It’s important to develop a marketing plan to propel your business throughout the year, but let’s remember that nothing happens until you get started. The best plan in the world is useless if it just stays on paper. Business owners commonly find themselves in one of two categories: they either plan too much and never take action, or they take action without a plan in place.
Planning without action
A great plan needs to be executed. However, some business owners get so caught up in the minutia of the planning, they never put it into action. Sadly, lots of great marketing ideas are developed in these plans, but for fear of things not being perfect, they never see the light of day. For some business owners, developing the plan is the easy part because it does not require action steps. But, your 
plan is just theory until it is tested.
Action without a plan
The opposite of putting together a plan is just taking action without a plan in place. It’s good that you are taking the steps to move your business forward, but without a plan it’s like paddling a boat and going nowhere. Without clear objectives of what you want to accomplish and a plan to get you there, your actions are aimless and unguided.
When it comes to taking the first step to execute your marketing plan, don’t be afraid of making mistakes. It’s not going to be perfect. Things may not fall into place exactly how you planned – and that’s okay. The most important thing to understand is that a plan without action is just words on paper.
Remember to be flexible. As you work through your plan, you will find that some ideas work exceedingly well and some don’t work well at all. The only way to discover this is by putting your ideas into action. For some business owners, developing the plan is the easy part because it does not require action steps. But, your plan is just theory until it is tested.
You may have some marketing ideas that look great on paper but when you put them into play, you realized they were not as strong as you thought. A plan + action = results. A skewed formula just will not work, but that’s what most business owners are working with. They are either missing the plan or missing the action. Both must be in play to achieve the results you want for your company.
The plan enables you to reverse engineer your goals into action items to move your business forward throughout the year. The key words here are action items. Your plan is the blueprint that drives the marketing for your business. Think of an architect and the purpose of a blueprint. The blueprint is the plan and design of the building being proposed. Once the builder decides to move forward on a project, they need to follow the architect’s blueprint to successfully build the structure.
The same is true for your business and your marketing plan. A plan + action = results. Both must be in play to achieve the results you want for your company. With your plan and your actions lock and step, you can’t go wrong.
