenge overcome, a victory achieved.

The protagonist: Every good story needs a hero. In your case study, it's the client or customer. Start by introducing them - who are they? What do they do? What unique challenge were they facing?

The problem: Detail the problem your customer faced. This is the villain of your story - the hurdle that stood in your customer's way. Make it relatable, so potential customers facing the same issue can see themselves in your protagonist's shoes.

The solution: Now introduce your product or service - the knight in shining armor. Explain how you swooped in to tackle the problem. Highlight what makes your solution unique and effective.

The implementation process: Give a brief account of how the solution was implemented. This is the journey part of your story - the struggle, the strategy, and the steps taken to overcome the challenge.

The results: The happily-ever-after of your tale. Showcase the positive results achieved using your product or service. Be specific and use hard numbers - they provide tangible proof of your success.

The testimonial: Finally, include words of praise from your satisfied customer. A happy client is the best endorsement. This validates the story you've told and adds an emotional, human touch.

A clear next step: Conclude with a clear call to action. What should the reader do next? Contact you for a consultation? Sign up for a demo? Download a guide? Make sure the next step is relevant, clear, and compelling.

Here’s an example of a marketing case study designed according to this structure:

What are the main types of marketing case studies?

Selecting the right format for your case study depends on your goal, the specifics of your customer's story, and the message you wish to convey.

4 case study types to consider:

1) Problem-solution case study:

This is the classic 'hero’s journey'. Your customer (the hero) is faced with a challenge (the problem), and aided by a trusted guide (your solution) goes through a transformation overcoming their hurdles and fulfilling their full potential.

This format focuses on the details of the journey with its ups and downs.

2) Before-and-after case study

The Cinderella tale of the business world. You show the situation 'before' your product or service came into play, and the improved situation 'after'.

This format focuses on contrasting the transformation , highlighting the dramatic changes from before your solution came in and after.

3) Success story case study

Think of this as the 'rags to riches' narrative. Rather than focusing solely on a single problem and solution, this case study celebrates an overarching success.

It provides the details of how the change was achieved but focuses mainly on the outcomes and their business impact.

4) Interview style case study

This type is more personal and candid, providing direct quotes and insights from the customer’s perspective.

This format lends authenticity and focuses on building an emotional connection with the reader.

The ACORN method - 5 steps for writing story-led case studies:

Best marketing case study examples to inspire you

I've curated for you a selection of brilliant marketing case study examples from some of the biggest names in business.

These case studies represent a variety of industries, challenges, solutions, and outcomes, providing a wealth of insights and inspiration for your own case study creation.

Let's dive in:

1. How Nestlé empowered the sales team with high-quality leads

Tenlo, a marketing agency, worked with the Nestlé Professional Dispensed Beverage Sales Team to improve their lead generation efforts.

Through a targeted content strategy and optimized lead nurturing campaigns, they successfully empowered the client's sales team with high-quality leads, resulting in increased conversion rates and revenue growth.

2. Dove's Real Beauty Sketches

Dove's "Real Beauty Sketches" campaign aimed to challenge societal beauty standards.

Through an emotional and thought-provoking video campaign, Dove sparked conversations and empowered women to redefine their perception of beauty, resulting in widespread awareness and positive brand sentiment.

3. How AppSumo grew organic traffic 843% and revenue from organic traffic 340%

AppSumo, a digital marketplace for software deals, employed clever marketing tactics to drive organic growth.

Through the strategic implementation of SEO, engaging product-focused content, and effective link building , they successfully increased their blog's organic traffic and saw a significant boost in revenue from organic sources.

4. How Start-Up Nation Central created innovative reports for an innovative industry

Start-Up Nation Central is an NGO with a clear mission—to fuel the growth of high-tech companies. They produce and send out a lot of business analysis reports, and they were looking for a way to modernize the way they present data.

By working with Storydoc to switch from static PDFs to interactive next-gen decks, they gained access to full reader analytics and A/B testing options to see which versions of their reports were getting the most traction.

5. How Forbes grew their subscriber base by 20% using PPC advertising

Adventure PPC collaborated with Forbes Magazine to enhance their subscriber base. Through targeted paid advertising campaigns , video production, and remarketing, they achieved a significant 20% increase in subscribers. Adventure PPC's strategy included closely monitoring ad budget to optimize campaigns and ensure effective resource allocation.

6. L’Oreal Paris and Google

L’Oreal cooperated with Google ahead of their new product launch to identify relevant audience segments based on hard data.

They targeted potential customers across all stages of the marketing funnel, which resulted in increasing ad recall, market share, and e-commerce sales.

You can watch the case study below:

7. How Bitly solved the omnichannel challenge

Vissla, an e-commerce shop, was looking for a more effective way to keep an account of data across all of their marketing channels.

They partnered with Bitly Campaigns to create a dashboard containing all marketing activities, track results in real-time, and optimize their content based on hard data.

8. Gannett marketing operations grows digital subscriber base with Asana

When Gannett, the largest newspaper publisher in the US, brought their marketing campaign production in-house, they had to find a way to scale up the number of projects.

They collaborated with Asana to increase campaign volume and streamline campaign management.

9. How Stripe leverages GPT-4 to streamline user experience and combat fraud

Stripe, the innovative payment platform, gathered 100 brilliant minds from within its own ranks to revolutionize features and workflows with GPT-4. Their mission? Take Stripe to new heights!

The result? 15 groundbreaking prototypes emerged, promising personalized support, expert answers to tough questions, and the power to nail fraud on community platforms.

10. How Ryanair uses Hotjar Surveys to measure satisfaction and report on trends

Ryanair, a leading Irish discount airline, needed to find a way to report product performance to its main stakeholders.

They turned to Hotjar Surveys to measure user satisfaction, identify main pain points and barriers to purchase, and report the larger trends.

11. Accelo gives software company the insights and efficiency to double revenue

The leadership team at Tambla, an HR technology company in Australia, was struggling to pinpoint resource leaks.

By consolidating client work management tools using Accelo, they gained unprecedented visibility. In just two years of using the platform, Tambla doubled revenue, quadrupled project turnover and increased recurring work by 15%!

Marketing case study design examples you can use as your template

Your marketing case study design can significantly influence its effectiveness. But design is a serious business.

Imagine starting a marketing case study from zero—it's like carving a statue from a solid block of marble. But, what if you had a mold?

These interactive case study templates provide a structured narrative, coupled with the flexibility to add your own data, images, and other interactive elements designed to engage, impress, and persuade.

Why you shouldn’t make case studies as PDFs

Considered the go-to format for case studies, PDFs offer accessibility and versatility. Share them around, download at will, or print for a keepsake.

But just because PDFs are easy for you to use, it doesn’t mean they’re easy for your audience to consume. They’re not.

PDFs are a hassle. They're tough to read, scan, and navigate. They're not mobile-friendly, they lack interactivity, and they can be downright dull.

On top of that, they take your audience offline, disconnecting them from your online assets, like your website or app.

What you can do instead

Instead of PDFs that tank engagement, it’s better to go with the webpage option.

Webpage-designed case studies offer multimedia, interactivity, and mobile-friendly navigation that lead to renewed engagement.

They give your readers a rich content experience with videos, animations, and clickable elements like tabs, sliders, and buttons, all wrapped in a story.

However, webpage case studies are not so easy to produce . They require the involvement of designers, developers, website managers, brand managers, and so on.

With all these people involved, even adding the tiniest update to the page can become a headache.

But there’s a way to bypass all this needless complexity . Creating a case study with Storydoc combines the interactivity of a webpage and the simplicity of producing a PDF.

When using Storydoc you’re stepping into a safe walled garden where everything is already taken care of , from coding to design to branding. And making changes takes just a few seconds.

Here’s how PDF and Storydoc case studies compare:

Hi, I'm Dominika, Content Specialist at Storydoc. As a creative professional with experience in fashion, I'm here to show you how to amplify your brand message through the power of storytelling and eye-catching visuals.

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How to Write a Marketing Case Study (With Examples)

Learn exactly what a marketing case study is, how to write one that stands out, and review some examples of existing, successful studies.

As any big brand like MailChimp, Spotify and IMB will tell you, case studies are a huge part of solidifying your brand as thought leaders.

A case study is a win: you share the success of a customer as a result of your company’s actions. At SimpleTexting we call them our Success Stories , but no matter the name, the structure is the same — how company A worked with B to achieve XYZ. 

In this article we’ll cover everything from the basics to real-life examples.What exactly is a marketing case study, what constitutes a good one, and most importantly, how do you build one?

Let’s get started.

What is a Marketing Case Study?

According to Curata , “a case study in the context of marketing is an analysis of a project, campaign or company that identifies a situation, recommended solutions, implementation actions, and identification of those factors that contributed to failure or success.”

Sure, it’s a bit wordy, but at its core marketing case studies share information with prospective customers or clients about how your product offered a solution.

It doesn’t need to be dry reading. It doesn’t even need to be a report (although it can be). The key with a case study is that it should read like a story—only the beginning, middle, and end are all replicable business takeaways.

Case studies are for businesses of all sizes. They can be just as effective for small and medium-sized businesses as they are for enterprise businesses. Here’s why you should be investing time in building case studies.

Why Write a Marketing Case Study?

Before we dive into the instructions, let’s take a second to explore why a business would invest the time and effort into writing a case study. After all, why share your big marketing secrets with the world, what do you get out of the deal?

Simply put, you get the chance to share your story. Case studies, after all, are just stories showcasing your products and methods. They make for pretty spectacular advertising because, to a reader, it doesn’t feel like they’re being marketed to.

92% of customers prefer that media messages sound like a story. By using case studies you’re appealing to the logical, casual consumer who wants to know the “who, what, where, when, and why” that drives them to buy without any of the extra fuss. Case studies are the perfect medium to package it all.

How to Write a Marketing Case Study

As mentioned, every good case study maintains one singular focus: how one company used another to achieve its goal(s). This means most marketing case studies tend to take on an easily understandable problem-solution structure.

Let’s take a look at what you need to create a successful case study.

Components of a Marketing Case Study

Using the ingredients above, assemble them in this order to create a basic marketing case study:

• Write a title : Don’t worry about spoiling the ending. With case studies you want your title to let readers know right away how a campaign ended.  A case study title should include the name of the company or brand being examined, if their campaign went well or poorly for them and a solid metric that demonstrates exactly how well or how poorly they performed. For example: “ SimpleTexting Cut Down Product Onboarding Process by 30% Through Video Instruction. “
• Introduce the subject: Every marketing case study should open with a brief historical overview of the company. What have they struggled with in the past that led to them developing this campaign? Who is their target audience, what do they sell?  Even if your subject is obscure, you want to build a sense of relatability to your readers: so be sure to structure from general to specific. After all, you want readers outside just your industry to take away value.
• Identify your subject’s problems : Avoid leaving your readers feeling underwhelmed by presenting your subject’s problems early on in your case study. What are they trying to build, fix, or change? These problems are what will ultimately establish the subject’s goal, a one or two-sentence overview of the outcomes they’d like to see.
• Spell out your strategies and tactics : The real meat to your case study occurs here. This portion of your study is where you describe what actions you specifically took to try and reach your goals: What did you expect to happen when you tried “X, Y, and Z”?  Your case study can write this all out in paragraph form if you want it to read with some fluidity, or you can simply bullet out your strategies below each goal. Examples of good strategies for a common marketing pain point, such as building a social media following, include: connecting with influencers, developing original creative content, and developing paid advertising parameters.
• Share your results with visuals : At this point, you’ll want to follow up with the preview you set in your title and share with readers how things went. If you saw success, how much and where? If you didn’t were you able to pinpoint where things went wrong? Spare no detail as you write out what worked and what didn’t, and be sure to provide replicable detail (it may be what inspires your reader to become a customer!). Some common metrics commonly found in case studies include: web analytics and traffic, backlinks generated, keyword rankings, shares or other social interactions. Graphics like charts, bolded quotes, and graphs are good opportunities to visually demonstrate your data.
• Wrap it up with a conclusion : Know the difference between reemphasizing and repeating. When writing a conclusion you shouldn’t sound like an echo, repeating exactly what you said in your introduction. Instead, you want to draw emphasis back to your key points and call your readers to action. Let them know what they can do right now to get connected and see this same success (or avoid its failure).  If you’re writing a case study for marketing purposes, this is where you sell yourself and your product.

Marketing Case Study Examples

You’ve certainly heard enough from us to this point. Now it’s time to see what all of these tips and tricks look like in action. `

A plethora of marketing case study examples are out there, each one with a different objective: educational, sales-driven, industry leadership, and more.

To give you a well-rounded picture, we’ll share some of our favorite marketing case studies with you so you can see it all in action for yourself.

1. Surf Live Saving Foundation

The Surf Life Saving Foundation rolled out an innovative new framework for their brand known as the surf lottery. Despite the size of the initiative they were able to break down their process on a share of voice campaign with a great deal of clarity. Why we like this case study : It provides actionable and replicable examples of how their objectives were received.

2. StyleHaul & Asana

Organizational application Asana also finds itself in a competition-heavy environment. They are one of many SaaS productivity programs available. They needed to give their brand more of a voice to edge out against competitors offering near-identical products. The problem that needed solving in this success story is relatable to businesses all around the world, and ASANA’s use of it is a showcase of why they’re leaders in what they do.

Why we like this case study : It’s storytelling at its finest and perfectly demonstrates the subtle advertising concept.

3. Red Sox and CTP

This is a great example of a marketing agency showcasing its history of work with a high-profile client (the Boston Red Sox). It explores their entire body of work on a dynamic landing page. Why we like this case study : It demonstrates what a multi-media approach to a digital case study should strive to be.

4. SimpleTexting & U.S. Hunger

We couldn’t talk the talk without walking the walk. We have a range of varied case studies on our Success Stories page, but one of our absolute favorites is the results from U.S. Hunger.

U.S. Hunger was looking for a way to reach those who need them most – including those without internet access.

Why we like this case study: Not only does it highlight the incredible work of U.S. Hunger, it also shows how much can be accomplished through SMS. It spins a new light on SMS marketing and shows the wider impact of accessible communication. 

Marketing Case Studies are Key to Brand Trust

As a business looking to grow, you need to prove to prospective customers and clients why they should invest in you. Whether it’s a service or a product, case studies are viable ways of showing that what you do works and discussing how you achieved it.

The most impactful case studies aren’t always the ones with big names attached to them. They’re the best stories, the best solutions, and the ones that the most people can relate to.

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Meghan Tocci

Meghan Tocci is a content strategist at SimpleTexting. When she’s not writing about SaaS, she’s trying to teach her puppy Lou how to code. So far, not so good.

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5 keys to crafting a killer marketing case study

Count me among the content creators who entered this line of work out of a strong affinity for storytelling. While it’s not exactly the same thing as plotting out a swashbuckling adventure on the high seas or editing dialogue for a heady psychological thriller, writing a marketing case study still entails plenty of drama and suspense. Even better, it can be a highly effective component of your overall marketing plan.

What is a marketing case study and why is it important?

Simply put, a marketing case study is a story that helps your prospective clients understand, from the beginning to the end and in a tangible way, how you helped a current or previous client accomplish their goals. It’s a crucial tool for helping sales reps demonstrate to their leads how your company can produce real results.

As part of your larger content marketing strategy, it helps middle-of-funnel and bottom-of-funnel leads to connect your products and services with real-world outcomes. If you’re able to highlight some of your better-known customers in the process, a marketing case study can also bolster your brand.

What separates a good case study from a great case study?

A good case study gets its point across, but a great case study does so with style.

Keep in mind, that doesn’t mean it always has to be flashy or highly visual, though aesthetically pleasing design can be a big bonus.

Here, by style, we mean that the case study:

• Features specific details and inspiring outcomes that enhance a strong narrative.
• Communicates in a way that is relevant to its intended audience.
• Presents the potential customer with a clear opportunity for further engagement.

As part of a holistic marketing strategy, a great case study is also an instrumental asset for ongoing, targeted campaigns.

How do you create a compelling case study?

The principal ingredients for a compelling case study aren’t that different from other forms of content marketing.

Great case studies require you to:

• Conduct thoughtful research.
• Sculpt raw intel into a captivating story.
• Frame the content in a way that’s certain to generate interest.

For further detail, we can break this process down into the five key steps necessary for producing a first-rate marketing case study.

1. Know the product or service and its place in the market

Here’s a typical scenario. You get an email from the Vice President of Sales. She’s overjoyed about a recent customer success story, and she wants to know if you can create a case study based on it.

What’s the first thing you do?

Our recommendation is to make sure you have a firm grasp of everything about the product or service that the case study will highlight. Well, technically, the first thing you should probably do is respond to that email. And when you do, don’t forget to ask for clarification if it isn’t clear what product will be central to your marketing case study.

To brush up on the product, service or offering, take a closer look at materials like:

• Existing sales sheets and landing pages.
• Related social media posts or email campaigns.
• Internal product documents.

Keep in mind how this case study will play into ongoing marketing campaigns and efforts. Also, take a moment to examine how the type of customer you’re about to profile will map up with strategies for targeting specific personas.

2. Line up an interview with the client’s resident brand champion

A strong case study often involves the enthusiastic participation of individuals from the client company who are responsible for managing the vendor partnership. If you can schedule some time to talk to this person, you’ll benefit for two reasons:

• You’ll hear the story from their angle, which can add color, texture and truly valuable proof points.
• You’ll benefit from their infectious gratitude for the product. Too often, content creators have to rely on a set of well-crafted pitches instead of seeing the real-world impact of their products.

That said, sometimes this step is easier said than done. Why?

First of all, your clients may be busy. See if you can reach them at off-peak times or when they have some more flexibility in their schedule

Secondly, nondisclosure agreements are the norm in some industries. Customer contacts can be wary about answering questions, even if they know the company’s name and logo won’t be used. Try to reassure these clients from the beginning by showing them examples of other case studies you’ve done.

No matter what difficulties you encounter, there are always strategies you can follow to ask for reviews, testimonials and other support for your marketing case study. Some of our tried-and-true techniques include:

• Automating as much of the process as possible: Work with the sales or products teams to build feedback into the customer acquisition and retention processes.
• Focus on top customers: Emphasize high-profile clients that will bring greater brand awareness to your company or highly engaged partners who are eager to sing your praises.
• Emphasize the cross-promotional aspect of marketing case studies: Some companies need a reminder that this could be further exposure for their brand and additional content they could share in their own campaigns.

3. Gather details and comb through the data

Interviewing client contacts for a marketing case study is an art unto itself. Even the most excited and energetic sources will need some prompting and guidance in order to give you the material you need.

As such, we find that it’s helpful to start the conversation with a basic structure for your case study content in mind. A rough outline should look something like this:

• Background information about the client.
• A problem that the client experienced. Keep in mind, some people will need reassurance that the case study won’t paint the organization in a negative light.
• An exploration of how your product or service helped address the problem.
• Results from the implementation of this new solution.
• A description of how the client will proceed forward with this new experience under their belts.

Remember to listen carefully and remain flexible, but focused, during the interview. Put your reporter’s hat on to ask leading questions based on new information. At the same time, if your subject is particularly chatty, you may occasionally need to pull the interview back to its intended purpose.

While you’re taking notes, be sure to highlight any particularly noteworthy or emotional lines as they come up. This can be a real timesaver when you’re looking for pull quotes later.

In addition to the interview, ask for project documentation that can help you understand the scope of the client’s problem and the impact of the support provided by your company. Oftentimes, clients will have metrics that they’re eager to share. After all, they’ve probably already reported these results to internal stakeholders. Even if that’s not the case, ask for any relevant recent reports or raw data you could explore for some brag-worthy numbers.

