Before you do more marketing, ask these five questions.

Start with the business decision

“We need to post more” describes an activity. “We need more qualified conversations about our new service” describes a business need. The second gives your team something to work toward and a reason to decide what belongs in the plan. Before choosing channels, write the change you want to make in plain language.

1. Who are we trying to help?

Go beyond a broad demographic. Think about the situation your customer is in, the question they are asking, and the friction that makes a decision difficult. Conversations with customers and the people who serve them can provide a more useful starting point than a long list of assumptions.

2. What do we want them to understand?

Choose one main idea. It might explain what makes your service relevant, how your product solves a familiar problem, or what happens after an inquiry. If every message tries to say everything, your audience has to do the work of deciding what matters.

3. What is the next useful step?

Match the action to the visitor’s readiness. Someone exploring an unfamiliar service may need an example or a clear explanation before booking a call. Someone with a specific need may want to get in touch immediately. Design for both without giving every button equal visual weight.

4. What can we deliver consistently?

Be realistic about your team’s time, expertise, creative capacity, and review process. A focused plan that gets delivered is more useful than a wide plan that depends on resources you do not have. Identify who owns each action and what they need to move it forward.

5. What would tell us to change direction?

Agree the signals you will review before a campaign starts. Pair activity measures with useful business feedback, and record the assumptions behind your decisions. A reporting meeting should help you decide what to continue, stop, or investigate—not simply describe what happened.