Marketing campaign plan template

Manage and optimize your marketing campaigns effectively with our campaign planning template

How will the planning template help me and my business?

Across the years we have worked with many businesses, large and small, creating campaigns and reviewing their marketing campaign planning. This template brings together all the components needed to create an effective marketing campaign plan.

We've designed this template to help marketers manage marketing campaigns more effectively - to help get the campaign plan right first time by increasing understanding between the person briefing the campaign and those completing it. The template is intended to help companies:

Set clearer goals and track them more clearly through analytics
Define target audiences more clearly
Develop a clearer message hierarchy
Review and select the right types of media for your campaign
Improve campaign integration between digital and non-digital channels

Who is the planning template for?

This campaign planning template is designed for:

Client-side marketers who use it for planning campaigns they run in-house or for briefing agencies.
Agencies and consultants who use it to review their approaches to running campaigns and give to clients for briefing.

It's aimed at helping you create integrated inbound marketing campaigns, with digital marketing at their heart, for maximizing campaign reach, interaction, response and ROI. The template can be used either for digital parts of campaigns or as part of an integrated marketing campaign plan.

How is the planning template structured?

The marketing campaign planning template is in Microsoft Word format so you can modify it to best suit your marketing campaigns. It’s not a blank template, instead it takes you through all the questions you need to ask to tightly define your campaign.

For small businesses, it may not be realistic or practical to create a detailed plan across all six stages. On page 3 of this template there is a one-page campaign summary, which should be sufficient for smaller companies and campaigns.

This integrated campaign plan is aimed at creating a modern, inbound marketing campaign applying the Smart Insights RACE planning approach to maximize leads and revenue from the campaign.

The stages of marketing campaigns and the key issues covered are:

Campaign goals and tracking: What are we trying to achieve through our campaign and how will we know when we achieve it?
Target audience, customer insight and targeting: Who are we trying to reach and influence?
Key campaign messages and offers: How are we trying to position our company, products, and services? What campaign or product offers will engage and convert our audience?
Campaign media plan and budget: What media channels will you use to reach and influence your target audience? What will be the sequence and integration of media activities?
Campaign asset production: What individual assets must be managed to form the campaign?
Campaign execution: What needs to be tested before the campaign is live and adjusted during the campaign? The template also links to more detailed advice in our other guides on areas like targeting and campaign tracking through analytics.

Resource Details

Authors: Dr. Dave Chaffey and Amelia Cooper
Format: Unformatted Microsoft Word document for you to add to with a one-page quick campaign summary and a more detailed 10-page plan included
Related resources:
- Campaign Planning Learning Path – an interactive Learning Path, split into bite-size modules, which outlines all the tools you need to run and measure a successful marketing campaign.
- Campaign timeline/project plan template and example – enables you to plan activities on a timeline, with key content marketing and paid, owned, and earned media shown.
- Post-campaign analysis report template – identify failings and evaluate opportunities to improve future campaigns with this handy template.

About the authors

Dr. Dave Chaffey

Dave is co-founder of Smart Insights and creator of the Smart Insights RACE planning framework. For his full profile, or to connect on LinkedIn or other social networks, see the About Dave Chaffey profile page on Smart Insights. Dave is author of 5 bestselling books on digital marketing including Digital Marketing Excellence and Digital Marketing: Strategy, Implementation and Practice. In 2004 he was recognised by the Chartered Institute of Marketing as one of 50 marketing ‘gurus’ worldwide who have helped shape the future of marketing.

Amelia Cooper

Image of Amelia smiling

Amelia Cooper is Head of Content at Smart Insights. She is responsible for managing the paid member content library and e-learning resources, as well as strategic planning to ensure customers get the most from their memberships. She is a University of Southampton and the Chartered Institute of Marketing graduate with over 7 years’ experience in digital marketing, specializing in content marketing.