4. Find the story

Not everybody is an expert storyteller. Some people are prone to add in irrelevant details, deliver information out of order or even to leave out important context. There’s a good chance that you’ll have to rearrange some of the information you learned during your client call. You may also have to conduct additional research or excise some out-of-place meanderings.

Internal subject matter experts can also help you refine the narrative arc for your marketing case study. They’ll clue you into the strategies they use for selling this service and supporting its implementation. Plus, they’ll be able to share their insights about questions that prospective clients might ask.

Make sure that the client is at the center of the story, but don’t be shy about highlighting the contributions of your own organization.

5. Highlight proof points

The story comes first, but proof points can transform your marketing case study from a possible puff piece into an exhilarating example for your target audience.

Whatever claims you make in the text, you should be able to back them up with evidence. At the same time, the proof points you do use should align with the bigger picture.

Obviously, facts, figures and statistics make for some of the most compelling kinds of evidence. However, sometimes the data isn’t in yet. In other scenarios, the qualitative advantages that have been gained are more important than percentages or points on a line graph.

In these situations, quotations and brief customer testimonials can provide additional support for the claims you’ve made.

But how do you handle quotes? Here are a few guidelines to follow:

• Where possible, use a direct quote that is original, interesting and engaging. Think about claims that would only be credible if they came straight from the speaker.
• You may have leeway to finesse the speaker’s language. Resist the temptation to wordsmith their speech except in cases that are truly confusing. Informal expressions can add a touch of authenticity.
• Some situations may require you to write the quote and then have it approved by the person to whom it will be attributed. Try to capture the nuances of their perspective as best you can, and never run the quote without getting a final confirmation.

What are some great case study examples to model after?

B2B and B2C marketing case studies come in all shapes and sizes. Here are a few recent examples that embody all of the strategies we’ve outlined above. If you’re looking for a compelling case study to model your own content after, check out these models.

‘How PayPal empowers people and businesses in a global marketplace’

This PayPal case study profiles how the company uses services from Google Cloud to support more than 300 million customers who use 100 different currencies.

It’s structured as a landing page that’s well designed and easy to navigate based on the storyline. It also highlights some impressive and relevant proof points right off the bat.

The text and graphical elements are also augmented by a video in which the customer’s voice takes center stage.

At the heart of this story is the notion that finding a reliable digital partner can help your company scale. As such, PayPal is a great aspirational client example, and its story speaks to the hopes that many prospective customers will have about their own business.

We also appreciate how easy Google makes it for potential clients to find additional examples and to take the next step by reaching out to a sales rep.

‘Disney+ Brand Launch’

It’s hard to think of a recent product launch that received more hype than the highly influential debut of streaming service Disney+. Behind the hype were companies like Midnight Oil, a California-based creative agency.

In this marketing case study for Disney+ , the firm pairs succinct text with high-quality pictures that display Midnight Oil branding collateral in action.

In this instance, the company was able to leverage the sky-high visibility of its brand partner to help tell the story. Everybody already knows that the launch of Disney+ was a rousing success, so the creative agency gets to focus a little more on highlighting its own contributions.

And showing is always better than telling. Still, the company makes sure that you don’t forget the 10 million subscribers the client achieved on its first day.

If you want to grow revenue by expanding your potential subscriber base using targeted branding efforts, Midnight Oil makes a compelling case that the agency can help.

‘Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Messages Their Way To Success’

Who says that digital marketing case studies can’t shred?

For our last case study example, we’re going to shine the spotlight on HubSpot’s righteous work with a venerable Cleveland institution.

This in-depth landing page frontloads a quick summary of the premise and some eye-catching stats.

The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame used HubSpot’s integration with Facebook Messenger to develop a strategy that allowed the museum to connect better with its fans.

A slickly produced video with lots of custom footage sheds light on how the Rock Hall’s content leader found a way to bring out the best from both automation and one-to-one connections.

This case study succeeds because it has an exciting hook, an interesting story and some real results.

How do you distribute case studies? Where do they work best?

How to distribute your case study depends on the audience you’re trying to reach, the story you need to share and the role that this case study plays in your overall marketing strategy.

Take a lesson from the marketing case study examples above. You need to be where your fans are. If your potential customer is on social media, make sure your content is shareable, and consider using a Facebook ad to promote your brand.

But let’s back up one more step.

As our examples illustrate, your marketing case study doesn’t just have to exist as one kind of asset. A custom landing page is a great place to start, but you can spin out content for video and other channels, too. Case studies can be delivered to prospects individually, distributed over social media or shared as part of an email drip campaign. Optimizing your case study landing page for search will help organic traffic find your content, too.

Where marketing efforts meet solid storytelling

It should be clear by now that marketing case studies are more than just a mishmash of numbers, quotes and splashy illustrations. They can take many different forms, but regardless of the media in which they’re found, they’re about creating a story around customer relationships. At the end of the day, aren’t stories what we live for?

Michael O'Neill

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Mike O'Neill is a writer, editor and content manager in Chicago. When he's not keeping a close eye on Brafton's editorial content, he's auditioning to narrate the next Ken Burns documentary. All buzzwords are his own.

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How to create a winning marketing plan, with 3 examples from world-class teams

A marketing plan helps leaders clearly visualize marketing strategies across channels, so they can ensure every campaign drives pipeline and revenue. In this article you’ll learn eight steps to create a winning marketing plan that brings business-critical goals to life, with examples from word-class teams.

To be successful as a marketer, you have to deliver the pipeline and the revenue.”

In other words—they need a well-crafted marketing plan.

Level up your marketing plan to drive revenue in 2024

Learn how to create the right marketing plan to hit your revenue targets in 2024. Hear best practices from marketing experts, including how to confidently set and hit business goals, socialize marketing plans, and move faster with clearer resourcing.

7 steps to build a comprehensive marketing plan

How do you build the right marketing plan to hit your revenue goals? Follow these eight steps for success:

1. Define your plan

First you need to define each specific component of your plan to ensure stakeholders are aligned on goals, deliverables, resources, and more. Ironing out these details early on ensures your plan supports the right business objectives, and that you have sufficient resources and time to get the job done. 

Get started by asking yourself the following questions: 

What resources do I need? 

What is the vision?

What is the value?

What is the goal?

Who is my audience?

What are my channels?

What is the timeline?

For example, imagine you’re creating an annual marketing plan to improve customer adoption and retention in the next fiscal year. Here’s how you could go through the questions above to ensure you’re ready to move forward with your plan: 

I will need support from the content team, web team, and email team to create targeted content for existing customers. One person on each team will need to be dedicated full-time to this initiative. To achieve this, the marketing team will need an additional $100K in budget and one new headcount. 

What is the vision?  

To create a positive experience for existing customers, address new customer needs, and encourage them to upgrade. We’ll do this by serving them how-to content, new feature updates, information about deals and pricing, and troubleshooting guides. 

According to the Sales Benchmark Index (SBI) , CEOs and go-to-market leaders report that more than 60% of their net-new revenue will come from existing customers in 2023. By retaining and building on the customers we have, we can maintain revenue growth over time. 

To decrease the customer churn rate from 30% to 10%, and increase upgrades from 20% to 30% in the next fiscal year. 

All existing customers. 

The main channel will be email. Supporting marketing channels include the website, blog, YouTube, and social media. 

The first half of the next fiscal year. 

One of the most important things to do as you create your marketing strategy is to identify your target audience . As with all marketing, you need to know who you’re marketing to. If you’re having a hard time determining who exactly your target audience is, try the bullseye targeting framework . The bullseye makes it easy for you to determine who your target audience is by industry, geography, company size, psychographics, demographics, and more.

2. Identify key metrics for success 

Now it’s time to define what key marketing metrics you’ll use to measure success. Your key metrics will help you measure and track the performance of your marketing activities. They’ll also help you understand how your efforts tie back to larger business goals. 

Once you establish key metrics, use a goal-setting framework—like objectives and key results (OKRs) or SMART goals —to fully flush out your marketing objectives. This ensures your targets are as specific as possible, with no ambiguity about what should be accomplished by when. 

Example: If a goal of your marketing plan is to increase email subscriptions and you follow the SMART goal framework (ensuring your objective is specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and time-bound) your goal might look like this: Increase email subscription rate from 10% to 20% in H1 . 

3. Research your competition 

It’s easy to get caught up in your company’s world, but there’s a lot of value in understanding your competitors . Knowing how they market themselves will help you find opportunities to make your company stand out and capture more market share.

Make sure you’re not duplicating your competitors’ efforts. If you discover a competitor has already executed your idea, then it might be time to go back to the drawing board and brainstorm new ways to differentiate yourself.  By looking at your competitors, you might be surprised at the type of inspiration and opportunities you’ll find.

To stay ahead of market trends, conduct a SWOT analysis for your marketing plan. A SWOT analysis helps you improve your plan by identifying strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. 

Example: If your competitor launches a social media campaign identical to what you had planned, go back to the drawing board and see how you can build off their campaign. Ask yourself: How can we differentiate our campaign while still getting our message across? What are the weaknesses of their campaign that we can capitalize on? What angles did they not approach?

4. Integrate your marketing efforts

Here’s where the fun comes in. Let’s dive into the different components that go into building a successful marketing plan. You’ll want to make sure your marketing plan includes multiple supporting activities that all add up into a powerful marketing machine. Some marketing plan components include: 

Lead generation

Social media

Product marketing

Public relations

Analyst relations

Customer marketing

Search engine optimization (SEO)

Conversational marketing

Knowing where your consumer base spends the most time is significant for nailing this step. You need to have a solid understanding of your target audience before integrating your marketing efforts. 

Example: If your target audience is executives that spend a lot of time on LinkedIn, focus your social media strategy around placing branded content on LinkedIn. 

5. Differentiate with creative content

Forty-nine percent of marketers say visual images are hugely important to their content strategy. In other words, a clear brand and creative strategy is an essential component to every marketing plan. As you craft your own creative strategy, here are some tips to keep in mind: 

Speak to your audience: When defining your creative strategy, think about your audience—what you want them to feel, think, and do when they see your marketing. Will your audience find your creative work relevant? If your audience can’t relate to your creative work, they won’t feel connected to the story you’re trying to tell. 

Think outside the box: Find innovative ways to engage your audience, whether through video, animations, or interactive graphics. Know what screens your creative work will live on, whether desktop, mobile, or tablet, and make sure they display beautifully and load quickly across every type of device. 

Tie everything back to CTAs: It’s easy to get caught up in the creative process, so it’s important to never lose sight of your ultimate goal: Get your audience to take action. Always find the best way to display strong Calls to Action (CTAs) in your creative work. We live in a visual world—make sure your creative content counts.

Streamline creative production:   Once you’ve established a strong creative strategy, the next step is to bring your strategy to life in the production stage. It’s vital to set up a strong framework for your creative production process to eliminate any unnecessary back and forth and potential bottlenecks. Consider establishing creative request forms , streamlining feedback and approval processes, and taking advantage of integrations that might make your designers’ lives easier.

Example: If your brand is fun and approachable, make sure that shows in your creative efforts. Create designs and CTAs that spark joy, offer entertainment, and alleviate the pressure in choosing a partner.

6. Operationalize your marketing plan

Turn your plan into action by making goals, deliverables, and timelines clear for every stakeholder—so teams stay accountable for getting work done. The best way to do this is by centralizing all the details of your marketing plan in one platform , so teams can access the information they need and connect campaign work back to company goals.  

With the right work management tool , you can: 

Set goals for every marketing activity, and connect campaign work to overarching marketing and business objectives so teams focus on revenue-driving projects. 

Centralize deliverables for your entire marketing plan in one project or portfolio .

Mark major milestones and visualize your plan as a timeline, Gantt chart, calendar, list, or Kanban board—without doing any extra work. 

Quickly loop in stakeholders with status updates so they’re always up to date on progress. This is extremely important if you have a global team to ensure efforts aren’t being duplicated. 

Use automations to seamlessly hand off work between teams, streamlining processes like content creation and reviews. 

Create dashboards to report on work and make sure projects are properly staffed , so campaigns stay on track. 

With everything housed in one spot, you can easily visualize the status of your entire marketing plan and keep work on track. Building an effective marketing plan is one thing, but how you operationalize it can be your secret to standout marketing.

Example: If your strategy focuses on increasing page views, connect all campaign work to an overarching OKR—like “we will double page views as measured by the amount of organic traffic on our blog.” By making that goal visible to all stakeholders, you help teams prioritize the right work. 

See marketing planning in action

With Asana, marketing teams can connect work, standardize processes, and automate workflows—all in one place.

7. Measure performance

Nearly three in four CMOs use revenue growth to measure success, so it’s no surprise that measuring performance is necessary. You established your key metrics in step two, and now it’s time to track and report on them in step eight.

Periodically measure your marketing efforts to find areas of improvement so you can optimize in real-time. There are always lessons to be learned when looking at data. You can discover trends, detect which marketing initiatives performed well, and course-correct what isn’t performing well. And when your plan is complete, you can apply these learnings to your next initiative for improved results. 

Example: Say you discover that long-form content is consistently bringing in 400% more page views than short-form content. As a result, you’ll want to focus on producing more long-form content in your next marketing plan.

Marketing plan examples from world-class teams

The best brands in the world bring their marketing plans to life every day. If you’re looking for inspiration, check out these examples from successful marketing teams.

Autodesk grows site traffic 30% three years in a row

When the Autodesk team launched Redshift, it was initially a small business blog. The editorial team executed a successful marketing plan to expand it into a premier owned-media site, making it a destination for stories and videos about the future of making. 

The team scaled content production to support seven additional languages. By standardizing their content production workflow and centralizing all content conversations in one place, the editorial team now publishes 2X more content monthly. Read the case study to learn more about how Autodesk runs a well-oiled content machine.

Sony Music boosts creative production capacity by 4X

In recent years the music industry has gone through a pivotal transition—shifting from album sales to a streaming business model. For marketing and creative teams at Sony Music, that meant adopting an “always on” campaign plan. 

The team successfully executed this campaign plan by centralizing creative production and approvals in one project. By standardizing processes, the team reduced campaign production time by 75%. Read the case study to learn more about how Sony Music successfully scaled their creative production process.

Trinny London perfects new customer acquisition 

In consumer industries, social media is crucial for building a community of people who feel an affinity with the brand—and Trinny London is no exception. As such, it was imperative that Trinny London’s ad spend was targeted to the correct audience. Using a work management tool, Trinny London was able to nail the process of creating, testing, and implementing ads on multiple social channels.

With the help of a centralized tool, Trinny London improved its ad spend and drove more likes and subscriptions on its YouTube page. Read the case study to learn more about how Trinny London capitalized on paid advertising and social media. 

Turn your marketing plan into marketing success 

A great marketing plan promotes clarity and accountability across teams—so every stakeholder knows what they’re responsible for, by when. Reading this article is the first step to achieving better team alignment, so you can ensure every marketing campaign contributes to your company’s bottom line. 

Use a free marketing plan template to get started

Once you’ve created your marketing strategy and are ready to operationalize your marketing plan, get started with one of our marketing templates . 

Our marketing templates can help you manage and track every aspect of your marketing plan, from creative requests to approval workflows. Centralize your entire marketing plan in one place, customize the roadmap, assign tasks, and build a timeline or calendar. 

Once you’ve operationalized your entire marketing plan with one of our templates, share it with your stakeholders so everyone can work together in the same tool. Your entire team will feel connected to the marketing plan, know what to prioritize, and see how their work contributes to your project objectives . Choose the best marketing template for your team:

Marketing project plan template

Marketing campaign plan template

Product marketing launch template

Editorial calendar template

Agency collaboration template

Creative requests template

Event planning template

GTM strategy template

Still have questions? We have answers. 

What is a marketing plan.

A marketing plan is a detailed roadmap that outlines the different strategies your team will use to achieve organizational objectives. Rather than focusing solely on the end goal, a marketing plan maps every step you need to reach your destination—whether that’s driving pipeline for sales, nurturing your existing customer base, or something in-between. 

As a marketing leader, you know there’s never a shortage of great campaign and project ideas. A marketing plan gives you a framework to effectively prioritize work that aligns to overarching business goals—and then get that work done. Some elements of marketing plans include:

Current business plan

Mission statement  

Business goals

Target customers  

Competitive analysis 

Current marketing mix

Key performance indicators (KPIs)

Marketing budget  

What is the purpose of a marketing plan?

The purpose of a marketing plan is to grow your company’s consumer base and strengthen your brand, while aligning with your organization’s mission and vision . The plan should analyze the competitive landscape and industry trends, offer actionable insights to help you gain a competitive advantage, and document each step of your strategy—so you can see how your campaigns work together to drive overarching business goals. 

What is the difference between a marketing plan and a marketing strategy? 

A marketing plan contains many marketing strategies across different channels. In that way, marketing strategies contribute to your overall marketing plan, working together to reach your company’s overarching business goals.

For example, imagine you’re about to launch a new software product and the goal of your marketing plan is to drive downloads. Your marketing plan could include marketing strategies like creating top-of-funnel blog content and launching a social media campaign. 

What are different types of marketing plans? 

Depending on what you’re trying to accomplish, what your timeline is, or which facet of marketing you’re driving, you’ll need to create a different type of marketing plan. Some different types of marketing plans include, but aren’t limited to:

General marketing plan: A general marketing plan is typically an annual or quarterly marketing plan that details the overarching marketing strategies for the period. This type of marketing plan outlines marketing goals, the company’s mission, buyer personas, unique selling propositions, and more. A general marketing plan lays the foundation for other, more specific marketing plans that an organization may employ. 

Product launch marketing plan: A product launch marketing plan is a step-by-step plan for marketing a new product or expanding into a new market. It helps you build awareness and interest by targeting the right audience, with the right messaging, in the right timeframe—so potential customers are ready to buy your new offering right away. Nailing your product launch marketing plan can reinforce your overall brand and fast-track sales. For a step-by-step framework to organize all the moving pieces of a launch, check out our product marketing launch template .

Paid marketing plan: This plan includes all the paid strategies in your marketing plan, like pay-per-click, paid social media advertising, native advertising, and display advertising. It’s especially important to do audience research prior to launching your paid marketing plan to ensure you’re maximizing ROI. Consult with content strategists to ensure your ads align with your buyer personas so you know you’re showing ads to the right people. 

Content marketing plan: A content marketing plan outlines the different content strategies and campaigns you’ll use to promote your product or service. When putting together a content marketing plan, start by identifying your audience. Then use market research tools to get the best insights into what topics your target audience is most interested in.

SEO marketing plan: Your SEO marketing plan should work directly alongside your content marketing plan as you chart content that’s designed to rank in search results. While your content marketing plan should include all types of content, your SEO marketing plan will cover the top-of-funnel content that drives new users to your site. Planning search engine-friendly content is only one step in your SEO marketing plan. You’ll also need to include link-building and technical aspects in order to ensure your site and content are as optimized as possible.

Social media marketing plan: This plan will highlight the marketing strategies you plan to accomplish on social media. Like in any general or digital marketing plan , your social media strategy should identify your ideal customer base and determine how they engage on different social media platforms. From there, you can cater your social media content to your target audience.  

Related resources

Write better AI prompts: A 4-sentence framework

What is content marketing? A complete guide

Smooth product launches are simpler than you think

How Asana uses work management for smoother creative production

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[Updated] 8 Best marketing case study examples

Social listening and consumer intelligence will knock your marketing campaigns out of the park. No question.

