The prevalence of artificial intelligence (AI) has many concerned about job security.
AI writing, AI images, AI videos — while the final products are far from perfect, they raise the question of what jobs AI could eventually replace, even if we don’t want them to.
But, heck, if AI can create a marketing plan for me, I say, “Welcome to the team!”
A marketing plan is a foundational piece of any marketing strategy. It keeps businesses organized and focused on their goals. However, with all the details it should consider and capture, it can be extremely time-consuming and tedious to put together.
That’s where I’ve discovered AI can help.
After years of researching and compiling documents by hand, I recently used AI to create a marketing plan to see what it could deliver. Let’s break down the steps I took, how the plans turned out, and how you can replicate them.
Why use AI to create a marketing plan?
We at HubSpot probably sound like a broken record by now, but AI can help marketers work smarter, not harder.
Don’t get me wrong — plagiarism, bias, data insecurity, and poor quality are all concerns when generating content with AI. But when it comes to planning and research? The tools can save massive amounts of time and money.
In fact, one of our recent studies found that 75% of marketers say AI and automation help them spend less time on manual tasks like research.
AI assistants like ChatGPT, Gemini, and even HubSpot’s Breeze perform research and optimization in real time.
The speed at which they can pull information from multiple data sources just isn’t humanly possible. Add in tasks like data analysis, calculations, and formatting, and it’s no wonder marketers report getting 12.5 hours back weekly.
By using AI to create, or at least draft, your marketing plan, you can spend less time and money planning and more actually executing.
Now, speaking of spending less time on planning, enough of this background info. Let’s get to the real action.
How to Create a Marketing Plan with AI
I tested two AI tools and approaches for creating a marketing plan: a chatbot and a generator.
Below, I’ll break down my process into specific steps and share my thoughts on how they did, along with some tips I learned along the way.
Creating a Marketing Plan with a Chatbot
A few months back, HubSpot’s Kieran Flanagan and CMO Kipp Bodnar used ChatGPT to create a marketing plan for the Marketing Against the Grain podcast.
I used this as my jumping-off point.
As they discussed, the quality you get from a chatbot or AI assistant like ChatGPT depends on the quality of your prompt. It’s like your creative brief.
You can’t talk to AI like a search engine with incomplete sentences and keywords.
Instead, you want to speak to it like you would another person. Give your chatbot the same detailed information you would give your intern or freelancer to complete a task.
Most of the steps described below are focused on doing just that.
1. Summarize your business (i.e., Your product, company, unique selling points).
To quote one of my favorite Bollywood movies, “Who are you?”
Before AI could develop my marketing plan, it needed to know what it was marketing and who exactly my company was.
What I included: Following Bodnar and Flanagan’s lead, I kept it simple, including being “head of marketing for a technology company that sells a SaaS product for Sales Teams.”
But this is really the bare minimum a tool needs to know about your company to craft a marketing plan. To get the best results, you’ll want to dive into:
- Your product/offering
- What makes it different (specific features, capabilities, etc.)
- Company mission
- Company values
Pro tip: You may even want to provide a SWOT analysis or competitive analysis so the AI knows the full scope of what you’re dealing with. No information is too much.
For example, I borrowed this market information from Flanagan to include in my prompt:
“The market is getting crowded; there are a lot of apps with similar features. I also have to be concerned that the CRMs we integrate with will build the feature when they see its popularity grow. This means I need to scale demand and the product fast to take advantage of the opportunity.”
2. Outline your business goals.
What is your marketing team working on? What is it trying to achieve? Document these goals so your AI tool knows what all its suggestions need to work toward.
Use the SMART framework for goals — in other words, make sure they are specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound. This leaves less room for ambiguity in whether you accomplished what you were supposed to.
For example, in the past, I’ve seen clients try to set vague goals like “Increase my presence on TikTok.” But a SMART version could be, “Increase my TikTok following by 30% by June.”
Notice the difference?
In the first, “presence” could mean posting more videos, attracting more followers, or even getting more views. The SMART version makes it clear the focus is follower count.
What I included: “The goal of the marketing plan is to close 5000 new customers in the next 12 months.”
Pro tip: Including your average conversion rates and buyer behavior can help AI better understand your sales cycle and determine which strategies will be more effective for you.
For example, I added this line, “Assume the conversion rate from traffic to customer will be 5%, which means I’ll need roughly 100,000 website visits. “
3. Describe your target audience.
Who is your buyer? Who does your marketing plan need to reach? AI needs to know this information to ensure its strategic suggestions align.
You can share a full buyer persona with your AI tool, but at the least, you want to include the following in your prompt:
- Age
- Location
- Company, job title, industry (if B2B)
- Goals
- Personal challenges
- Pain points you solve
What I included: “Our audience is primarily sales reps at small-to-medium-sized businesses. Their teams are usually small, with 2-4 reps on the team total. They are concerned with meeting their sales goals, prioritizing the right prospects, and streamlining their sales process. Our CRM offers automation and data enrichment tools to make this easier.”
4. Define your marketing budget.
This point is pretty straightforward — How much can your company spend on your marketing plan to achieve your goals? Defining your market budget in your prompt gives the chatbot parameters to work with.
You know, so it doesn’t suggest running a Super Bowl commercial or recruiting Beyonce as a celebrity ambassador.
