Three-Priority Marketing Planning Stack
Turn customer problems into three priorities, owned plans, and measurable OKRs.
- Difficulty
- Moderate
- Time to result
- ~weeks to results
- Steps
- 7
- Confidence
- 98%
The planning stack begins with evidence about customer problems, competitive pressure, and market opportunities. Leaders use that context to choose roughly three pivotal priorities rather than cataloguing everything the department already does. Each priority receives a short explanation of why it matters and an initiative owner who develops a focused two-page plan covering challenges, customer insights, investments, deliverables, and metrics. The plan is then translated into quarterly OKRs and placed inside a review loop whose cadence reflects the speed of feedback. Existing work can continue, but it is explicitly classified as maintained or reduced rather than presented as equally strategic. This creates a visible chain from customer signal to resource allocation, ownership, measurable execution, and adaptation.
Origin
Extracted from Marketing Against the Grain, where the hosts describe the planning structure used across marketing organizations and advisory work.
Core principles
- 01Focus increases as the number of priorities decreases.
- 02Customer problems and market changes must justify every priority.
- 03Strategic priorities represent outsized investments, not every team activity.
- 04Named owners convert strategic intent into accountable execution.
- 05Review frequency should match how quickly useful results emerge.
How to run it
- 1
Define the planning context
Document the customer problems, competitive constraints, and market opportunities the plan must address. Treat these as the evidence behind the strategy rather than as decorative background.
Pro tip Use observed customer behavior and market change, not executive preference alone.
Watch out Starting with favorite channels can produce activity without a defensible reason.
- 2
Choose three pivotal priorities
Reduce the strategy to approximately three concise statements describing where outsized progress is required. Do not try to represent every ongoing responsibility.
Pro tip Ask which three outcomes must be nailed for the year to succeed.
Watch out Giving every activity equal airtime removes the signal that makes a strategy useful.
- 3
Explain why each priority matters
Pair every priority with the customer insight, market belief, or business opportunity supporting it. Make the causal logic clear enough that teams can understand why investment is changing.
Pro tip A companion page or slide can hold the core beliefs behind the priorities.
Watch out A priority justified only by a competitor, board member, or trend may lack customer relevance.
- 4
Assign initiative owners
Give each strategic initiative a clearly identified owner. Owners are responsible for converting the high-level priority into an executable plan.
Pro tip Limit ownership to the small number of initiatives intended to change materially.
Watch out Diffuse ownership makes it difficult to resolve trade-offs or assess progress.
- 5
Build two-page plans
Have each owner describe the challenge, customer insight, required investment, deliverables, and measures of success. Keep the document detailed enough to execute but short enough to expose weak logic.
Pro tip Include both people and program-spend requirements.
Watch out A long memo can hide uncertainty rather than clarify it.
- 6
Map plans into quarterly OKRs
Translate each initiative into tangible quarterly deliverables, metrics, or artifacts. Ensure every result can be assessed without subjective interpretation.
Pro tip Trace deliverables from leadership through directors, managers, and individual contributors.
Watch out Squishy goals break the connection between strategy and execution.
- 7
Run the feedback loop
Review results weekly for fast-moving work and monthly for slower initiatives. Record whether goals were achieved, why, and what should change or receive additional investment.
Pro tip Double down when an initiative substantially outperforms expectations.
Watch out Waiting until month-end on fast performance channels can waste multiple optimization opportunities.
In the wild
A marketing team believes AI will disrupt conventional search behavior. It selects video diversification as one of three strategic priorities, assigns an initiative owner, defines the required YouTube investment, and creates quarterly OKRs for production, distribution, and qualified demand.
→ The team gains a focused response to a market shift without treating every channel as equally strategic.
A scaled company identifies organic acquisition as a pivotal but underperforming engine. The owner documents customer discovery gaps, proposes content and technical investments, and reviews leading indicators every week rather than waiting for the quarter to end.
→ The company can correct weak execution quickly or redirect resources based on measurable evidence.
Common mistakes
Representing every team member in the strategy
A strategy becomes a departmental inventory when leaders include every activity to avoid upsetting people. That eliminates meaningful priority and prevents outsized investment.
Choosing priorities without a customer-based why
Following competitors or executive pressure without linking the choice to customers produces weak strategic logic and poor team alignment.
Reviewing every initiative at the same cadence
Fast feedback channels need more frequent review than slower initiatives. A universal monthly cadence can allow fixable problems or scaling opportunities to pass unnoticed.
Is it for you?
Best for
It is best for marketing leaders coordinating annual or quarterly plans across multiple teams.
Not ideal for
It is not ideal for isolated tactical campaigns that require no cross-team prioritization or sustained investment.
From the transcript
“I think your strategy has to be three to four things”
“we have these initiative owners and they build at these kind of two pagers”
“we all map we kind of map those into quarterly okrs”
From the episode
How To Create A Winning Marketing Plan For 2024 (Masterclass) (#182)