Don’t believe me?

The following types of case studies speak for themselves about why you should… listen. Show me the success stories!

Table of content

• Grubhub | Consumer insights feed the soul
• UNICEF | Fighting misleading information with conversational insights
• University of Sydney | Proves the value of social media
• Bella&Brava | Image recognition sees all 
• HelloFresh | Social listening is the secret ingredient 
• Hong Kong Airlines | How to turn a crisis into a soaring success
• Bonduelle | Breaking down data silos to make critical business decisions
• Lion & Lion and Rimmel | Changing the face of Malaysian makeup

Grubhub marketing case study | Consumer insights feed the soul

When the world went into lockdown, food delivery services became an essential part of all our lives. But how to do it safely?

Based in the US, Grubhub is a food ordering and delivery platform that connects consumers with local restaurants and takeaways. To understand what people wanted and meet their new demands, the brand turned to consumer insights.

COVID-19 brought the world to its knees. People feared for their health and for their income. The challenge for Grubhub was how to address consumer concerns with regard to a restricted household budget, disinfection protocols, the mechanics of safe food delivery, and more.

Using our consumer intelligence platform, the Grubhub team monitored for diners' negative experiences, and countered with positive experiences.

When Grubhub's Belly Dance ad first aired on TV, it fell below expectations, receiving low engagement. Suddenly, in January 2021, the commercial became a viral meme, receiving over 40K mentions on social media in one month.

Working with Talkwalker, the brand created a strategy as to how to join this growing conversation .

Think you can make a commercial better than us? Prove it. Add your own music to it or suggest a song, then tweet it with #DeliverTheRemix . You could have your song featured in our commercial and win a YEAR of free food. Ends 1/19. No purch nec. 50 US/DC, 18+. Rules in bio. pic.twitter.com/cRxIFKAji9 — Grubhub (@Grubhub) January 16, 2021

As the campaign became more successful, the team launched the #DeliverTheRemix contest, asking followers to help choose the next song in the “Belly Dance” ad. Consumers loved it, creating a ton of fun and creative pieces of content.

To understand how Grubhub was able to turn negative community sentiment and drive a brand-amplifying strategy , read the Grubhub marketing case study.

Download the Grubhub marketing case study

UNICEF marketing case study | Fighting misleading information with conversational insights

Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, we've been bombarded with misinformation about the virus and the various vaccines. As this case study shows, we look at how UNICEF MENARO developed a communication strategy to battle the fake news that threatened to undermine the vaccine program in the Middle East and North Africa.

The pandemic caught us by surprise, and we lacked a reliable source of truth. This issue was exacerbated with the release of the vaccine, when we suffered a further deluge of fake news that fed the rising anti-vaccine mood.

It became critical for organizations promoting the vaccine to understand the concerns of the public , enabling them to put peoples' fears to rest. And build trust in vaccines.

For UNICEF MENARO this meant using Talkwalker's consumer intelligence platform to track misinformation keywords , along with mentions of COVID-19 in online conversations in the MENA region to see just how serious the situation was.

Sentiment analysis was used to find the overall sentiment around vaccines, with results showing that net sentiment was low, proving vaccine hesitancy.

The net sentiment around vaccines from December 2020 - April 2021 demonstrated the overall negative view of vaccines.

To shift the sentiment, UNICEF in MENA activated the voices of community members to engage with people and allay their vaccine fears.

UNICEF'S communication strategy delivered a data-driven narrative using strategic partnerships, influencer marketing, and real-life testimonies. Short-form videos that were a strong part of the strategy, with the video for the #MaskUp campaign receiving over 136K mentions between April 2020 and May 2021.

Number of mentions of #MaskUp in the MENA region during the past 13 months.

UNICEF continues to play a key role in monitoring conversation around the pandemic, whether it's positive or negative. 

To understand more about how UNICEF used consumer intelligence to battle fake news , and the successful campaigns it launched, check out our UNICEF marketing case study.

Download the UNICEF marketing case study

University of Sydney marketing case study | Proves the value of social media

The secret to a successful social media strategy is ensuring it's aligned with your business goals.

This marketing case study explores how the University of Sydney used a combination of Hootsuite and Talkwalker and increased sentiment, engagement, and video views.

The university was looking to boost its reputation for research, entice a more diverse range of top-level students, and build a brand that would stand out in a crowd. A forward thinking university, social media would inevitably play a big part, so much so, it already had a Social Squad using Hootsuite, Talkwalker, and Adobe.

What did the squad do? Bringing the various faculty teams together, it created a social media strategy that aligned content, goals, and reporting across it's 36 official social channels.

Sentiment analysis and social media listening enabled the university to measure and manage its brand reputation . Collecting insights that informed the campaign strategy and boosted sentiment through social media communication.

When sentiment turned negative during the COVID-19 lockdown, the Stay Strong India campaign brought about a 30% increase in net sentiment score.

“The insights that Talkwalker provides us have been incredible and have really informed our campaign strategy. Providing these insights to our stakeholders demonstrates what social media can do for our brand and helps us secure investment to increase our budgets and grow our team.” Liz Grey | Social Media | University of Sydney

In the past, when content was shared across multiple channels without a plan, reporting results was hard. The introduction of Hootsuite Impact meant that the team could efficiently report on engagement, campaign performance, and ROI.

A year into its successful social media strategy, the university continues to collect student insights, and is looking to recruit influencers to meet new goals.

For more details on how the university used social media to improve its reputation, download our University of Sydney marketing case study.

Download the University of Sydney marketing case study

Bella&Brava marketing case study | Image recognition sees all

I love pizza, you love pizza. 

With a whopping 106.2K mentions on July 9th, 2019 on Twitter alone, it’s clear that everyone loves posting about pizza.

Data found using Talkwalker’s QuickSearch .

The most popular emojis used when it comes to discussing pizza.

When Venice-based pizzeria Bella&Brava wanted to open restaurants in new locations, it partnered with digital consultancy company OpenKnowledge to harness the power of social media.

Using Talkwalker’s proprietary image recognition technology , OpenKnowledge analyzed data from user-generated content - UGC - created by the consumers Bella&Brava were looking to feed. Their hip, young target audience.

Using image recognition, photos of pizzas posted on social media platforms - Instagram, Facebook, Twitter - were identified, along with background scenes and objects. 

The consumer insights collected from social networks helped Bella&Brava make critical business decisions . Which cities to open in? Which brand partnerships to explore? How will cultural differences influence the design of each new menu?

Read Bella&Brava’s marketing case study to see how social listening and consumer insights will put your brand ahead of your competitors, purely by listening to consumers and meeting their demands .

Download the Bella&Brava marketing case study

“In the digital age, there are two types of organisations: those that collect data and those that transform it into opportunities” Ilaria Baietti, Director - Brand Interaction, OpenKnowledge

Speed up the growth of your business by closing the gap between your brand and consumers. Boom!

HelloFresh marketing case study | When social listening is the secret ingredient 

When HelloFresh, the world’s leading meal kit company, was struggling with social media data, it was time to call Talkwalker. .

Previously, the brand had been manually collecting social media data. This was not only  time consuming, but vital information was being missed .

Humans are great, but when you consider the amount of social data out there…

It was time to freshen up HelloFresh’s marketing strategy with social listening.

“At HelloFresh, data is at the center of everything we do. It was only natural for us to turn to social listening to improve the performance and efficiency of our marketing and communications teams. Talkwalker has allowed us to unlock access to a much larger conversation around our brand than ever before.” Jordan Schultz, Social Media Manager, HelloFresh

Talkwalker’s consumer intelligence platform was able to identify consumer insights , then translate into meaningful data. Moving forward, HelloFresh identified more than 400% more mentions per month.

With all these new insights to hand, HelloFresh began to develop a crisis management plan.

Take a look at our HelloFresh marketing case study, for more details

Download the HelloFresh marketing case study

Hong Kong Airlines marketing case study | How to turn a crisis into a soaring success

This is a case study from a few years back, so pre pandemic. But it remains a landing page that converts, bigly.

What’s every traveler’s dream and every airline’s nightmare?

When a Hong Kong Airlines flight from Los Angeles to Shanghai was mispriced at $561, consumers rushed to make the most of this mistake, with the Hong Kong Airline marketing team scrabbling for their oxygen masks.

The buzz from the mispriced tickets caused a huge increase in mentions, engagement and reach.

What were their options in the face of this PR crisis ? Search for the nearest exit? Or, buckle up and go along for what was sure to be a bumpy ride? 

Hong Kong Airlines decided to take another route. They chose to breeze right through it.

Luckily, they were prepared because of social listening and consumer intelligence. By using the insights from Talkwalker’s social media data and sentiment analysis , they were able to plan accordingly and protect their brand reputation .

“When we see what is happening in “real time” on social media we are better prepared to make timely and informed decisions and communicate those decisions well. Social listening and analytics tools are critical to success. In this case, we managed to turn what could have been a damaging issue, into a fantastic PR opportunity. With 4,900% more engagements created in a one week period.” Dennis Owen, General Manager of Branding and Social Media, Hong Kong Airlines

Read the Hong Kong Airlines case study to learn how they used social media data from competitors, and sentiment analysis to inform their strategic decisions. All while keeping long term customers and potential customers happy.

Download the Hong Kong Airlines marketing case study

Bonduelle marketing case study | Breaking down data silos to make critical business decisions

Bonduelle, a major French brand in the FMCG/CPG industry, was in the grips of optimizing its online brand strategy. The company that specializes in providing frozen and canned vegetables daily to over 100 countries, wanted to ensure that all its consumer data was readily available across its entire company.

The problem?

Data silos in Bonduelle.

Each department was collecting its own data and interpreting it, without a platform from which to share the information with other teams. This is a common issue. The State of Social Intelligence Report points out that 31% of organizations offer their teams limited access to social data.

The crucial information was hidden away in the dark depths of the team’s computer folder – unable to be used across departments to identify added benefits.

Social listening held the key to knocking down these data walls. It brought together information from online, social media, and traditional press all on one platform . Allowing Bonduelle to find the topics that were being discussed alongside their products or services, images associated with the brand, their high-performing influencers, and how to protect their brand reputation from negative comments.

Talkwalker offered the perfect solution, giving the brand the opportunity to build their own dashboard and choose who would have access to the data.

Read Bonduelle’s marketing case study to learn more about how it...

• Determined positioning based on data maturity scale in report
• Identified its progress in terms of data maturity
• Created necessary systems and teams for scalable processing of data
• Introduced the chief data officer role to maximize the value of data as it progresses

Download the Bonduelle marketing case study

Lion & Lion and Rimmel marketing case study ­| Changing the face of Malaysian makeup

When faced with the relaunch of the British cosmetics brand Rimmel in Malaysia, the brand’s digital marketing agency, Lion & Lion, turned to social media.

With the increasing demand for authenticity and inclusivity, the beauty industry has been opting for social media and specifically, influencer marketing instead of traditional advertising methods. 

Makes sense!

It’s a trend that resonates with Gen Z . Econsultancy states that 65% of this group rely on social media to find and choose beauty products. 

Rather than listening to marketers telling you what to buy, social media, blog posts and influencers become the cool friend with the inside scoop on the latest makeup trend. So, it’s no surprise that cosmetics brands are turning to social media marketing and social listening for consumer insights into what people really want.

In a country where the k-beauty brands dominate the shelves, the first step was to make Rimmel stand out in the crowd. 

The data showed that consumers trust that beauty is more than skin deep. It’s all about being confident. It’s all about being confident. They want bold, experimental makeup to create distinctive looks.

Rimmel then launched the #MakeUpYourOwnRules marketing campaign which championed self-expression and all-inclusive beauty that radiates confidence.

“As a result, we saw an increase in branded search and share-of-voice, and gained around 3x of our initial market share target within the first year of launch” Cheska Teresa, Managing Director, Lion & Lion in Malaysia  

For more details on how Lion & Lion took full advantage of social listening and consumer intelligence for Rimmel, read Lion & Lion’s marketing case study.

Download the Lion & Lion and Rimmel marketing case study

Drive your marketing with consumer intelligence

There you have it. 8 of our best marketing case study examples. Download them all to discover how some of the world's biggest brands use our consumer intelligence platform to drive their marketing strategies to success . Our industry-leading platform turns social and owned data into powerful and easy to action consumer insights. Don’t get left behind…

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33+ Best Digital Marketing Case Studies [2021 Update]

• June 16, 2020

Looking for some inspiration for your digital marketing?

The best thing you can do is read up some real-life, practical digital marketing case studies.

But see, good case studies are few and far in-between…

...Which is why we compiled this mega-list of the BEST digital marketing case studies in 2021.

Whether you’re looking for SEO, Content Marketing, PPC, or whatever else, we included it in this guide.

So, let’s dive right into it.

Ready, set, go!

33+ Digital Marketing Case Studies [All Channels]

Looking for a specific digital marketing channel you want to read up on?

Feel free to skip ahead:

SEO Case Studies

Content marketing case studies, facebook ads case studies, google ads case studies, influencer marketing case studies, other digital marketing case studies, 1. apollo digital - 0 to 200k monthly organic traffic.

• 0 to 200,000 monthly organic traffic in 2 years.
• Ranked #1-3 for extremely high CPC keywords (20$ CPC+).

Case Study Summary:

Apollo Digital helped set up an SEO strategy for a client (business process management software) that brought in 200K+ monthly organic traffic in just 2 years.

• Apollo Digital (that’s us!) completely revamped a SaaS company’s content strategy.
• We pin-pointed issues with existing blog posts (mainly, keyword cannibalization ), and proposed improvements
• Did keyword research to identify and prioritize top keywords for the company.
• Implemented content outlines to make sure the content that writers were writing was on-point for SEO.
• Used superior content UX to make the blog extremely easy to read.

You can find the full SEO case study here.

2. Backlinko - 652% Organic Traffic Increase in 7 days

• Increased organic traffic to one of their webpages by 652% in 7 days.
• Ranking went from the middle of the second page on Google to #5.

Backlinko implemented the Skyscraper Technique 2.0. Here’s what they did...

• Created a mobile SEO checklist blog post which cracked the top 10 results for the target keyword, got a huge spike in traffic in its first week, but soon dropped to the middle of the second page.
• Realized the post was getting buried because it didn’t satisfy user intent for that keyword.
• Analyzed first page results to figure out user search intent for extremely competitive keywords (“mobile SEO”).
• Changed blog post format from case study to an actual checklist to satisfy the intent, and optimized for user experience by making the text easier to read.

Check out the detailed steps for the Skyscraper Technique 2.0 here.

3. Ahrefs - Using the Skyscraper Technique to Obtain 15 Links With a 6.5% Success Rate

• Sent out 232 emails and obtained 15 backlinks, at a 6.5% success rate.

Dale Cudmore tested the SEO skyscraper technique for his brand new site (an online cv builder).

• Picked a topic that was very relevant to his niche. Since he was trying to build a resume builder, the topic was “how to write a resume.”
• Followed the skyscraper technique and created even better content than what was ranking at the time.
• Then, he reached out to people who had already linked to the specific content he was improving upon. Since they had already linked to a similar article, they were more likely to link to content that’s better.
• Dale sent out 232 emails and obtained 15 links to his article. Though his rankings didn’t change significantly (extremely competitive niche), the technique proved to be a success for generating backlinks.

Want to learn more about the technique Dale used? Check out Backlinko’s write-up on the skyscraper technique here.

Looking to read the complete case study? Go here .

4. GotchSEO - Squeeze Page That Converts at 74.5%

• Set up a squeeze page that converted at 74.5%.

Natchan Gotch set up a high-converting squeeze page that used a lot of trust signals to get the visitors to opt-in for the content.

• Created a well-structured landing page & ran retargeting ads to it.
• Presented his offer through a benefit-driven headline.
• He used distinct trust signals (a recognizable logo, GDPR compliance, copyright notice) to mitigate any trust risks and maximize the chances of the prospect taking action.

You can check out the complete case study here .

5. Online Ownership - Winning in Local SEO for a Competitive Industry

• Ranked #1 for competitive taxi-related keywords ($1.38 CPC+) with local SEO .

Online Ownership, an SEO agency, helped a taxi company dominate local search rankings.

• Created in-city location guide on how to get to/from the local airports which has been viewed over 170,000 times by now. ..
• Mentioned info on long-term airport parking companies, got them to share the content once it was live.
• The company was at the end of one county, and the beginning of another, which hurt their location-based search queries when the county was specified. So he changed the local NAP (name, address, phone number), and corrected the PIN marker to correctly account for the business location.
• The business started appearing within the local pack for almost all main search queries within the city.

Check out the full case study here.

6. Kaiserthesage - The Definitive Guide to Enterprise Link Building

• Drove almost 5 million organic visits in 2 years through authority content. Focused 80% of the campaign promotion on acquiring high-quality backlinks.

Jason of Kaiserthesage wanted to create a process for generating high-quality backlinks. In this case study, he details his process outreach process:

• Identified tactics they could effectively use for link acquisition campaigns (broken/resource link building and link reclamation).
• Compiled list of high-authority brands that were likely to link back to them.
• Conducted large-scale outreach campaigns, and followed up at least 3 times per prospect.
• Tried out different content types for link building, including practical guides/tutorials, original research studies, case studies, infographics, and more.
• Tracked results every step of the way, optimized relevant site pages (write for us, recommended list pages, etc.), and tested more outreach tactics.

You can find the full enterprise link building case study here.

7. Growth Machine - 0 to 150,000 Monthly Organic Visitors in 8 Months

• Generated 150,000 monthly organic visitors in 8 months for a brand new blog project.
• The site grew from a tiny blog to one of the most popular tea blogs on the internet.

Nat Eliason (founder of Growth Machine), grew a tea blog to 150,000 monthly searches in order to use it as a case study for his agency.

• Nat chose a topic area he knew a lot about (tea) and knew there was an audience for.
• Researched keywords with the perfect mix of low difficulty and high volume and arranged everything in a spreadsheet.
• Started publishing high quality content surrounding the topic at a rate of four blog posts per week, every week, for 8 months.
• Used Reddit, Facebook groups, and Pinterest to promote the content and drive traffic. inked back to the new content from owned websites, and mentioned it in interviews and guest posts.

You can find the full case study here.

8. Robbie Richards - 6-Step SEO Process That Generated 150,732 Visits

• Increased organic traffic by 11,065% in just 6 months and generated 20,314 organic pageviews with a single post.
• Captured 2,335 emails.

Robbie Richards details the 6-step SEO process he used to grow his client’s drone site:

• Found a topic (drones) with solid monthly search volume and a lot of secondary keyword targets.
• Created the best online guide on how to fly a quadcopter - more in-depth and high-quality than other articles at the time.
• Optimized the blog post for on-page SEO, included plenty of external/internal links, improved page speed, and made the content more UX friendly.
• Inserted a pop-up and lead-box to start generating subscribers from the blog post.
• Promoted content on Quora and relevant online forums.
• Set up social automation to share content automatically
• Submitted content on to relevant scoop.it pages.
• Used 4 different outreach strategies to build high-quality backlinks.

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9. Apollo Digital - $25,000+ From A Single Blog Post

• Content piece went viral, generating $25,000 revenue in business from a single blog post.
• 20+ leads, and over 11,000+ in page views over the first month.

Apollo Digital created and promoted epic content, which went viral and brought in over $25K in revenue (and growing).