What I included: “Our marketing budget is $10,000 for the year. Cost-effectiveness is a top priority.” I added the second line to clarify that while I have this total to spend, I want it to be distributed in proven areas.
5. Establish your timeline.
Like your budget, your timeline gives your chatbot further direction on what suggestions are plausible and which aren’t.
For example, if your timeline is only one month, it wouldn’t make sense to suggest leaning into SEO and blog articles, as those can take months to gain traction.
What I included: My timeline of “12 months” was established in my goal and referenced throughout my prompt.
6. Set key performance indicators (KPIs).
How will you track and report on your success? Some company stakeholders expect to see specific data. If so, your prompt is your chance to loop your chatbot in on this expectation.
But if you don’t include them, it’s not make or break.
Usually, KPIs are linked to your tactics and strategies. So, if you’re waiting to see what our marketing plan suggests to set metrics, no worries.
Pro tip: You can also ask the chatbot to suggest KPIs based on its proposed strategy.
What I included: I left KPIs out of my prompt so ChatGPT would focus on tactics and strategy.
7. Share examples and “extras.”
Do you have specific campaigns you admire? How about marketing frameworks like StoryBrand or thought leaders like Ann Handley or Neil Patel?
Once again, sharing these examples with your chatbot in your prompt helps it understand what you’re looking for from your marketing plan.
What I included: I added to my prompt: “I want your answers to be heavily influenced by marketing greats:
- Seth Godin’s approach to branding
- Gary Vaynerchuk’s approach to social media marketing
- Andy Crestodina’s approach to web and digital strategy”
You can also take this time to add what I call “extras” to your prompt.
For instance, Flanagan made it a point to tell ChatGPT that he didn’t want to see best practices. You can mention if there are specific channels you want to include or exclude, or maybe even global holidays.
8. Compile information into a prompt.
Once you’ve got all the pieces from steps 1-9, compile them into one prompt. Make sure that it’s conversational, and each sentence is short and precise.
9. Enter the prompt into a chatbot.
10. Review and refine.
Once you get your results (like mine below), you can use this as a first draft to elaborate on or ask for edits.
Flanagan asked ChatGPT to flesh out specifics about the suggested campaigns and tactics and make them more actionable. Remember, ChatGPT is like your intern or freelancer. Refine and clarify until the finished product meets your needs.
Honestly, I wasn’t super impressed by the results I got from my initial prompt.
The answers were quite similar to what Flanagan and Bodnar got which goes to show you, how generic your results can be if you don’t give specific details about your business.
But perhaps if I made follow-up requests like they did in the podcast episode, I could have uncovered some unique gems.
What did I like about this AI marketing plan?
- Easy to skim through the ideas
- Clearly considered my examples and requests
- The conversational nature of the chatbot made it easy to use.
What could be improved?
- Suggestions were fairly generic
- It takes iterations to get more detailed and specific results
- Putting together the creative brief is very time-consuming
- Formatting is informal
Who is this best for?
Small-to-medium-sized marketing teams that need help brainstorming strategies but don’t necessarily need anything cutting-edge.
By the way, marketing plans aren’t the only things ChatGPT can do with the right prompt.
Our free guide, “How to Use ChatGPT at Work,” talks through some of the most effective use cases and shares over 100 prompts you can use immediately.
Marketing Plan Generator
After ChatGPT, I tried HubSpot’s AI-powered Marketing Plan Generator.
Try our free Marketing Plan Generator here.
Here, I still needed all the information we discussed above ready to go, but this tool did a great job of simplifying the compilation process and formatting it into a neat little document.
Rather than putting together an instructional prompt, all I had to do was ask a few questions. (I was essentially copying and pasting the details from earlier.)
Then, the tool delivered a one-page document with a yearly marketing plan along with priority and strategy suggestions based on the goal I entered.
The document (shown in the image below) makes it easy to review the marketing plan at a glance and share it with teammates and stakeholders.
Pro tip: This AI marketing plan generator does a lot of formal formatting for you, but the quality it delivers is only as good as the information you give it to work off.
Before you use the generator, sit down and flesh out your:
- Marketing mission statement: This is what your marketing is focused on for the year.
- Strategy: What are you doing to reach your goals?
- Marketing Initiatives (i.e., brand awareness or building a high-quality pipeline)
- Target Goals (i.e., generating 100 leads per week)
- Metrics
The tool will ask you about these things, and it’s better to consider them before making them up at that moment.
What did I like about this AI marketing plan?
- Easy to skim one-page document
- Form eliminates the stress of knowing how to write a good prompt
What could be improved?
- More detailed strategy/suggestions
Who is this best for?
Businesses short on time or those new to creating marketing plans who want a starting point. It’s also great for those who haven’t mastered the art of chatbot prompts. (I’m still working on this, too.)
Final verdict: Treat AI like a running start.
These are just two of the ways you can create a marketing plan using AI. In fact, there are many other tools dedicated specifically to this need. However, no matter which you choose, remember to treat any results as a first draft.
Artificial intelligence only knows as much about your company, product, and audience as it’s been told. It doesn’t have your team’s first-hand experience or knowledge.
So, treat any results as a brainstorming tool and something to elaborate on.
Right now, AI can only give you a running start; it can’t take you to the finish line.
