A 90-day marketing plan bridges the gap between annual strategy and weekly execution. It's long enough to execute meaningful initiatives, short enough to stay focused and agile. This timeframe is ideal for teams wanting to establish momentum, test strategies, and build confidence in their marketing capabilities.
Why 90 Days?
Most marketing initiatives need 60-90 days to generate meaningful data. Paid campaigns need enough time to optimize. Content needs time to get discovered and drive traffic. Sales cycles need time to play out. Ninety days is the minimum window where you can run a real test and draw reliable conclusions.
Phase 1: Diagnosis (Week 1)
Start by understanding where you are. Answer these questions:
- What marketing channels currently drive revenue?
- What's your customer acquisition cost by channel?
- What's your customer lifetime value?
- What are your monthly marketing KPIs?
- Where are your biggest conversion bottlenecks?
- What's working that you should optimize?
- What's broken that you should fix or eliminate?
Document current state metrics. These become your baseline for measuring the 90-day plan's impact. Interview your sales team about lead quality. Review website analytics for traffic patterns and conversion bottlenecks. This diagnosis phase prevents you from optimizing the wrong things.
Phase 2: Strategy Setting (Week 2)
Based on your diagnosis, set a clear 90-day goal. This should be specific, measurable, and ambitious but achievable:
Example: "Generate 150 qualified leads in Q3, reducing our CAC from $500 to $425 while improving lead quality (sales conversion rate) from 15% to 18%."
Break this into monthly milestones:
- Month 1: Establish foundation (fix tracking, optimize existing channels)
- Month 2: Scale what works (increase budget to high-ROAS channels)
- Month 3: Expand to new channels or segments (controlled experimentation)
For each milestone, identify 3-5 specific initiatives that will drive progress. Get alignment from leadership and sales on this plan before moving forward.
Phase 3: Execution Week-by-Week Breakdown
Week 1-2: Foundation
- Audit and fix tracking (UTM parameters, conversion pixels, CRM integration)
- Establish baseline metrics and dashboards
- Optimize current top-performing channels (landing pages, email sequences, ad targeting)
- Implement weekly reporting cadence
Week 3-4: Month 1 Wrap
- Launch 2-3 optimization initiatives based on baseline audit
- Increase budgets on underinvested high-ROAS channels
- Begin testing one new channel or tactic (low budget, high learning potential)
- First full week of clean data collection
- Monthly review: Compare to Month 1 forecast, adjust Month 2 plan
Week 5-8: Month 2 Scale
- Scale successful channels and initiatives from Month 1
- Launch 1-2 additional tests in adjacent channels
- Expand to new customer segments if working well
- Build pipeline predictability (understand which lead sources convert to customers)
- Monthly review: Do we have statistically significant data? Adjust Month 3 plans.
Week 9-12: Month 3 Expansion
- Fully scale what's working (highest ROI channels)
- Double down on successful audience segments
- Run final tests on lower-priority opportunities
- Prepare recommendations for next 90-day cycle
- Final review: Compare to 90-day goal, document learnings, set priorities for next quarter
Key Initiatives to Include
1. Lead Quality Improvement (Weeks 1-2)
Before pursuing quantity, ensure quality. Work with your sales team to:
- Refine lead scoring criteria
- Improve lead qualification process
- Tighten audience targeting to higher-probability segments
- Establish feedback loops between sales and marketing
2. Conversion Rate Optimization (Weeks 1-4)
Quick wins often come from optimizing existing traffic:
- A/B test landing pages (headlines, CTAs, form length)
- Improve email sequences for existing leads
- Refine ad copy and targeting
- Test new calls-to-action
3. Channel Expansion (Weeks 5-12)
Once existing channels are optimized, test new ones:
- Content marketing (blog, guides, webinars)
- Paid social (LinkedIn, Facebook ads)
- Paid search (Google Ads, Bing)
- Partnerships or referral programs
- Community engagement or events
4. Sales Enablement (Ongoing)
- Create battle cards for top competitors
- Develop case studies from successful customers
- Build email sequences for sales follow-up
- Establish clear MQL → SQL handoff process
Weekly Cadence
Every Monday:
- Review last week's performance vs. forecast
- Identify bottlenecks or opportunities
- Review and optimize active campaigns
Every Friday:
- Weekly metrics review (leads, CAC, conversion rates)
- Status update on initiatives
- Quick wins or course corrections
End of Month:
- Comprehensive performance review vs. plan
- Deeper analysis: what drove results?
- Adjust next month's plan based on learnings
- Team celebration of wins
Resource Allocation for 90-Day Plan
- 60% of team time: Execution of core initiatives
- 20% of team time: Optimization and testing
- 10% of team time: Reporting and analysis
- 10% of team time: Learning and professional development
Protect time for execution. If your team spends all their time in meetings and reporting, nothing gets done.
Contingency Planning
Build a backup plan for common obstacles:
- Budget cuts? Which initiatives have lowest priority?
- Tracking issues? How will you work with partial data?
- Team turnover? Who owns which initiatives?
- Unexpected competitive threat? How do you adjust messaging?
Measurement and Course Correction
Your plan isn't sacred. Adjust based on real-world results:
- If a channel isn't delivering expected results by week 4, kill it and reallocate budget
- If a channel is overperforming, double down immediately
- If tracking breaks, work with IT/analytics immediately to fix
- If a new competitor enters, reassess positioning
Agility is a feature, not a sign of poor planning.
Post-90-Day Assessment
At the end of 90 days, document:
- Did you hit your goals? By how much?
- Which initiatives worked? Which failed?
- What will you carry forward to next quarter?
- What's your next 90-day goal?
- What did your team learn?
Share learnings across the organization. Celebrate wins. Use failures as learning opportunities, not blame.
Final Thoughts
A structured 90-day plan provides clarity and focus. It forces you to prioritize (you can't do everything in 90 days), creates accountability (you have a clear goal), and generates real data to drive future decisions. Most importantly, it builds momentum. Teams that execute focused 90-day plans consistently outperform teams that execute annual plans with no checkpoint structure.