• Researched a topic that dealt with major pain points for SaaS founders.
• Created a super in-depth 14,000+ words blog post full of actionable tips and tactics on SaaS marketing , all based on their unique perspective and experience.
• Provided better content UX, used a ton of on-page visual elements, and a Smart Content Filter plugin to make the guide easier to digest.
• Promoted on 12 different marketing channels, including Reddit, Hacker News, and Facebook groups
• Ran ads on Quora, Facebook, Reddit, and Twitter.

Check out the full content marketing case study here.

10. Content Mavericks - This Content Distribution Strategy Got 87,591 Visits To One Blog Post

• Used a content distribution strategy to get 87,591 visits to one blog post in 60 days.

Chris Von Wilpert of Content Mavericks created a giant article that completely breaks down HubSpot’s marketing strategy. In this case study, he talks about the content promotion strategy he used to get the article to go viral.

• Created keystone content on HubSpot’s growth strategy.
• Promoted it to his fans: inner circle, social circle, and outer circle.
• Used free traffic multipliers: email, push notification, Facebook messenger, and outreach lists to distribute content.
• Used paid traffic multipliers to manufacture virality. Reached thousands of new fans by running retargeting ads on Facebook, Twitter, Google, and Outbrain

Check out the full content distribution strategy case study here.

11. OptiMonk - How iSpionage Increased Blog Referral Traffic by 58% in 1 Month Using Onsite Retargeting

• Increased blog referral traffic by 58.09%.
• Achieved a 5.47% CTR for blog redirect popup.

iSpionage was publishing new blog posts regularly, but their blog wasn’t redirecting a whole lot of referral traffic to their product page. Here’s what they did to fix that....

• They used an OptiMonk exit-intent popup to entice users to check out their main homepage.
• To redirect only interested visitors,the popup would only appear for readers who had spent a minimum of 10 seconds on the blog. And for better visitor experience, they set up the popup to appear a maximum number of 5 times per visitor, with at least 1 day between appearances.

Check out the full iSpionage case study by OptiMonk here.

12. SEO Travel UK - 11K Website Views in 2 Weeks From Infographic Marketing

• 11,304 website visits in 2 weeks.
• 245% increased in referral traffic compared to the same period of last year.
• More than 100 new high-quality domains linking to the site.

During the peak Game of Thrones popularity, SEO Travel UK went viral by creating infographic based on the popular show.

• Researched the best/most popular Game of Thrones content on the web to make sure that their project was worth pursuing.
• Created an infographic of all the real-life locations where the TV show was filmed.
• Reached out to people who had shared similar content in the past and asked if they’d like to feature the infographic as an exclusive.
• Promoted infographic on GoT fandom and other ‘geek’ sites and forums.

Check out the full content marketing strategy used and the case study here.

13. YesOptimist - Scaled a Startup From 0 to 100K Visitors/Mo In About One Year

• Scaled College Raptor from 0 to 100K organic sessions per month in about one year.
• Generated 1M+ visitors to the website.

YesOptimist used a content marketing strategy that combined evergreen, social/viral and link-earning content.

• Used public data and visualcontent (infographics, maps, rankings, etc.) to score early wins and backlinks from high-quality domain websites.
• Created a giant resource with rankings for overlooked colleges. Then, they reached out to the said colleges, and asked for a share. Overall, just this netted them around 250,000+ visitors in just one week.
• Published 200+ articles over a few months to achieve explosive growth.

14. CanIRank - How Fieldwire Scaled Marketing Without Losing Their Focus on Product

• Achieved top 3 rankings for nearly all of their primary keywords in 6 months.
• The traffic (if they’d advertised on the keywords) would cost them more than $10,000 a year.

CanIRank helped Fieldwire (web and mobile collaboration platform) boost their rankings for all primary keywords in their domain, beating out larger and more established companies.

• Used CanIRank’s “Improve My Ranking” tool to identify high potential pages with keywords that were ranking, but too low to get much traffic.
• Used data-driven on-page optimization for high potential pages.
• Revised content strategy and identified additional content topics that offered a good balance of value and ranking difficulty.
• Reached out to relevant media outlets and pitched founder interviews and other relevant stories.

You can see the full Fieldwire content marketing case study here.

15. BuzzSumo - How BuzzSumo Achieved $2.5m Annual Revenue in its First Year: Case Study in SaaS Growth

• Gained over 160K freemium subscribers and more than 2K paying customers in their first year.
• Gained 2.5M annual revenue total.

In 2014, as the use of AdBlock was growing, businesses were starting to rely on content more than ever. Here’s how BuzzSumo capitalized on the content marketing frenzy.

• Spent most of their budget on their content marketing tool, which generated more awareness, sharing, and advocacy than any marketing expenditures.
• Gained the support of important influencers (Larry Kim, Rand Fishkin, Neil Patel, etc.).
• Focused on making the product sticky and reducing churn rate.
• Created unique content based on data, gave away everything they knew, and started growing steadily over the year.

See the full case study of how BuzzSumo achieved 2.5M in annual revenue here.

16. GrooveHQ - Behind the Scenes: How We’ve Built a $5M/Year Business in 3 Years With Content Marketing

• Achieved $5M/Year in annual recurring revenue and gained over 250,000 readers each month in over 3 years.

GrooveHQ wanted to rebuild their content marketing strategy with a focus on their target market's challenges and goals. Here’s how they accomplished that:.

• Redesigned their content marketing strategy to be more transparent and focus on their own business challenges and goals.
• Asked new email subscribers about their business struggles, and answered those questions in the form of blog posts.
• Reached out to influencers, and asked for their thoughts and feedback on blog posts (Instead of begging them for shares).
• Ran A/B tests on narrative-based storytelling blog posts to see which ones performed better.

Find the full GrooveHQ $5M content marketing case study here.

17. Zest - Generate MQLs for 15x less? Yes, please. How Whatagraph crushed it

• Lowered Whatagraph’s cost per marketing qualified lead (MQL) by 15x - from $60 to just $4.
• Of all the users who signed up for a free trial as a result of the campaign, 9% were sales qualified leads (SQLs) that converted at a cost 4x less than Whatagraph’s usual paid advertising per-lead cost.

Whatagraph wanted to promote their annual marketing report template to the right audience without breaking their budget. Here’s how they did this:

• Whatagraph partnered with Zest to extend their web presence and promote their marketing annual report template.
• Paid $400 for a content boost strategy to promote their template on the Zest Content Stream and in their newsletter.
• The campaign started just before Christmas and continued through January 23, 2020, which lowered Whatagraph’s cost per MQL by 15x.

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18. AdEspresso - Facebook Ads Case Study: The Million Dollar Indiegogo Campaign

• Secured pre-orders from over 76 countries, with over 2,000 backers on Indiegogo.
• Achieved over $900K in funding.

BionicGym wanted to promote their Indiegogo page for an increase in sales and site visits. Here’s how they did this:

• Set up one campaign per country ads and set the objective to ‘Conversions’.
• Split-tested up to 252 ads and used the auto-optimization feature to relocate funding across the different ads, depending on how they performed.
• Set up retargeting campaigns and split test to everyone who visited the Indiegogo page and watched the Facebook video ad.
• Created lookalike audiences for the best-performing audiences.
• Reached a 9x ROI for some of the campaigns.

Check out the full Facebook Ads million-dollar Indiegogo campaign case study here.

19. Andrew Hubbard - $36,449 In Revenue From a $4,159 Ad Spend

• Generated $36,449 in revenue from $4,159 ad spend,
• Gained 769 new email subscribers and 128 new Facebook page likes.

Andrew Hubbard helped the client (Navid Moazzez) advertise his flagship course through Facebook ads.

• Ran ads a week before the course opened to get email newsletter opt-ins.
• Targeted warm traffic (Facebook fans, email list) first to an opt-in page.
• Ran ads for cold traffic, directing them to an un-gated (no-opt in) blog post. Once people had read the blog post, they were retargeted with ads promoting a relevant lead magnet.
• Created ads focusing on urgency and scarcity when bonus packages were starting to expire.

You can see the full Facebook Ads case study here.

19. Sugatan - Step-by-step Ecommerce Scaling from 50k/Mo to 520k/Mo with Facebook Ads

• $520K+ in monthly sales with 3.79x ROAS through the funnel.
• 2.35x ROAS at top-of-funnel, spending $100k+/monthly.

Sugatan (eCommerce growth-hacking agency) scaled their client using Facebook Ads and by testing different kinds of creatives. Here’s what, exactly, they did:

• Installed HotJar on the client’s eCommerce site to get insights on how customers behaved. Tested different video creative types, different ad ratio sizes, copy, thumbnails, and buttons to see what converted best.
• Killed off smaller ad-sets with the same audiences to prepare for scaling. Increased budget 20-30% twice per day for 2-3 days.
• Increased budget 1 month before Christmas and Black Friday sales, and launched a Facebook Messenger & email collection campaign 1 week before the sale started. Created VIP discounts for people who gave them their email addresses or subscribed to their messenger list.
• Starting running ads for the whole week before Black Friday - giving 10% off to everyone tracked via Facebook Pixel and 20% for VIP sales which were on for 24h.

Check out the full agency eCommerce business Facebook ad case study here.

20. Mark Brinker - How I Improved My Facebook Advertising By 400% In Just 4 Weeks

• Decreased cost per subscriber from $11.43 to $2.40 (79% reduction) in 4 weeks.
• Increased number of weekly subscribers from 10 to 51 (400% increase).

Mark Brinker (consultant) increased his weekly subscribers at a cheaper cost through Facebook Ads by promoting his e-book.

• Tested 6 different ad headlines and 3 ad images.
• Let all the 18 variations of the ads run for 1 week, and then eliminated the ones that were performing poorly.
• Deleted 3 more ads with headlines that were not resonating with the audience after that week.
• Found the winning combination by end of week 4 and continued running that ad.

You can see the full Facebook advertising case study here.

21. Leadpages - From 4% to 40% conversion

• Conversion rate shot up from 4% to 40% - a 10x increase from similar campaigns in the past.

Jenny Berk used Leadpage’s ad builder to promote her coaching services and optimize her micro funnel.

• Queued up $50 budget, created a custom audience from her email database (.CSV file), and layered a lookalike audience on top of that.
• Sent traffic to a targeted landing page, and created consistent ad copy and images throughout the whole funnel.
• Ran Facebook Ads for her warm leads and lookalike audiences, based on her email subscribers.

Check out Jenny’s full Facebook ads case study here.

22. Brian Downard - $194 in Facebook Ads into $100K in Sales

• Generated $106,496 in patio furniture sales from $194 in Facebook ads.

Brian Downard helped high-end patio furniture store client drive more sales and bring in more people into their local store;

• Built a warm audience using the content the furniture store had been previously sharing (blog posts, eBooks, infographics, guides, and more).
• Incentivized people to go visit the showroom in person by offering a 50% discount in the ads.
• Redirected people to a landing page from the ad, which showed a variety of products to appeal to different target audiences.
• Included a clear CTA for them to get in touch with the sales team.

You can find the full Facebook ad case study here.

23. Reinis Fischer - Spending $4 Per Day On Facebook Ads - Case Study

• Top ads gathered 1,000+ likes and shares for a budget of $8.
• Gained 50-200+ clicks per day back to the website and acquired 600+ new followers on Facebook.

Reinis Fischer grew his Facebook page about his tourism services through Facebook Ad campaigns promoting his article:

• Targeted other countries for his blog articles about tourism activities in Georgia to build brand recognition and grow his Facebook page.
• Spent $4 per day on Facebook ads and promoted only the best possible articles related to his audience.
• Promoted 1 article for 2 days with an 8$ budget for 30 days.
• Once each campaign was over, manually invited everyone who liked the posts to follow the Facebook page as well.

Check out the full spending $4 per day on Facebook ads case study here.

22. Paid Insights - AdWords Case Study: How $520 Turned Into $6,120

• Spent $520 and acquired 6 new clients for local mental health counselors.
• Gained $6,120 in revenue over 3 months.

Ross Kaplan of Paid Insights helped mental health counselor client gain new clients by running a local AdWords campaign:

• Built a new website for the client & optimized it for conversions.
• Used modified broad match keywords so that people would still get the ad even if they searched for it in a different order.
• Targeted only local zip codes surrounding the client’s office so the drive time for her customers would be under 10 minutes

Check out the full AdWords case study here.

23. Daisy-ree Quaker - PPC Case Study: How We Cut AdWords Costs by 67% With a Simple Tweak

• Costs dropped by $10,000 while conversions remained the same.
• The cost per conversion dropped from $87 to $16.
• Impressions dropped by 72% while CTR went up 103%.
• The conversion rate rose from 6% to 18%.

Daisy (online marketer) helped her SaaS client rethink their ad bidding strategy.

• SaaS company client wanted to cut back on ad spend because constantly bidding for first place was becoming too expensive.
• Realized most web users are trained to scroll past ads and decided to start bidding on 3rd position on Google as a test.
• Saw campaign results start increasing over the course of 3 months. Lowering AdWords rank helped get more views on their ads, and widened the pool of people that could see the ads because of a closer association with natural listings.

You can find the full PPC case study here.

24. Exposure Ninja - How We Increased PPC Leads by 325% in 60 Days for a Dental Clinic

• Increased conversions by 252.94% (from 17 to 60).
• Decreased cost per conversion from £154.28 to just £34.37.

Exposure Ninja helped a dental clinic, based in a competitive area for PPC ads, generate more customers.

• Installed Hotjar to understand where users were dropping off on the landing page and which areas were acting as conversion blockers. Found that visitors weren’t able to find the information they needed about the client's top service.
• Created a new landing page focusing on their priority, high-profit services.
• Because the client was running a Google Ads campaign before, they could use historical data to experiment with advanced bidding strategies.
• Introduced the new landing pages and tweaked the campaigns to maximize the client’s budget.

You can find the full increased dental PPC leads case study here.

25. ColaDigital - How We Increased Sales by 30% in 30-days Using Optimized Google Ads For a Local Business

• Increased year over year sales for local business by 30% in 30-days

ColaDigital helped a client set up their Google Ads account campaign from the ground up after they had an unpleasant experience with another agency.

• Created unique ad groups and ads for the client's most profitable keywords.
• Set up a hyper-targeted campaign using 1 unique ad group and 3 different match types for each ad group keyword.
• Set up negative keywords and turned on audience demographics in Google Analytics

You can find the full google ads local business case study here.

26. BoxCrush - AdWords Success Story

Helped an industrial client who had a lot of impressions but very little clicks:

• Increase CTR from 2.41% to 3.89%
• Decrease CPC from $2.24 to $2.17 in 1 month.

BoxCrush helped an industrial client improve their AdWords campaign when their click-through rate had fallen.

• Rebuilt customer’s AdWords account from the ground up, splitting it into meaningful campaigns that targeted specific demographics.
• Built Ad Groups within each campaign and created ads targeting audiences with each group.
• Once they saw an increase in performance, they expanded the client’s campaign from three Ad groups to six.
• Made the ads relate more to specific keywords, which caused the clickthrough rate to increase.
• Refined and re-optimized the process over time, causing the results to grow even further after the 1st month.

27. Sumo - How Noah Kagan Grew A Website To 10K Visitors In A Month

• Grew website from 0 to 10K visitors in a month.
• Grew email list from 173 to 2,322 in 3 days.

Noah Kagan took on an apprentice (Julien Marion) and helped him grow his brand new blog about sleep from scratch, with no prior connections or budget.

• Created a simple landing page to capture emails before the site was live.
• Set realistic and SMART traffic goals of 10,000 visitors in 30 days.
• Created a quant-based marketing approach strategy to build the plan, thus working backward from the 10K visitors goal.
• Reached out to relevant companies to participate in a viral giveaway that he would then promote to the site’s audience through their newsletter.
• Reached out to niche influencers for interviews to drive referral traffic.
• Tracked daily results and goals to stay accountable.

See the full marketing plan and the whole growing website case study here.

28. HubSpot - How PureVPN Increased Website Traffic by 289% Through Storytelling

• Gained a 289% increase in new visitors’ traffic site year over year.
• Helped raise awareness on cyberstalking and attracted people who wanted to add to the conversation.

PureVPN wanted to tell the stories of cyberstalking victims and raise awareness on the subject. Here's how they did it:

• Designed a buyer’s journey centered around raising awareness on cyberstalking and its effects on society.
• Researched reading habits of their buyer persona, used keyword research tools for idea generation, and searched for topics on Quora based on questions real people were asking.Gathered statistical data of past and recent cyberstalking incidents. Identified and reached out to influencers who were associated with cyberstalking awareness campaigns and victims or people who could tell their stories.
• Interviewed influencers and turned the interviews into blog posts. Experienced a significant spike in website traffic through influencers sharing the content.

See how PureVPN increased website traffic through storytelling and influencer marketing tactics here.

29. Beeketing - How Gymshark Grew by 200%+ Year On Year and Hit £41M in Sales

• Grew by 200% year on year and hit £41M in sales in nearly 7 years.
• Achieved a cult-like following.

Ben Francis (founder of GymShark) disrupted the gym apparels market using social media and influencer marketing.

• Only selected specific influencers with strong Instagram engagement and following to gain credibility.
• Sponsored various fitness Instagrammers, YouTubers, and bloggers and organized meet-ups.
• Partnered with fitness and lifestyle influencers on TikTok.
• Announced the "66 Days" fitness challenge on their site and other social media platforms to drive user-generated content.
• Built long-lasting relationships with fans on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Spotify, and other social media channels.

Check out the full Gymshark influencer growth story here.

30. Leadfeeder - How ConvertKit Grew from $98k to $625k MRR by Doing 150 Webinars in 1 Year

• Grew monthly revenue from $98K to $625K in 12 months.
• Hosted more than 150 webinars in the first year, saw a 637% growth in monthly revenue.

Founders of ConvertKit (email marketing platform) wanted to grow their brand and generate revenue with a low budget. They decided to focus on webinars.

• Focused on one marketing strategy (webinars) that didn’t require a lot of money and they could use to build a community around a relatively new product.
• Maintained a wide-open affiliate program and started doing webinars with any affiliate partner, no matter how small their audience was.
• Gave away tons of free information in 20-30 webinars per month, while asking for nothing in return.
• Maintained a narrow target audience (blogging community), and kept the technology simple (minimal tech issues).

You can find the full webinar marketing case study by ConvertKit here.

31. Buffer - The Simple Facebook Posting Strategy That Helped us 3x Our Reach and Engagement

• Tripled reach from 44,000 to 150,000+ people per week on Facebook.
• Increased average daily engagement from ~500 to 1,000+.
• Posts started reaching between 5,000-20,000 people

Buffer noticed their Facebook reach and engagement were decreasing for their posts over time. Here's what they did:

• Noticed that the more they posted on Facebook, the less reach they received with each post.
• Started posting only entertaining and educational content.
• Posted only once or twice on Facebook and curated content to increase engagement.
• Created a few brand awareness and engagement-focused posts to build an active Facebook audience.
• Boosted posts that were already performing well to amplify the reach.

You can find Buffer’s complete Facebook posting strategy here.

32. SEMRush - Raise Your Game: A Step-By-Step Guide To Gamification Marketing

• More than 9,300 users took part in their game.
• Received 8+ million impressions on Twitter.

SEMRush wanted to educate their users on their different product features and stand out while doing so. For this, they used gamification marketing..

• Customers were finding it hard to stay up to date with all the novelties the SEMRush tool offered. SEMRush wanted to increase their awareness of their platform’s wide functionality and increase the number of tools people used.
• Aligned campaign with a global event (Easter).
• Made it so that the Egg Hunt game looked good and felt satisfying from a gamification perspective. Those who found all 15 eggs were awarded a list of the 10,000 most searched keywords for 10 countries.
• Created a special hashtag for Twitter (#semrushegghunt), which picked up and went viral, and made sure the customer support and social media teams were ready in case users needed any help.

Check out the full step-by-step guide to gamification marketing case study here.

33. Hootsuite - How the British Museum Increased Social Media Engagement by 126%

• Gained 2M+ new followers on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.
• Gained 126% more tweet responses, increasing customer engagement.
• Over 1,300 tweets tagged and analyzed to uncover actionable insights.

The British Museum turned to Hootsuite to set up a better social media campaign strategy and engage more frequently and more effectively with its audience.

• Set a three key goal strategy to increase online reach and engagement, deliver digital-first customer service, and identify opportunities for income and revenue generation.
• Identified opportunities to develop channel-specific content to make the best of each social media channel.
• Used Hootsuite to adapt to the new social media strategy and to track and analyze results.

See the full British Museum social media case study here.

34. Saashacker - 19 SaaS Marketing Strategies That Bootstrapped Ahrefs To $40m ARR

• Grew from 15 to 50 employees and over $40M in annual recurring revenue while being 100% bootstrapped.

Ahrefs used a mix of different SaaS marketing strategies to grow their brand.

• Rejected conventional SaaS marketing wisdom, focused on product quality driving word of mouth marketing and boosted their exposure at the world’s biggest SEO event. Went semi-viral on Twitter by adding nerdy SEO data to the coffee cups at the conference and giving them away to attendees..
• Produced a lot of content on how their SEO tool solved specific problems and used blog posts as ads.
• Created and gave away courses on blogging for businesses for free, used word of mouth marketing to promote it, and pushed employee images to the front to gain readers’ trust.
• Did 20 podcasts in 4 months, posted content a lot on Reddit, YouTube, their own blog, and other channels.
• ...And a LOT more.

See the full case study here.

And that’s a wrap!

Ready to 10x your business through digital marketing now?

We hope the above case studies were helpful and you can use them as inspiration to drive amazing results.

For more industry-leading digital marketing content and tips, be sure to check out our blog .

Did we miss a case study? Have YOU done something interesting that deserves a mention in this list?

Let us know down in the comments, we’d love to hear from you!

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Blog Marketing What is a Marketing Plan & How to Create One [with Examples]

What is a Marketing Plan & How to Create One [with Examples]

Written by: Sara McGuire Oct 26, 2023

A marketing plan is a blueprint that outlines your strategies to attract and convert your ideal customers as a part of your customer acquisition strategy . It’s a comprehensive document that details your:

• Target audience:  Who you’re trying to reach
• Marketing goals:  What you want to achieve
• Strategies and tactics:  How you’ll reach your goals
• Budget:  Resources you’ll allocate
• Metrics:  How you’ll measure success

In this article, I’ll explain everything you need to know about creating a marketing plan . If you need a little extra help, there are professionally designed marketing plan templates that’ll make the process much easier. So, let’s ditch the confusion and get started!

Click to jump ahead:

What is a marketing plan?

How to write a marketing plan .

• Marketing plan v.s. business plan
• Types of marketing plans

9 marketing plan examples to inspire your growth strategy

Marketing plan faqs.

A marketing plan is a report that outlines your marketing strategy for your products or services, which could be applicable for the coming year, quarter or month.  

Watch this quick, 13-minute video for more details on what a marketing plan is and how to make one yourself:

Typically, a marketing plan includes:

• An overview of your business’s marketing and advertising goals
• A description of your business’s current marketing position
• A timeline of when tasks within your strategy will be completed
• Key performance indicators (KPIs) you will be tracking
• A description of your business’s target market and customer needs
• A description of how you will measure the performance of the strategy

For example, this marketing plan template provides a high-level overview of the business and competitors before diving deep into specific goals, KPIs and tactics:

Learning how to write a marketing plan forces you to think through the important steps that lead to an effective marketing strategy . And a well-defined plan will help you stay focused on your high-level marketing goals.

With Venngage’s extensive catalog of marketing plan templates , creating your marketing plan isn’t going to be hard or tedious. In fact, Venngage has plenty of helpful communications and design resources for marketers. If you’re ready to get started, sign up for  Venngage for Marketers   now. It’s free to register and start designing.

Whether you’re a team trying to set smarter marketing goals, a consultant trying to set your client in the right direction, or a one-person team hustling it out, Venngage for Marketers helps you get things done.

As mentioned above, the scope of your marketing plan varies depending on its purpose or the type of organization it’s for.

For example, you could create a marketing plan that provides an overview of a company’s entire marketing strategy or simply focus on a specific channel like SEO, social media marketing, content marketing and more, like in this example:

A typical outline of a marketing plan includes:

• Executive summary
• Goals and objectives
• User personas
• Competitor analysis/SWOT analysis
• Baseline metrics
• Marketing strategy
• Tracking guidelines

Below you will see in details how to write each section as well as some examples of how you can design each section in a marketing plan.

Let’s look at how to create a successful marketing plan (click to jump ahead):

• Write a simple executive summary
• Set metric-driven marketing goals
• Outline your user personas
• Research all of your competitors
• Set accurate key baselines & metrics
• Create an actionable marketing strategy
• Set tracking or reporting guidelines

1. Write a simple executive summary

Starting your marketing plan off on the right foot is important. You want to pull people into your amazing plan for marketing domination. Not bore them to tears.

One of the best ways to get people excited to read your marketing plan is with a well-written executive summary. An executive summary introduces readers to your company goals, marketing triumphs, future plans, and other important contextual facts.

Basically, you can use the Executive Summary as a primer for the rest of your marketing plan.

Include things like:

• Simple marketing goals
• High-level metrics
• Important company milestones
• Facts about your brand
• Employee anecdotes
• Future goals & plans

Try to keep your executive summary rather brief and to the point. You aren’t writing a novel, so try to keep it under three to four paragraphs.

Take a look at the executive summary in the marketing plan example below:

The executive summary is only two paragraphs long — short but effective.

The executive summary tells readers about the company’s growth, and how they are about to overtake one of their competitors. But there’s no mention of specific metrics or figures. That will be highlighted in the next section of the marketing plan.

An effective executive summary should have enough information to pique the reader’s interest, but not bog them down with specifics yet. That’s what the rest of your marketing plan is for!

The executive summary also sets the tone for your marketing plan. Think about what tone will fit your brand ? Friendly and humorous? Professional and reliable? Inspiring and visionary?

2. Set metric-driven marketing goals

After you perfect your executive summary, it’s time to outline your marketing goals.

(If you’ve never set data-driven goals like this before, it would be worth reading this growth strategy guide ).

This is one of the most important parts of the entire marketing plan, so be sure to take your time and be as clear as possible. Moreover, optimizing your marketing funnel is key. Employing effective funnel software can simplify operations and provide valuable customer insights. It facilitates lead tracking, conversion rate analysis, and efficient marketing optimization .

As a rule of thumb, be as specific as possible. The folks over at  VoyMedia  advise that you should set goals that impact website traffic, conversions, and customer success — and to use real numbers.

Avoid outlining vague goals like:

• Get more Twitter followers
• Write more articles
• Create more YouTube videos (like educational or Explainer videos )
• Increase retention rate
• Decrease bounce rate

Instead, identify  key performance metrics  (KPI) you want to impact and the percentage you want to increase them by.

Take a look at the goals page in the marketing plan example below:

They not only identify a specific metric in each of their goals, but they also set a timeline for when they will be increased.

The same vague goals listed earlier become much clearer when specific numbers and timelines are applied to them:

• Get 100 new Twitter followers per month
• Write 5 more articles per week
• Create 10 YouTube videos each year
• Increase retention rate by 15% by 2020
• Decrease bounce rate by 5% by Q1
• Create an online course  and get 1,000 new leads
• Focus more on local SEO strategies
• Conduct a monthly social media report to track progress

You can dive even deeper into your marketing goals if you want (generally, the more specific, the better). Here’s a marketing plan example that shows how to outline your growth goals:

3. Outline your user personas

Now, this may not seem like the most important part of your marketing plan, but I think it holds a ton of value.

Outlining your user personas is an important part of a marketing plan that should not be overlooked.

You should be asking not just how you can get the most visitors to your business, but how you can get the right visitors.

Who are your ideal customers? What are their goals? What are their biggest problems? How does your business solve customer problems?

Answering these questions will take lots of research, but it’s essential information to get.

Some ways to conduct user research are:

• Interviewing your users (either in person or on the phone)
• Conducting focus groups
• Researching other businesses in the same industry
• Surveying your audience

Then, you will need to compile your user data into a user persona  guide.

Take a look at how detailed this user persona template is below:

Taking the time to identify specific demographic traits, habits and goals will make it easier for you to cater your marketing plan to them.

Here’s how you can create a user persona guide:

The first thing you should add is a profile picture or icon for each user persona. It can help to put a face to your personas, so they seem more real.

Next, list demographic information like:

• Identifiers
• Activities/Hobbies

The user persona example above uses sliding scales to identify personality traits like introversion vs. extroversion and thinking vs. feeling. Identifying what type of personality your target users tend to have an influence on the messaging you use in your marketing content.

Meanwhile, this user persona guide identifies specific challenges the user faces each day:

But if you don’t want to go into such precise detail, you can stick to basic information, like in this marketing plan example:

Most businesses will have a few different types of target users. That’s why it’s pertinent to identify and create several different user personas . That way, you can better segment your marketing campaigns and set separate goals, if necessary.

Here’s a marketing plan example with a segmented user persona guide:

The important thing is for your team or client to have a clear picture of who their target user is and how they can appeal to their specific problems.

Start creating robust user personas using Venngage’s user persona guide .

4. Conduct an extensive competitor analysis

Next, on the marketing plan checklist, we have the competitor research section. This section will help you identify who your competitors are, what they’re doing, and how you could carve yourself a place alongside them in your niche — and ideally, surpass them. It’s something you can learn to do with rank tracking software .

Competitor research is also incredibly important if you are starting a blog .

Typically, your competitor research should include:

• Who their marketing team is
• Who their leadership team is
• What their marketing strategy and strategic marketing plan are (this will probably revolve some reverse-engineering)
• What their sales strategy is (same deal)
• Social Media strategy (are they using discounting strategies such as coupon marketing to get conversions)
• Their market cap/financials
• Their yearly growth (you will probably need to use a marketing tool like Ahrefs to do this)
• The number of customers they have & their user personas

Also, take as deep a dive as you can into the strategies they use across their:

• Blog/Content marketing
• Social media marketing
• SEO Marketing
• Video marketing
• And any other marketing tactics they use

Research their strengths and weaknesses in all parts of their company, and you will find some great opportunities. Bookmark has a great guide to different marketing strategies for small businesses  if you need some more information there.

You can use this simple SWOT analysis worksheet to quickly work through all parts of their strategy as well:

Click the template above to create a SWOT chart . Customize the template to your liking — no design know-how needed.

Since you have already done all the research beforehand, adding this information to your marketing plan shouldn’t be that hard.

In this marketing plan example, some high-level research is outlined for 3 competing brands:

But you could take a deeper dive into different facets of your competitors’ strategies. This marketing plan example analyses a competitor’s content marketing strategy:

It can also be helpful to divide your competitors into Primary and Secondary groups. For example, Apple’s primary competitor may be Dell for computers, but its secondary competitor could be a company that makes tablets.

Your most dangerous competitors may not even be in the same industry as you. Like the CEO of Netflix said, “Sleep is our competition.”

5. Set accurate key baselines & metrics

It’s pretty hard to plan for the future if you don’t know where your business stands right now.

Before we do anything at Venngage, we find the baselines so we can compare future results to something. We do it so much it’s almost like second nature now!

Setting baselines will allow you to more accurately track your progress. You will also be able to better analyze what worked and what didn’t work, so you can build a stronger strategy. It will definitely help them clearly understand your goals and strategy as well.

Here’s a marketing plan example where the baselines are visualized:

Another way to include baselines in your plan is with a simple chart, like in the marketing plan example below:

Because data can be intimidating to a lot of people, visualizing your data using charts and infographics will help demystify the information.

6. Create an actionable marketing strategy

After pulling all the contextual information and relevant metrics into your marketing plan, it’s time to break down your marketing strategy.

Once again, it’s easier to communicate your information to your team or clients using visuals .

Mind maps are an effective way to show how a strategy with many moving parts ties together. For example, this mind map shows how the four main components of a marketing strategy interact together:

You can also use a flow chart to map out your strategy by objectives:

However you choose to visualize your strategy, your team should know exactly what they need to do. This is not the time to keep your cards close to your chest.

Your strategy section may need to take up a few pages to explain, like in the marketing plan example below:

With all of this information, even someone from the development team will understand what the marketing team is working on.

This minimalistic marketing plan example uses color blocks to make the different parts of the strategy easy to scan:

Breaking your strategy down into tasks will make it easier to tackle.

Another important way to visualize your marketing strategy is to create a project roadmap. A project roadmap visualizes the timeline of your product with individual tasks. Our roadmap maker can help you with this.

For example, this project roadmap shows how tasks on both the marketing and web design side run parallel to each other:

A simple timeline can also be used in your marketing plan:

Or a mind map, if you want to include a ton of information in a more organized way:

Even a simple “Next, Now, Later” chart can help visualize your strategy:

7. Set tracking or reporting guidelines

Close your marketing plan with a brief explanation of how you plan to track or measure your results. This will save you a lot of frustration down the line by standardizing how you track results across your team.

Like the other sections of your marketing plan, you can choose how in-depth you want to go. But there need to be some clear guidelines on how to measure the progress and results of your marketing plan.

At the bare minimum, your results tracking guidelines should specify:

• What you plan to track
• How you plan to track results
• How often you plan to measure

But you can more add tracking guidelines to your marketing plan if you see the need to. You may also want to include a template that your team or client can follow,  for  client reporting ,  ensure that the right metrics are being tracked.

The marketing plan example below dedicates a whole page to tracking criteria:

Use a task tracker to track tasks and marketing results, and a checklist maker to note down tasks, important life events, or tracking your daily life.

Similarly, the marketing plan example below talks about tracking content marketing instead:

Marketing plan vs. marketing strategy

Although often used interchangeably, the terms “marketing plan” and “marketing strategy” do have some differences.

Simply speaking, a marketing strategy presents what the business will do in order to reach a certain goal. A marketing plan outlines the specific daily, weekly, monthly or yearly activities that the marketing strategy calls for. As a business, you can create a marketing proposal for the marketing strategies defined in your company’s marketing plan. There are various marketing proposal examples that you can look at to help with this.

A company’s extended marketing strategy can be like this:

Notice how it’s more general and doesn’t include the actual activities required to complete each strategy or the timeframe those marketing activities will take place. That kind of information is included in a marketing plan, like this marketing plan template which talks about the content strategy in detail:

Marketing plan v.s business plan

While both marketing plans and business plans are crucial documents for businesses, they serve distinct purposes and have different scopes. Here’s a breakdown of the key differences:

Business plan is a comprehensive document that outlines all aspects of your business, including:

• Mission and vision
• Products or services
• Target market
• Competition
• Management team
• Financial projections
• Marketing strategy (including a marketing plan)
• Operations plan

Marketing plan on the other hand, dives deep into the specific strategies and tactics related to your marketing efforts. It expands on the marketing section of a business plan by detailing:

• Specific marketing goals (e.g., brand awareness, lead generation, sales)
• Target audience analysis (detailed understanding of their needs and behaviors)
• Product:  Features, benefits, positioning
• Price:  Pricing strategy, discounts
• Place:  Distribution channels (online, offline)
• Promotion:  Advertising, social media, content marketing, public relations
• Budget allocation for different marketing activities
• Metrics and measurement to track progress and success

In short, business plans paint the entire business picture, while marketing plans zoom in on the specific strategies used to reach your target audience and achieve marketing goals.

Types of marketing plans that can transform your business strategy

Let’s take a look at several types of marketing plans you can create, along with specific examples for each.

1. General marketing strategic plan / Annual marketing plan

This is a good example of a marketing plan that covers the overarching annual marketing strategy for a company:

Another good example would be this Starbucks marketing plan:

This one-page marketing plan example from coffee chain Starbucks has everything at a glance. The bold headers and subheadings make it easier to segment the sections so readers can focus on the area most relevant to them.

What we like about this example is how much it covers. From the ideal buyer persona to actional activities, as well as positioning and metrics, this marketing plan has it all.

Another marketing plan example that caught our eye is this one from Cengage. Although a bit text-heavy and traditional, it explains the various sections well. The clean layout makes this plan easy to read and absorb.

The last marketing plan example we would like to feature in this section is this one from Lush cosmetics.

It is a long one but it’s also very detailed. The plan outlines numerous areas, including the company mission, SWOT analysis , brand positioning, packaging, geographical criteria, and much more.

2. Content marketing plan

A content marketing plan highlights different strategies , campaigns or tactics you can use for your content to help your business reach its goals.

This one-page marketing plan example from Contently outlines a content strategy and workflow using simple colors and blocks. The bullet points detail more information but this plan can easily be understood at a glance, which makes it so effective.

For a more detailed content marketing plan example, take a look at this template which features an editorial calendar you can share with the whole team:

3. SEO marketing plan

Your SEO marketing plan highlights what you plan to do for your SEO marketing strategy . This could include tactics for website on-page optimization , off-page optimization using AI SEO , and link building using an SEO PowerSuite backlink API for quick backlink profile checks.

This SEO marketing plan example discusses in detail the target audience of the business and the SEO plan laid out in different stages:

4. Social media marketing plan

Your social media marketing plan presents what you’ll do to reach your marketing goal through social media. This could include tactics specific to each social media channel that you own, recommendations on developing a new channel, specific campaigns you want to run, and so on, like how B2B channels use Linkedin to generate leads with automation tools and expand their customer base; or like making use of Twitter walls that could display live Twitter feeds from Twitter in real-time on digital screens.

For B2C brands, you can target Facebook and Instagram. Gain Instagram likes to build trust for your brand’s profile and post engaging content on both platforms

Edit this social media marketing plan example easily with Venngage’s drag-and-drop editor:

5. Demand generation marketing plan

This could cover your paid marketing strategy (which can include search ads, paid social media ads, traditional advertisements, etc.), email marketing strategy and more. Here’s an example:

1. Free marketing plan template

Here’s a free nonprofit marketing plan example that is ideal for organizations with a comprehensive vision to share. It’s a simple plan that is incredibly effective. Not only does the plan outline the core values of the company, it also shares the ideal buyer persona.

Note how the branding is consistent throughout this example so there is no doubt which company is presenting this plan. The content plan is an added incentive for anyone viewing the document to go ahead and give the team the green light.

2. Pastel social media marketing campaign template

Two-page marketing plan samples aren’t very common, but this free template proves how effective they are. There’s a dedicated section for business goals as well as for project planning .

The milestones for the marketing campaign are clearly laid out, which is a great way to show how organized this business strategy is.

3. Small business marketing strategy template

This marketing plan template is perfect for small businesses who set out to develop an overarching marketing strategy for the whole year:

Notice how this aligns pretty well with the marketing plan outline we discussed in previous sections.

In terms of specific tactics for the company’s marketing strategy, the template only discusses SEO strategy, but you can certainly expand on that section to discuss any other strategies — such as link building , that you would like to build out a complete marketing plan for.

4. Orange simple marketing proposal template

Marketing plans, like the sample below, are a great way to highlight what your business strategy and the proposal you wan to put forward to win potential customers.

5. One-page marketing fact sheet template

This one-page marketing plan example is great for showcasing marketing efforts in a persuasive presentation or to print out for an in-person meeting.

Note how the fact sheet breaks down the marketing budget as well as the key metrics for the organization. You can win over clients and partners with a plan like this.

6. Light company business fact sheet template

This one-page sample marketing plan clearly outlines the marketing objectives for the organization. It’s a simple but effective way to share a large amount of information in a short amount of time.

What really works with this example is that includes a mission statement, key contact information alongside all the key metrics.

7. Marketing media press kit template

This press kit marketing plan template is bright and unmistakable as belonging to the Cloud Nine marketing agency . The way the brand colors are used also helps diversify the layouts for each page, making the plan easier to read.

We like the way the marketing department has outlined the important facts about the organization. The bold and large numbers draw the eye and look impressive.

8. Professional marketing proposal template

Start your marketing campaign on a promising note with this marketing plan template. It’s short, sharp and to the point. The table of contents sets out the agenda, and there’s a page for the company overview and mission statement.

9. Social media marketing proposal template

A complete marketing plan example, like the one below, not only breaks down the business goals to be achieved but a whole lot more. Note how the terms and conditions and payment schedule are included, which makes this one of the most comprehensive marketing plans on our list.

What should marketing plans include?

Marketing plans should include:

• A detailed analysis of the target market and customer segments.
• Clear and achievable marketing objectives and goals.
• Strategies and tactics for product promotion and distribution.
• Budget allocation for various marketing activities.
• Timelines and milestones for the implementation of marketing strategies.
• Evaluation metrics and methods for tracking the success of the marketing plan.

What is an executive summary in a marketing plan and what is its main goal?

An executive summary in a marketing plan is a brief overview of the entire document, summarizing the key points, goals, and strategies. Its main goal is to provide readers with a quick understanding of the plan’s purpose and to entice them to read further.

What are the results when a marketing plan is effective?

When a marketing plan is effective, businesses can experience increased brand visibility, higher customer engagement, improved sales and revenue, and strengthened customer loyalty.

What is the first section of a marketing plan?

The first section of a marketing plan is typically the “Executive Summary,” which provides a concise overview of the entire plan, including the business’s goals and the strategies to achieve them.

Now that you have the basics for designing your own marketing plan, it’s time to get started:

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• 20+ White Paper Examples [Design Guide + White Paper Templates]
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Table of Contents

The 4ps of amazon's marketing strategy, amazon marketing channel types, amazon's digital marketing strategy, become a digital marketer in 2022, amazon marketing strategy 2024: a case study.

Amazon is the largest online store in the world based on sales and market value. This online business has changed how people all over the world do business. Jeff Bezos started the company in Washington, USA on July 05, 1994. He was the CEO of the company till July 2021. Andy Jassy took over as the President and CEO of Amazon on July 05 2021. 

The first success for Amazon came along very quickly. It began as an online bookstore and kept adding to what it could do. In 1997, the company went public and is now on the NASDAQ in the US. Without help from the press, the company could sell books in 45 countries in less than two months. Amazon is now in more than 200 countries, and its website sells almost everything. Its subsidiaries include Audible, Twitch, IMDb, and Amazon Web Services.

Become a Certified Digital Marketer Today

Amazon looks at the " marketing mix " of a company or brand, which comprises the 4Ps - 

Here is a comprehensive explanation of each factor's function.

Amazon used only to sell books online, but now it sells millions of different products in many categories. Shoes, jewelry, clothes, toys, home and kitchen appliances, electronics, books, the great outdoors, sports, car accessories, and works of art are some of the most popular products. Amazon sells goods from small businesses and shops but promotes its brand , Amazon Basics.

A company can price its products in several different ways. Here are some to remember: 

• Cost-plus pricing 
• Value pricing 
• Competitor pricing 
• Price discrimination

Amazon often uses a pricing strategy called "competitive pricing," in which it looks at the prices of its competitors and bases its prices on those. It helps keep costs low and gives customers a lot of choices.

Amazon also uses the following methods to set prices:

• Promotional pricing
• Behavioral pricing

Amazon can change its products daily because of how it runs its business. This is its best feature, making it hard for other companies to compete with Amazon.

Amazon's online store has grown over the past few years in many parts of the world. Millions of products are now more accessible to customers worldwide to get. Even if you live in a remote part of the world, you can get packages quickly from Amazon. Part of the company's success comes from the fact that it ships fast and has fulfillment hubs.

4. Promotion

When it comes to marketing, Amazon knows how important communication is. It uses a lot of different kinds of advertising to reach people who might buy or use its products. Amazon has a lot of sales and discounts, which is a great way to build its brand. It has regular ads on websites, newspapers, TV, billboards, and social media , among other places. There are also affiliate sites that work with Amazon.

Also Read - What are the 7 Ps of Marketing? Read this article and find out! 

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PPC advertising on Amazon can be put into three groups:

1. Headline Search Ads

If you want to get your brand out there, it's best to use headline search ads. Amazon now has two ways to promote brands, especially during the holiday season:

• Headline Search Ads
• Amazon Stores

Title and Amazon Stores Together, Search Ads can help people know more about your brand and the products you sell. It also builds trust with customers and makes sure that your products are shown in the right way.

By combining Headline Search Ads, Amazon Stores, and Sponsored Products into a single Pay-Per-Click (PPC) marketing campaign, you can easily reach many shoppers in less time.

2. Product Display Ads

Another type of effective PPC ad is a "Product Display Ad," which is placed next to the product or in the "similar items" section on the product page. This kind of ad is only meant to be self-service. It is linked to the ASINs of the products, which gives sellers many options for focusing on different types of customers based on how they act.

3. Sponsored Product Ads

One of the best ways to get more people to see and buy your product is to pay for an advertisement. Sponsored product ads appear on the top when you search for something on Amazon.

Amazon's digital marketing strategy is comprehensive, and they reach the customers through digital marketing. Today, everyone uses social media. Amazon advertises its products on social media, taking advantage of those who use those sites and sending them to their product pages to help them sell more. It has teamed up with several big and small influencers in the country to reach its audience more effectively. It uses Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Pinterest, and Facebook.

Amazon on Facebook

There are 10 million people who follow Amazon India on Facebook . It primarily uses Facebook to share company news and advertising. It uses strong advertising to get the word out about its Sale Days. It also stays up-to-date by publishing posts on different topics.

Amazon on Instagram

Interviews with artists from different backgrounds and key advertising are the main parts of Amazon's Instagram marketing plan. It has more than 2.8 million Instagram followers. The company's strategies for Instagram and Facebook are very similar, except that it doesn't post updates about company news on either platform. Both platforms have posts from the company that are very similar. 

Amazon on Twitter

Amazon India has a different plan for getting new customers through Twitter. It stays in touch with its followers, using a wide range of content, holding contests to get new customers, and following and creating trends. It is one of the biggest in its field, with two million Twitter followers. Twitter content makes it sound less like advertising and more like personal recommendations. 

Amazon on YouTube

The best thing about Amazon's YouTube ads is that they immediately grab people's attention. Amazon makes sure that its ads are always interesting and valuable. Most of the time, it does this by trying to make the customer feel special. 

Amazon on Pinterest

More than a million people follow Amazon on Pinterest. They use Pinterest to promote their products based on a wide range of themes to grab people's attention.

The way Amazon uses digital marketing is unparalleled. To stay competitive, they should keep making more exciting content and putting it out in the best way possible. Amazon Marketing Strategy gets updated periodically to stay ahead of the curve. Competing in the retail industry is complex, and Amazon's marketing strategy has helped the company stay ahead of the competition.

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Case study Marketing: Top 20 case study Marketing hay nhất mọi thời đại

Bạn đang muốn tìm hiểu những case study marketing xuất sắc nhất mọi thời đại để lấy cảm hứng và áp dụng cho chiến lược marketing của mình? Bạn muốn biết những thương hiệu nổi tiếng đã sáng tạo ra những chiến dịch marketing độc đáo và hiệu quả như thế nào? 

Bài viết này sẽ cung cấp cho bạn top 20 case study marketing hay nhất mọi thời đại, từ các lĩnh vực khác nhau.

Case study marketing là gì?

Case study marketing là một phương pháp nghiên cứu thực tế về một vấn đề, chiến dịch, hoặc chiến lược kinh doanh của một công ty, tổ chức, hoặc cá nhân. Mục đích của case study marketing là phân tích các yếu tố thành công và thất bại, đánh giá hiệu quả và hiệu suất, và đề xuất các giải pháp cải tiến. 

Case study marketing có thể được sử dụng để:

• Giới thiệu một sản phẩm, dịch vụ, hoặc thương hiệu mới.
• Khẳng định uy tín và chuyên môn của một công ty, tổ chức, hoặc cá nhân.
• Chia sẻ kinh nghiệm và bài học học được từ một dự án, chiến dịch, hoặc sự kiện.
• Thuyết phục khách hàng tiềm năng về giá trị và lợi ích của một giải pháp.
• So sánh và đối chiếu các phương án khác nhau để giải quyết một vấn đề.

Các hình thức case study marketing là gì?

Case study khách hàng: .

Tập trung vào trải nghiệm của một khách hàng cụ thể khi tương tác với sản phẩm và dịch vụ của doanh nghiệp bạn. Case study khách hàng có thể giúp bạn khẳng định uy tín và chuyên môn, chia sẻ kinh nghiệm và bài học học được, và thuyết phục khách hàng tiềm năng về giá trị và lợi ích của một giải pháp.

Ví dụ: Cách Grab Việt Nam tăng trưởng 300% trong năm 2019.

Case study giải thích: 

Nghiên cứu trường hợp này khám phá tác động của một chiến lược cụ thể hoặc sản phẩm với doanh nghiệp. Case study giải thích có thể giúp bạn giới thiệu một sản phẩm, dịch vụ, hoặc thương hiệu mới, so sánh và đối chiếu các phương án khác nhau để giải quyết một vấn đề.

 Ví dụ: Cách Vinamilk xây dựng thương hiệu sữa Việt Nam trên thế giới.

Case study triển khai: 

Nghiên cứu trường hợp này mô tả quá trình triển khai một chiến lược hoặc sản phẩm từ đầu đến cuối. Case study triển khai có thể giúp bạn minh họa các bước, công cụ, và kết quả của một dự án, chiến dịch, hoặc sự kiện. 

Ví dụ: Cách The Coffee House sử dụng livestream để tăng doanh thu trong mùa dịch Covid-19.

Tại sao nên sử dụng marketing case study?

Doanh nghiệp nên tận dụng case study marketing vì những lý do sau:

• Case study marketing là những công cụ marketing hiệu quả, có thể được sử dụng trong nhiều kênh truyền thông khác nhau, như website, blog, email, video, mạng xã hội…
• Giúp bạn xây dựng mức độ tín nhiệm nhanh chóng với khách hàng tiềm năng bằng cách cung cấp những bằng chứng cụ thể và đo lường được về hiệu quả của sản phẩm hoặc dịch vụ
• Có lợi thế hơn đối thủ cạnh tranh khác bằng cách thể hiện rõ ràng giá trị cộng mà bạn mang lại cho khách hàng.
• Tăng doanh thu bằng cách kích thích sự tò mò và hứng thú của khách hàng tiềm năng, khuyến khích họ liên hệ với bạn để biết thêm thông tin hoặc yêu cầu báo giá.
• Giữ chân khách hàng hiện tại bằng cách tạo ra sự gắn kết và niềm tin tưởng lâu dài, cũng như khuyến khích họ giới thiệu sản phẩm hoặc dịch vụ của bạn cho người khác.

20 ví dụ về Case Study Marketing điển hình

Chiến dịch facebook marketing của oreo: .

Đây là một Case Study Marketing ấn tượng của Oreo, một thương hiệu bánh quy nổi tiếng của Mỹ. Chiến dịch này được khởi động vào năm 2012, khi Oreo kỷ niệm 100 năm thành lập. 

Trong vòng 100 ngày, Oreo đã đăng mỗi ngày một bức ảnh quảng cáo độc đáo lên fanpage Facebook của mình, với hình ảnh chiếc bánh Oreo được biến hóa theo các tin tức, xu hướng và sự kiện nổi bật trên thế giới. 

Mỗi bức ảnh đều có slogan “Celebrate the kid inside” (Hãy ăn mừng đứa trẻ bên trong bạn) và kèm theo hashtag #DailyTwist (Xoáy hàng ngày). Chiến dịch này có thể được coi là một thành công lớn vì nó đã tạo ra một hiệu ứng lan tỏa trên mạng xã hội, khiến cho nhiều người biết đến và quan tâm đến Oreo, một sản phẩm đã có lịch sử lâu đời và quen thuộc. 

Chiến dịch này đã thu hút được hơn 40 triệu lượt theo dõi và hàng triệu lượt bình luận, chia sẻ và thích.

Nghệ thuật bong bóng xà phòng của Lush: 

Chiến dịch này được khởi động vào năm 2016, khi Lush phát động chiến dịch nghệ thuật trong phòng tắm và khuyến khích mọi người cùng tham gia vào chiến dịch này. Với góc nhìn mới lạ về hoạt động tắm rửa thường ngày kết hợp với một phương pháp tiếp cận vấn đề thú vị như cách Lush đã làm ra các sản phẩm của họ. 

Kết quả là một dòng sản phẩm nổi bật đã ra đời. Đó là các loại xà phòng có khả năng tạo ra những bong bóng xà phòng khổng lồ, đủ để che kín cơ thể người sử dụng. Chiến dịch này đã gây được sự chú ý và thích thú của nhiều người, cũng như tăng doanh số bán hàng cho Lush.

Chiến dịch “This Girl Can“ – “Cô ấy có thể”

Chiến dịch được thực hiện bởi Sport England, một tổ chức phi chính phủ của Anh, nhằm nâng cao nhận thức và khuyến khích phụ nữ trở nên năng động hơn mà không phải lo lắng bị phán xét.

Chiến dịch này được khởi động vào năm 2015, khi Sport England phát hành một video mang tên “This Girl Can”, trong đó trình bày những hình ảnh chân thực và gần gũi của những phụ nữ bình thường khi vận động, kèm theo những slogan tự tin và hài hước. 

Mục tiêu của chiến dịch là thay đổi quan niệm của phụ nữ về tiêu chuẩn cái đẹp khi vận động, từ việc so sánh với những người mẫu hoàn hảo sang việc tôn vinh những gì phụ nữ có thể làm. Chiến dịch đã gây được tiếng vang lớn trong cộng đồng và giúp hơn 2,8 triệu phụ nữ Anh tăng cường hoạt động thể chất.

Chiến dịch “Share a Coke” từ Coca-Cola

Chiến dịch này được khởi động vào năm 2011 tại Australia, khi Coca-Cola quyết định in 150 cái tên phổ biến nhất ở mỗi quốc gia lên những chai và lon nước ngọt của mình, thay vì logo truyền thống. 

Mục đích của chiến dịch này là khuyến khích người tiêu dùng chia sẻ một chai Coke với những người bạn, người thân hoặc người xa lạ, cùng với thông điệp “Share a Coke” (Chia sẻ một chai Coke). 

Chiến dịch này đã được triển khai ở hơn 80 quốc gia và giúp Coca-Cola tăng doanh số bán hàng, lượng tiêu thụ và sự yêu mến của khách hàng.

Bài đăng trên Twitter của hãng hàng không American Airlines

Vi-du-case-study-marketing-cua-hang-hang-khong-American-Airlines

Năm 2012 là một năm khó khăn đối với hãng hàng không American Airlines, khi họ đứng trước nguy cơ phá sản. Tuy nhiên, họ đã tìm ra một cách để vực dậy thương hiệu của mình, bằng cách trở lại với một hình ảnh mới, thông điệp mới.

American Airlines đã biến mình thành một thương hiệu gần gũi và thân thiện với khách hàng, bằng cách sử dụng Twitter như một kênh để chăm sóc, tương tác, thảo luận và thể hiện cá tính của mình. Họ đã thu hút sự chú ý của nhiều người, đặc biệt là giới trẻ, bằng những tweet hài hước và sáng tạo. Họ cũng đã gửi những lời cảm ơn và phản hồi nhanh chóng cho những người đã bay cùng họ hoặc có thắc mắc về dịch vụ của họ. Điều này đã tạo ra một ấn tượng tốt cho chất lượng của American Airlines trong lòng công chúng. 

Chiến dịch “Got Milk?” của California Milk Processor Board

Chiến dịch được thực hiện bởi California Milk Processor Board, một tổ chức phi lợi nhuận được thành lập vào năm 1993 để đối phó với sự giảm sút tiêu thụ sữa khi người Mỹ chuyển sang uống các loại nước giải khát, nước uống có lợi cho sức khỏe và các loại đồ uống khác. 

Chiến dịch sử dụng slogan nổi tiếng là “Got Milk?” (Có sữa không?), nhằm nhắc nhở mọi người uống sữa hàng ngày. Chiến dịch này cũng có nhiều quảng cáo truyền hình, báo chí và poster, thường có hình ảnh của những người nổi tiếng với một vết sữa trên mép. 

Chiến dịch “The Best Job in the World” của Tourism Queensland

Đây là một chiến dịch marketing độc đáo và ấn tượng của Tourism Queensland, một tổ chức du lịch của Úc. Chiến dịch này nhằm quảng bá về vẻ đẹp của quần đảo Great Barrier Reef, bằng cách tuyển dụng một người làm việc “The Best Job in the World” (Công việc tốt nhất thế giới), với nhiệm vụ là sống và khám phá quần đảo trong 6 tháng, với mức lương 150.000 AUD.

Chiến dịch này đã thu hút được hơn 34.000 ứng viên từ 200 quốc gia, và tạo ra hiệu ứng lan tỏa rộng rãi trên các phương tiện truyền thông.

Chiến dịch “Dumb Ways to Die” của Metro Trains Melbourne

Chiến dịch này được khởi động vào năm 2012, khi Metro Trains Melbourne phát hành một video hoạt hình mang tên “Dumb Ways to Die”, trong đó trình bày những cách chết ngớ ngẩn do sự thiếu cẩn thận và bất cẩn của con người, đặc biệt là khi giao tiếp với đường sắt. 

Video này đã thu hút sự chú ý lớn trên các nền tảng truyền thông xã hội và trở thành một hiện tượng toàn cầu, với hơn 100 triệu lượt xem trên YouTube và hàng triệu lượt chia sẻ và bình luận. Chiến dịch này có thể được coi là một thành công lớn vì nó đã tạo ra một hiệu ứng lan tỏa trên toàn cầu, khiến cho nhiều người biết đến và quan tâm đến vấn đề an toàn đường sắt, một vấn đề thường bị bỏ qua hoặc xem nhẹ. 

Ngoài ra, nó cũng đã thể hiện được sự sáng tạo và linh hoạt của Metro Trains Melbourne trong việc tạo ra nội dung quảng cáo phù hợp với hoàn cảnh và mang tính giải trí. Nó cũng đã khẳng định được thông điệp rằng an toàn đường sắt là một trách nhiệm của mỗi cá nhân và cộng đồng.

Chiến dịch “Think Different” của Apple: 

“Think Different” của Apple được khởi động vào năm 1997, khi Apple đang phải đối mặt với nhiều khó khăn và cạnh tranh khốc liệt từ các đối thủ như Microsoft, IBM hay Dell. Chiến dịch này được chỉ đạo trực tiếp bởi Steve Jobs, người đã trở lại làm CEO của Apple sau một thời gian bị đuổi ra khỏi công ty. 

Chiến dịch sử dụng hình ảnh đen trắng của những nhân vật nổi tiếng như Albert Einstein, Martin Luther King Jr., Muhammad Ali, Mahatma Gandhi, Amelia Earhart, Pablo Picasso ,… nhằm tôn vinh những người đã thay đổi thế giới theo cách riêng của họ. 

Đặc biệt, slogan nổi tiếng là “Think Different” (Hãy nghĩ khác biệt), nhằm truyền tải thông điệp rằng Apple là một công ty sáng tạo, luôn khuyến khích mọi người suy nghĩ khác biệt và đột phá. Chiến dịch đã tạo ra một hiệu ứng lan tỏa trên toàn cầu, khiến cho nhiều người biết đến và quan tâm đến Apple, giúp Apple tăng doanh số bán hàng và sự yêu mến của khách hàng

Chiến dịch “The Man Your Man Could Smell Like” của Old Spice: 

Chiến dịch này đã sử dụng hình ảnh của Isaiah Mustafa, một diễn viên và người mẫu Mỹ, để kể một câu chuyện hài hước và lôi cuốn về việc Old Spice có thể biến người đàn ông của bạn thành người bạn mong muốn.

Với slogan nổi tiếng là “The Man Your Man Could Smell Like” (Người đàn ông mà người đàn ông của bạn có thể có mùi như anh ấy), nhằm truyền tải thông điệp rằng Old Spice là một loại sữa tắm có mùi hương nam tính và hấp dẫn. 

Chiến dịch Chiến dịch “The Man Your Man Could Smell Like”  đã tạo ra một hiệu ứng lan tỏa trên mạng xã hội, thu hút hàng triệu lượt xem, like và chia sẻ. Nó cũng đã tạo ra một cuộc trò chuyện giữa thương hiệu và khách hàng, khi Old Spice đã trả lời hơn 180 câu hỏi từ người dùng trên YouTube, Twitter và Facebook bằng những video ngắn mang tính chất cá nhân và hài hước. 

Chiến dịch “Real Beauty Sketches” của Dove: 

Chiến dịch này là một phần trong chiến dịch toàn cầu “Real Beauty – Vẻ đẹp đích thực” của Dove, được khởi động từ năm 2004, với sứ mệnh “khiến phụ nữ cảm thấy đẹp hơn mỗi ngày bằng cách mở rộng quan niệm khuôn mẫu trước nay về vẻ đẹp”. 

Chiến dịch “Real Beauty Sketches” được ra mắt vào năm 2013, khi Dove phát hành một video quảng cáo mang tên “Real Beauty Sketches”, trong đó sử dụng một nghệ sĩ phác thảo pháp y để vẽ các phụ nữ dựa trên nhận thức của chính họ và của người khác. 

Video này đã cho thấy sự khác biệt giữa cách nhìn của phụ nữ về bản thân và cách nhìn của người khác về họ, khi mà các bản phác thảo của người khác thường hấp dẫn hơn và giống với những gì đối tượng thực sự trông như thế nào. Video này đã gây được tiếng vang lớn trên mạng xã hội, thu hút hơn 114 triệu lượt xem, trở thành video quảng cáo lan truyền nhất mọi thời đại. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XpaOjMXyJGk

Chiến dịch “ALS Ice Bucket Challenge” của ALS Association

Đây là một chiến dịch marketing từ thiện và lan tỏa của ALS Association, một tổ chức phi lợi nhuận về bệnh liệt cơ. Chiến dịch này đã lan truyền rộng rãi trên mạng xã hội và thu hút sự tham gia của hàng triệu người, trong đó có nhiều người nổi tiếng như Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Oprah Winfrey, Justin Bieber và Barack Obama. 

Chiến dịch đã tạo ra một hiệu ứng lan tỏa trên toàn cầu, khiến cho nhiều người biết đến và quan tâm đến bệnh ALS, một căn bệnh hiếm gặp và không có phương pháp chữa trị hiệu quả. Ngoài ra, nó cũng đã gây quỹ được hơn 115 triệu USD cho các tổ chức và viện nghiên cứu ALS trên toàn thế giới, giúp nâng cao khả năng nghiên cứu và chăm sóc bệnh nhân ALS.

Chiến dịch “The Blair Witch Project” của Artisan Entertainment: 

Chiến dịch này nhằm quảng bá cho bộ phim kinh dị “The Blair Witch Project” khởi đầu từ việc tạo ra một trang web chứa các thông tin về các diễn viên, các đoạn phim ghi lại, các bài viết báo chí và các lời chứng kiến ​​về Blair Witch. 

Trang web này đã gây ra sự tò mò và hoang mang cho người xem, khi không rõ ràng rằng đây là một trò đùa hay là một sự kiện có thật. Khi bộ phim công chiếu tại Liên hoan phim Sundance vào năm 1999, chiến dịch tiếp thị còn liệt kê các diễn viên là “mất tích” hoặc “đã qua đời”, tăng thêm sự hấp dẫn và kinh hãi cho bộ phim. 

Bộ phim được sản xuất với kinh phí chỉ 60.000 USD, nhưng đã thu về gần 250 triệu USD trên toàn thế giới, trở thành một trong những bộ phim độc lập thành công nhất mọi thời đại

Oreo thắng Super Bowl với dòng Tweet ‘Dunk In The Dark’

Đây là một chiến dịch tiếp thị trực tuyến, được thực hiện bởi Oreo và đại lý 360i trong sự kiện Super Bowl XLVII vào năm 2013. Khi có một sự cố mất điện xảy ra trong trận đấu, khiến cho sân vận động Superdome bị tối sầm, Oreo đã nhanh chóng đăng một tweet với nội dung “Power out? No problem” kèm theo một hình ảnh quảng cáo đơn giản, chỉ có một chiếc bánh Oreo và câu slogan “You can still dunk in the dark”. 

Tweet này đã gây được tiếng vang lớn trên mạng xã hội, thu hút hàng ngàn lượt retweet và like, cũng như được nhiều báo chí và chuyên gia khen ngợi là một trong những quảng cáo hay nhất của Super Bowl. 

Chiến dịch này có thể được coi là một thành công lớn vì nó đã tận dụng được thời cơ vàng khi có một sự kiện bất ngờ xảy ra, khiến cho khán giả chú ý đến tweet của Oreo hơn là các quảng cáo truyền thống khác. Từ đó khẳng định được thông điệp rằng Oreo là một loại bánh ngọt có thể ăn được vào bất kỳ lúc nào, kể cả khi không có ánh sáng

Case study: Dove và Linkedin thực hiện chiến dịch #BlackHairIsProfessional đấu tranh và khẳng định giá trị mái tóc tự nhiên tại nơi làm việc

Vào năm 2023, Dove hợp tác với LinkedIn để quảng bá thông điệp #BlackHairIsProfessional. Chiến dịch nhằm xác định lại những kiểu tóc phù hợp với công việc và khuyến khích sự đa dạng và hòa nhập cho các kiểu tóc tự nhiên của phụ nữ da đen. Chiến dịch này cũng là một phần trong cam kết của Dove nhằm giúp thông qua Đạo luật CROWN và chấm dứt phân biệt đối xử về tóc dựa trên chủng tộc trên toàn quốc.

Chiến dịch này có thể được coi là một sự đổi mới của Dove, khi mà thương hiệu này đã đi ngược lại chiến lược toàn cầu của mình và tập trung vào nhu cầu và văn hóa địa phương của khách hàng da đen. Dove nhận ra rằng mái tóc không chỉ là một phần của vẻ đẹp bên ngoài, mà còn là một phần của linh hồn và cá tính của mỗi người. 

Vì vậy, Dove đã quyết định kêu gọi các phụ nữ da đen chia sẻ những câu chuyện về mái tóc của họ và cách mà nó được nhìn nhận ở nơi làm việc, qua hashtag #BlackHairIsProfessional. Dove cũng đã hợp tác với LinkedIn để tạo ra các cơ hội việc làm và thăng tiến công bằng cho các chuyên gia da đen, bằng cách cung cấp các lời khuyên, hướng dẫn và nguồn lực cho họ.

Case study: Sunsilk – Để tóc kể chuyện (‘Hair Talk’) của Sunsilk Thái Lan

Chiến dịch này được khởi động vào năm 2018, khi Sunsilk phát hành một video quảng cáo mang tên “Hair Talk”, trong đó kể lại câu chuyện của hai người bạn thân là Rock Kwanlada và Film Jirapat, cùng là những phụ nữ chuyển giới. Video này đã thu hút hơn 100 triệu lượt xem trên YouTube và thảo luận trên các nền tảng truyền thông xã hội.

Chiến dịch này có thể được coi là một sự đổi mới của Sunsilk, khi mà thương hiệu này đã đi ngược lại xu hướng quảng bá sản phẩm dựa trên các tính năng lý tính và sử dụng các gương mặt nổi tiếng, mà thay vào đó tập trung vào khai thác khía cạnh cảm xúc và câu chuyện thật của người tiêu dùng. 

Sunsilk đã nghiên cứu kỹ lưỡng về tâm lý và nhu cầu của đối tượng khách hàng là những phụ nữ Thái Lan, đặc biệt là những phụ nữ chuyển giới, để hiểu được vai trò quan trọng của mái tóc trong việc thể hiện bản thân và giới tính của họ. Sunsilk đã nhận ra rằng mái tóc không chỉ là một phần của vẻ đẹp bên ngoài, mà còn là một phần của linh hồn và cá tính của mỗi người.

 Vì vậy, Sunsilk đã quyết định kể lại câu chuyện của hai người bạn Rock và Film, từ khi họ còn là những cậu bé cho đến khi họ trở thành những cô gái xinh đẹp, qua những thăng trầm và áp lực của gia đình và xã hội. Sunsilk đã cho thấy rằng mái tóc không chỉ là một công cụ để làm đẹp, mà còn là một ngôn ngữ để giao tiếp và kết nối với người khác.

Case study: Gillette Ấn Độ – Man Enough: Ủng hộ việc đàn ông có thể khóc cùng #ShavingStereotypes

Chiến dịch này được khởi động vào năm 2019, khi Gillette phát hành một video quảng cáo mang tên “The Best Men Can Be”, trong đó khuyến khích các đàn ông Ấn Độ bỏ qua những định kiến ​​giới truyền thống và tỏ ra mềm mỏng, cảm xúc và chia sẻ với người thân. Video này đã thu hút hơn 100 triệu lượt xem trên YouTube và gây ra nhiều tranh cãi và thảo luận trên các nền tảng truyền thông xã hội.

Chiến dịch này có thể được coi là một sự đổi mới của Gillette, khi mà thương hiệu này đã đi ngược lại chiến lược toàn cầu của mình và tập trung vào nhu cầu và văn hóa địa phương của khách hàng Ấn Độ. 

Gillette đã nghiên cứu kỹ lưỡng về thói quen và tâm lý cạo râu của đàn ông Ấn Độ, cũng như những áp lực và mong đợi xã hội đặt ra cho họ. Gillette đã nhận ra rằng việc cạo râu không chỉ là một hành động vệ sinh cá nhân, mà còn là một biểu hiện của nam tính và sự tự tin. 

Tuy nhiên, nam tính trong xã hội Ấn Độ thường bị gắn liền với những khái niệm như mạnh mẽ, kiên cường, không khóc không kêu. Gillette đã quyết định thách thức những khái niệm này và tạo ra một thông điệp mới: “Đàn ông có thể khóc, có thể yếu đuối, có thể chăm sóc gia đình và bạn bè. Đó là những gì làm nên sự tốt đẹp nhất của người đàn ông”.

Wendy’s: Chicken Nugget Retweet Challenge

Chiến dịch bắt đầu vào năm 2017, khi Carter Wilkerson, một thiếu niên 16 tuổi ở Nevada, Mỹ, hỏi Wendy’s rằng anh ta cần bao nhiêu lượt retweet để nhận được một năm miễn phí gà rán từ chuỗi nhà hàng này. Wendy’s trả lời rằng anh ta cần 18 triệu lượt retweet, một con số khổng lồ và gần như không thể đạt được. 

Tuy nhiên, Carter không từ bỏ và kêu gọi sự giúp đỡ của cộng đồng mạng với hashtag #NuggsForCarter và biểu tượng cảm xúc gà rán. Bài đăng của anh ta nhanh chóng trở nên nổi tiếng và thu hút sự quan tâm của nhiều thương hiệu và người nổi tiếng, như Microsoft, Aaron Paul và John Legere. 

Bài đăng của anh ta cũng được Twitter công nhận là bài đăng được retweet nhiều nhất mọi thời đại, vượt qua kỷ lục trước đó của Ellen DeGeneres với 3,4 triệu lượt retweet. Carter cũng đã xuất hiện trên chương trình The Ellen Show, nơi Ellen đề nghị rằng nếu anh ta đạt được 18 triệu lượt retweet, cô sẽ tặng anh ta một phần quà đặc biệt – nhưng với điều kiện là anh ta không vượt qua kỷ lục của cô bằng cách yêu cầu người hâm mộ retweet cả hai tài khoản và cùng nhau đạt được 18 triệu. 

Tuy nhiên, Carter đã làm được điều này và Wendy’s đã quyết định tặng anh ta những miếng gà rán miễn phí, mặc dù không rõ là anh ta sẽ được ăn bao nhiêu miếng mỗi ngày. Ngoài ra, Wendy’s cũng đã hứa sẽ quyên góp 100.000 đô la cho Quỹ Dave Thomas cho Việc Nhận Nuôi.

Chiến dịch này có thể được coi là một thành công lớn vì nó đã tạo ra sự tương tác cao giữa thương hiệu và khách hàng, cũng như giữa khách hàng và khách hàng. Nó đã tạo ra một hiệu ứng lan tỏa trên các kênh truyền thông giúp Wendy’s nâng cao nhận thức về thương hiệu và uy tín của mình trong lĩnh vực ẩm thực nhanh.

Dollar Shave Club: Lưỡi dao của chúng tôi thật tuyệt vời

Nếu bạn là một fan yêu thích bóng đá, chắc chắn bạn không quên sự cố cúp điện bất ngờ tại Superdome kéo dài gần nửa tiếng trong hiệp 3 của Super Bowl XLVII. Sự cố bất thường và bất ngờ đã khiến các nhà quảng cáo phải nhanh chóng tìm ra giải pháp khẩn cấp.

Không ai khác, Oreo đã nắm bắt được cơ hội này với một tweet “đúng thời điểm” “Cúp điện? Không sao cả, ”tweet chỉ gồm một dòng chữ (“ Bạn vẫn có thể nhúng bánh vào sữa trong bóng tối. ”) Và một chiếc bánh Oreo lẻ loi trong ánh sáng mờ ảo.

Khán giả đã phản ứng “náo nhiệt” với thông điệp này khi có hơn 20.000 lượt retweet và hơn 20.000 lượt thích trên Facebook ngay sau đó. Những con số này có thể không quá ấn tượng ngày nay, nhưng chúng rất đáng kể vào thời điểm đó và trong hoàn cảnh đó. 

Những case study marketing mà Ngáo Content đã giới thiệu cho bạn ở trên là những ví dụ điển hình về cách các thương hiệu đã sử dụng sự sáng tạo, thời cơ và cảm xúc để tạo ra những chiến dịch marketing thành công.

Hy vọng bài viết này sẽ mang lại cho bạn nhiều kiến thức bổ ích và cảm hứng để bạn có thể áp dụng cho chiến lược marketing của mình. 

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What is a Marketing Plan & How to Write One [+Examples]

Published: December 27, 2023

For a while now, you've been spearheading your organization's content marketing efforts, and your team's performance has convinced management to adopt the content marketing strategies you’ve suggested.

Now, your boss wants you to write and present a content marketing plan, but you‘ve never done something like that before. You don't even know where to start.

Fortunately, we've curated the best content marketing plans to help you write a concrete plan that's rooted in data and produces results. But first, we'll discuss what a marketing plan is and how some of the best marketing plans include strategies that serve their respective businesses.

What is a marketing plan?

A marketing plan is a strategic roadmap that businesses use to organize, execute, and track their marketing strategy over a given period. Marketing plans can include different marketing strategies for various marketing teams across the company, all working toward the same business goals.

The purpose of a marketing plan is to write down strategies in an organized manner. This will help keep you on track and measure the success of your campaigns.

Writing a marketing plan will help you think of each campaign‘s mission, buyer personas, budget, tactics, and deliverables. With all this information in one place, you’ll have an easier time staying on track with a campaign. You'll also discover what works and what doesn't. Thus, measuring the success of your strategy.

Featured Resource: Free Marketing Plan Template

Looking to develop a marketing plan for your business? Click here to download HubSpot's free Marketing Plan Template to get started .

To learn more about how to create your marketing plan, keep reading or jump to the section you’re looking for:

How to Write a Marketing Plan

Types of marketing plans, marketing plan examples, marketing plan faqs, sample marketing plan.

If you're pressed for time or resources, you might not be thinking about a marketing plan. However, a marketing plan is an important part of your business plan.

Marketing Plan vs. Business Plan

A marketing plan is a strategic document that outlines marketing objectives, strategies, and tactics.

A business plan is also a strategic document. But this plan covers all aspects of a company's operations, including finance, operations, and more. It can also help your business decide how to distribute resources and make decisions as your business grows.

I like to think of a marketing plan as a subset of a business plan; it shows how marketing strategies and objectives can support overall business goals.

Keep in mind that there's a difference between a marketing plan and a marketing strategy.

Free Marketing Plan Template

Outline your company's marketing strategy in one simple, coherent plan.

• Pre-Sectioned Template
• Completely Customizable
• Example Prompts
• Professionally Designed

You're all set!

Click this link to access this resource at any time.

Marketing Strategy vs. Marketing Plan

A marketing strategy describes how a business will accomplish a particular goal or mission. This includes which campaigns, content, channels, and marketing software they'll use to execute that mission and track its success.

For example, while a greater plan or department might handle social media marketing, you might consider your work on Facebook as an individual marketing strategy.

A marketing plan contains one or more marketing strategies. It's the framework from which all of your marketing strategies are created and helps you connect each strategy back to a larger marketing operation and business goal.

For example, suppose your company is launching a new software product, and it wants customers to sign up. The marketing department needs to develop a marketing plan that'll help introduce this product to the industry and drive the desired signups.

The department decides to launch a blog dedicated to this industry, a new YouTube video series to establish expertise, and an account on Twitter to join the conversation around this subject. All this serves to attract an audience and convert this audience into software users.

To summarize, the business's marketing plan is dedicated to introducing a new software product to the marketplace and driving signups for that product. The business will execute that plan with three marketing strategies : a new industry blog, a YouTube video series, and a Twitter account.

Of course, the business might consider these three things as one giant marketing strategy, each with its specific content strategies. How granular you want your marketing plan to get is up to you. Nonetheless, every marketing plan goes through a particular set of steps in its creation.

Learn what they are below.

• State your business's mission.
• Determine the KPIs for this mission.
• Identify your buyer personas.
• Describe your content initiatives and strategies.
• Clearly define your plan's omissions.
• Define your marketing budget.
• Identify your competition.
• Outline your plan's contributors and their responsibilities.

1. State your business's mission.

Your first step in writing a marketing plan is to state your mission. Although this mission is specific to your marketing department, it should serve your business‘s main mission statement.

From my experience, you want to be specific, but not too specific. You have plenty of space left in this marketing plan to elaborate on how you'll acquire new customers and accomplish this mission.

Need help building your mission statement? Download this guide for examples and templates and write the ideal mission statement.

2. Determine the KPIs for this mission.

Every good marketing plan describes how the department will track its mission‘s progress. To do so, you need to decide on your key performance indicators (KPIs) .

KPIs are individual metrics that measure the various elements of a marketing campaign. These units help you establish short-term goals within your mission and communicate your progress to business leaders.

Let's take our example of a marketing mission from the above step. If part of our mission is “to attract an audience of travelers,” we might track website visits using organic page views. In this case, “organic page views” is one KPI, and we can see our number of page views grow over time.

Also, make sure to check whether your current reporting software facilitates the KPIs you need. Some reporting tools can only measure a set of pre-defined metrics, which can cause massive headaches in particular marketing campaigns.

However, other tools, like HubSpot’s analytics software , can offer full flexibility over the KPIs you wish to track. You can generate custom reports that reveal anything from average website engagement rates to page visits via organic, email, social media traffic, and more.   

These KPIs will come into the conversation again in step 4.

3. Identify your buyer personas.

A buyer persona is a description of who you want to attract. This can include age, sex, location, family size, and job title. Each buyer persona should directly reflect your business's current and potential customers. So, all business leaders must agree on your buyer personas.

Create your buyer personas with this free guide and set of buyer persona templates.

4. Describe your content initiatives and strategies.

Here's where you'll include the main points of your marketing and content strategy. Because there's a laundry list of content types and channels available to you today, you must choose wisely and explain how you'll use your content and channels in this section of your marketing plan.

When I write this section , I like to stipulate:

• Which types of content I'll create. These might include blog posts, YouTube videos, infographics, and ebooks.
• How much of it I'll create. I typically describe content volume in daily, weekly, monthly, or even quarterly intervals. It all depends on my workflow and the short-term goals for my content.
• The goals (and KPIs) I'll use to track each type. KPIs can include organic traffic, social media traffic, email traffic, and referral traffic. Your goals should also include which pages you want to drive that traffic to, such as product pages, blog pages, or landing pages.
• The channels on which I'll distribute my content. Popular channels include Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Pinterest, and Instagram.
• Any paid advertising that will take place on these channels.

Build out your marketing plan with this free template.

Fill out this form to access the template., 5. clearly define your plan's omissions..

A marketing plan explains the marketing team's focus. It also explains what the marketing team will not focus on.

If there are other aspects of your business that you aren't serving in this particular plan, include them in this section. These omissions help to justify your mission, buyer personas, KPIs, and content. You can’t please everyone in a single marketing campaign, and if your team isn't on the hook for something, you need to make it known.

In my experience, this section is particularly important for stakeholders to help them understand why certain decisions were made.

6. Define your marketing budget.

Whether it's freelance fees, sponsorships, or a new full-time marketing hire, use these costs to develop a marketing budget and outline each expense in this section of your marketing plan.

You can establish your marketing budget with this kit of 8 free marketing budget templates .

7. Identify your competition.

Part of marketing is knowing whom you're marketing against. Research the key players in your industry and consider profiling each one.

Keep in mind not every competitor will pose the same challenges to your business. For example, while one competitor might be ranking highly on search engines for keywords you want your website to rank for, another competitor might have a heavy footprint on a social network where you plan to launch an account.

Easily track and analyze your competitors with this collection of ten free competitive analysis templates .

8. Outline your plan's contributors and their responsibilities.

With your marketing plan fully fleshed out, it's time to explain who’s doing what. I don't like to delve too deeply into my employees’ day-to-day projects, but I know which teams and team leaders are in charge of specific content types, channels, KPIs, and more.

Now that you know why you need to build an effective marketing plan, it’s time to get to work. Starting a plan from scratch can be overwhelming if you haven't done it before. That’s why there are many helpful resources that can support your first steps. We’ll share some of the best guides and templates that can help you build effective results-driven plans for your marketing strategies.

Ready to make your own marketing plan? Get started using this free template.

Depending on the company you work with, you might want to create various marketing plans. We compiled different samples to suit your needs:

1. Quarterly or Annual Marketing Plans

These plans highlight the strategies or campaigns you'll take on in a certain period.

Forbes published a marketing plan template that has amassed almost 4 million views. To help you sculpt a marketing roadmap with true vision, their template will teach you how to fill out the 15 key sections of a marketing plan, which are:

• Executive Summary
• Target Customers
• Unique Selling Proposition
• Pricing & Positioning Strategy
• Distribution Plan
• Your Offers
• Marketing Materials
• Promotions Strategy
• Online Marketing Strategy
• Conversion Strategy
• Joint Ventures & Partnerships
• Referral Strategy
• Strategy for Increasing Transaction Prices
• Retention Strategy
• Financial Projections

If you're truly lost on where to start with a marketing plan, I highly recommend using this guide to help you define your target audience, figure out how to reach them, and ensure that audience becomes loyal customers.

2. Social Media Marketing Plan

This type of plan highlights the channels, tactics, and campaigns you intend to accomplish specifically on social media. A specific subtype is a paid marketing plan, which highlights paid strategies, such as native advertising, PPC, or paid social media promotions.

Shane Snow's Marketing Plan for His Book Dream Team is a great example of a social media marketing plan:

When Shane Snow started promoting his new book, "Dream Team," he knew he had to leverage a data-driven content strategy framework. So, he chose his favorite one: the content strategy waterfall. The content strategy waterfall is defined by Economic Times as a model used to create a system with a linear and sequential approach.

Snow wrote a blog post about how the waterfall‘s content strategy helped him launch his new book successfully. After reading it, you can use his tactics to inform your own marketing plan. More specifically, you’ll learn how he:

• Applied his business objectives to decide which marketing metrics to track.
• Used his ultimate business goal of earning $200,000 in sales or 10,000 purchases to estimate the conversion rate of each stage of his funnel.
• Created buyer personas to figure out which channels his audience would prefer to consume his content.
• Used his average post view on each of his marketing channels to estimate how much content he had to create and how often he had to post on social media.
• Calculated how much earned and paid media could cut down the amount of content he had to create and post.
• Designed his process and workflow, built his team, and assigned members to tasks.
• Analyzed content performance metrics to refine his overall content strategy.

I use Snow's marketing plan to think more creatively about my content promotion and distribution plan. I like that it's linear and builds on the step before it, creating an air-tight strategy that doesn't leave any details out.

3. Content Marketing Plan

This plan could highlight different strategies, tactics, and campaigns in which you'll use content to promote your business or product.

HubSpot's Comprehensive Guide for Content Marketing Strategy is a strong example of a content marketing plan:

At HubSpot, we‘ve built our marketing team from two business school graduates working from a coffee table to a powerhouse of hundreds of employees. Along the way, we’ve learned countless lessons that shaped our current content marketing strategy. So, we decided to illustrate our insights in a blog post to teach marketers how to develop a successful content marketing strategy, regardless of their team's size.

In this comprehensive guide for modern marketers, you'll learn:

• What exactly content marketing is.
• Why your business needs a content marketing strategy.
• Who should lead your content marketing efforts?
• How to structure your content marketing team based on your company's size.
• How to hire the right people for each role on your team.
• What marketing tools and technology you'll need to succeed.
• What type of content your team should create, and which employees should be responsible for creating them.
• The importance of distributing your content through search engines, social media, email, and paid ads.
• And finally, the recommended metrics each of your teams should measure and report to optimize your content marketing program.

This is a fantastic resource for content teams of any size — whether you're a team of one or 100. It includes how to hire and structure a content marketing team, what marketing tools you'll need, what type of content you should create, and even recommends what metrics to track for analyzing campaigns. If you're aiming to establish or boost your online presence, leveraging tools like HubSpot's drag-and-drop website builder can be extremely beneficial. It helps you create a captivating digital footprint that sets the foundation for your content marketing endeavors.

4. New Product Launch Marketing Plan

This will be a roadmap for the strategies and tactics you‘ll implement to promote a new product. And if you’re searching for an example, look no further than Chief Outsiders' Go-To-Market Plan for a New Product :

After reading this plan, you'll learn how to:

• Validate a product
• Write strategic objectives
• Identify your market
• Compile a competitive landscape
• Create a value proposition for a new product
• Consider sales and service in your marketing plan

If you're looking for a marketing plan for a new product, the Chief Outsiders template is a great place to start. Marketing plans for a new product will be more specific because they target one product versus its entire marketing strategy.

5. Growth Marketing Plan

Growth marketing plans use experimentation and data to drive results, like we see in Venture Harbour’s Growth Marketing Plan Template :

Venture Harbour's growth marketing plan is a data-driven and experiment-led alternative to the more traditional marketing plan. Their template has five steps intended for refinement with every test-measure-learn cycle. The five steps are:

• Experiments

I recommend this plan if you want to experiment with different platforms and campaigns. Experimentation always feels risky and unfamiliar, but this plan creates a framework for accountability and strategy.

• Louisville Tourism
• University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
• Visit Oxnard
• Safe Haven Family Shelter
• Wright County Economic Development
• The Cultural Council of Palm Beach County
• Cabarrus County Convention and Visitors Bureau
• Visit Billings

1. Louisville Tourism

It also divides its target market into growth and seed categories to allow for more focused strategies. For example, the plan recognizes Millennials in Chicago, Atlanta, and Nashville as the core of it's growth market, whereas people in Boston, Austin, and New York represent seed markets where potential growth opportunities exist. Then, the plan outlines objectives and tactics for reaching each market.

Why This Marketing Plan Works

• The plan starts with a letter from the President & CEO of the company, who sets the stage for the plan by providing a high-level preview of the incoming developments for Louisville's tourism industry
• The focus on Louisville as "Bourbon City" effectively leverages its unique cultural and culinary attributes to present a strong brand
• Incorporates a variety of data points from Google Analytics, Arrivalist, and visitor profiles to to define their target audience with a data-informed approach

2. University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

For example, students who become prospects as freshman and sophomore will receive emails that focus on getting the most out of high school and college prep classes. Once these students become juniors and seniors — thus entering the consideration stage — the emails will focus more on the college application process and other exploratory content.

• The plan incorporates competitive analysis, evaluation surveys, and other research to determine the makeup of its target audience
• The plan lists each marketing program (e.g., direct mail, social media, email etc.) and supplements it with examples on the next page
• Each marketing program has its own objectives, tactics, and KPIs for measuring success

3. Visit Oxnard

This marketing plan by Visit Oxnard, a convention and visitors bureau, is packed with all the information one needs in a marketing plan: target markets, key performance indicators, selling points, personas, marketing tactics by channel, and much more.

It also articulates the organization’s strategic plans for the upcoming fiscal year, especially as it grapples with the aftereffects of the pandemic. Lastly, it has impeccable visual appeal, with color-coded sections and strong branding elements.

• States clear and actionable goals for the coming year
• Includes data and other research that shows how their team made their decisions
• Outlines how the team will measure the success of their plan

4. Safe Haven Family Shelter

This marketing plan by a nonprofit organization is an excellent example to follow if your plan will be presented to internal stakeholders at all levels of your organization. It includes SMART marketing goals , deadlines, action steps, long-term objectives, target audiences, core marketing messages , and metrics.

The plan is detailed, yet scannable. By the end of it, one can walk away with a strong understanding of the organization’s strategic direction for its upcoming marketing efforts.

• Confirms ongoing marketing strategies and objectives while introducing new initiatives
• Uses colors, fonts, and formatting to emphasize key parts of the plan
• Closes with long-term goals, key themes, and other overarching topics to set the stage for the future

5. Wright County Economic Development

Wright County Economic Development’s plan drew our attention because of its simplicity, making it good inspiration for those who’d like to outline their plan in broad strokes without frills or filler.

It includes key information such as marketing partners, goals, initiatives, and costs. The sections are easy to scan and contain plenty of information for those who’d like to dig into the details. Most important, it includes a detailed breakdown of projected costs per marketing initiative — which is critical information to include for upper-level managers and other stakeholders.

• Begins with a quick paragraph stating why the recommended changes are important
• Uses clear graphics and bullet points to emphasize key points
• Includes specific budget data to support decision-making

6. The Cultural Council of Palm Beach County

This marketing plan presentation by a cultural council is a great example of how to effectively use data in your plan, address audiences who are new to the industry, and offer extensive detail into specific marketing strategies.

For instance, an entire slide is dedicated to the county’s cultural tourism trends, and at the beginning of the presentation, the organization explains what an arts and culture agency is in the first place.

That’s a critical piece of information to include for those who might not know. If you’re addressing audiences outside your industry, consider defining terms at the beginning, like this organization did.

• Uses quality design and images to support the goals and priorities in the text
• Separate pages for each big idea or new strategy
• Includes sections for awards and accomplishments to show how the marketing plan supports wider business goals
• Defines strategies and tactics for each channel for easy skimming

7. Cabarrus County Convention & Visitors Bureau

Cabarrus County’s convention and visitors bureau takes a slightly different approach with its marketing plan, formatting it like a magazine for stakeholders to flip through. It offers information on the county’s target audience, channels, goals, KPIs, and public relations strategies and initiatives.

We especially love that the plan includes contact information for the bureau’s staff members, so that it’s easy for stakeholders to contact the appropriate person for a specific query.

• Uses infographics to expand on specific concepts, like how visitors benefit a community
• Highlights the team members responsible for each initiative with a photo to emphasize accountability and community
• Closes with an event calendar for transparency into key dates for events

8. Visit Billings

Visit Billing’s comprehensive marketing plan is like Cabarrus County’s in that it follows a magazine format. With sections for each planned strategy, it offers a wealth of information and depth for internal stakeholders and potential investors.

We especially love its content strategy section, where it details the organization’s prior efforts and current objectives for each content platform.

At the end, it includes strategic goals and budgets — a good move to imitate if your primary audience would not need this information highlighted at the forefront.

• Includes a section on the buyer journey, which offers clarity on the reasoning for marketing plan decisions
• Design includes call-outs for special topics that could impact the marketing audience, such as safety concerns or "staycations"
• Clear headings make it easy to scan this comprehensive report and make note of sections a reader may want to return to for more detail

What is a typical marketing plan?

In my experience, most marketing plans outline the following aspects of a business's marketing:

• Target audience

Each marketing plan should include one or more goals, the path your team will take to meet those goals, and how you plan to measure success.

For example, if I were a tech startup that's launching a new mobile app, my marketing plan would include:

• Target audience or buyer personas for the app
• Outline of how app features meet audience needs
• Competitive analysis
• Goals for conversion funnel and user acquisition
• Marketing strategies and tactics for user acquisition

Featured resource : Free Marketing Plan Template

What should a good marketing plan include?

A good marketing plan will create a clear roadmap for your unique marketing team. This means that the best marketing plan for your business will be distinct to your team and business needs.

That said, most marketing plans will include sections for one or more of the following:

• Clear analysis of the target market
• A detailed description of the product or service
• Strategic marketing mix details (such as product, price, place, promotion)
• Measurable goals with defined timelines

This can help you build the best marketing plan for your business.

A good marketing plan should also include a product or service's unique value proposition, a comprehensive marketing strategy including online and offline channels, and a defined budget.

Featured resource : Value Proposition Templates

What are the most important parts of a marketing plan?

When you‘re planning a road trip, you need a map to help define your route, step-by-step directions, and an estimate of the time it will take to get to your destination. It’s literally how you get there that matters.

Like a road map, a marketing plan is only useful if it helps you get to where you want to go. So, no one part is more than the other.

That said, you can use the list below to make sure that you've added or at least considered each of the following in your marketing plan:

• Marketing goals
• Executive summary
• Target market analysis
• Marketing strategies

What questions should I ask when making a marketing plan?

Questions are a useful tool for when you‘re stuck or want to make sure you’ve included important details.

Try using one or more of these questions as a starting point when you create your marketing plan:

• Who is my target audience?
• What are their needs, motivations, and pain points?
• How does our product or service solve their problems?
• How will I reach and engage them?
• Who are my competitors? Are they direct or indirect competitors?
• What are the unique selling points of my product or service?
• What marketing channels are best for the brand?
• What is our budget and timeline?
• How will I measure the success of marketing efforts?

How much does a marketing plan cost?

Creating a marketing plan is mostly free. But the cost of executing a marketing plan will depend on your specific plan.

Marketing plan costs vary by business, industry, and plan scope. Whether your team handles marketing in-house or hires external consultants can also make a difference. Total costs can range from a few thousand dollars to tens of thousands. This is why most marketing plans will include a budget.

Featured resource : Free Marketing Budget Templates

What is a marketing plan template?

A marketing plan template is a pre-designed structure or framework that helps you outline your marketing plan.

It offers a starting point that you can customize for your specific business needs and goals. For example, our template includes easy-to-edit sections for:

• Business summary
• Business initiatives
• Target market
• Market strategy
• Marketing channels
• Marketing technology

Let’s create a sample plan together, step by step.

Follow along with HubSpot's free Marketing Plan Template .

1. Create an overview or primary objective.

Our business mission is to provide [service, product, solution] to help [audience] reach their [financial, educational, business related] goals without compromising their [your audience’s valuable asset: free time, mental health, budget, etc.]. We want to improve our social media presence while nurturing our relationships with collaborators and clients.

For example, if I wanted to focus on social media growth, my KPIs might look like this:

We want to achieve a minimum of [followers] with an engagement rate of [X] on [social media platform].

The goal is to achieve an increase of [Y] on recurring clients and new meaningful connections outside the platform by the end of the year.

Use the following categories to create a target audience for your campaign.

• Profession:
• Background:
• Pain points:
• Social media platforms that they use:
• Streaming platforms that they prefer:

For more useful strategies, consider creating a buyer persona in our Make My Persona tool .

Our content pillars will be: [X, Y, Z].

Content pillars should be based on topics your audience needs to know. If your ideal clients are female entrepreneurs, then your content pillars can be: marketing, being a woman in business, remote working, and productivity hacks for entrepreneurs.

Then, determine any omissions.

This marketing plan won’t be focusing on the following areas of improvement: [A, B, C].

5. Define your marketing budget.

Our marketing strategy will use a total of [Y] monthly. This will include anything from freelance collaborations to advertising.

6. Identify your competitors.

I like to work through the following questions to clearly indicate who my competitors are:

• Which platforms do they use the most?
• How does their branding differentiate?
• How do they talk to their audiences?
• What valuable assets do customers talk about? And if they are receiving any negative feedback, what is it about?

7. Outline your plan's contributors and their responsibilities.

Create responsible parties for each portion of the plan.

Marketing will manage the content plan, implementation, and community interaction to reach the KPIs.

• Social media manager: [hours per week dedicated to the project, responsibilities, team communication requirements, expectations]
• Content strategist: [hours per week dedicated to the project, responsibilities, team communication requirements, expectations]
• Community manager: [hours per week dedicated to the project, responsibilities, team communication requirements, expectations]

Sales will follow the line of the marketing work while creating and implementing an outreach strategy.

• Sales strategists: [hours per week dedicated to the project, responsibilities, team communication requirements, expectations]
• Sales executives: [hours per week dedicated to the project, responsibilities, team communication requirements, expectations]

Customer Service will nurture clients’ relationships to ensure that they have what they want. [Hours per week dedicated to the project, responsibilities, team communication requirements, expectations].

Project Managers will track the progress and team communication during the project. [Hours per week dedicated to the project, responsibilities, team communication requirements, expectations].

Get started on your marketing plan.

These marketing plans serve as initial resources to get your content marketing plan started. But, to truly deliver what your audience wants and needs, you'll likely need to test some different ideas out, measure their success, and then refine your goals as you go.

Editor's Note: This post was originally published in April 2019, but was updated for comprehensiveness. This article was written by a human, but our team uses AI in our editorial process. Check out our full disclosure t o learn more about how we use AI.

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