Do you have a written marketing plan for your business? Not a vague sense of what you should probably be doing more of — an actual, written-down plan you review and adjust on a regular basis?
If you’re being honest, the answer is probably no. And you’re not alone. A large percentage of business owners will tell you they want to market and promote their business more consistently. But when you ask how many of them actually have a written marketing plan guiding that effort, the number drops fast. Most entrepreneurs are marketing reactively — posting when they think of it, promoting when a launch is coming, going quiet when things get busy — instead of marketing from a plan.
That gap between wanting to market and having a plan to market is exactly what I wanted to close with the B.E.S.T. Marketing Plan.
What Makes This the B.E.S.T. Marketing Plan
B — Build
The first question every marketing plan needs to answer is: how are you going to build your business?
There are three primary ways to build a business, and most business owners lean heavily on one while neglecting the other two:
- Attracting new clients— bringing fresh people into your world who’ve never worked with you before
- Retaining existing clients— deepening relationships with people already in your ecosystem so they stay
- Expanding through referrals and repeat business— turning happy clients into your best (and cheapest) marketing channel
A written marketing plan should intentionally address all
three, not just the one that feels most natural to you.
E — Engage
The second piece is engagement — specifically, how you engage with your community.
This is where content marketing becomes essential. Content is the vehicle that lets you show up consistently for the people in your audience, build familiarity and trust over time, and stay visible between the moments when someone’s actually ready to buy. Engagement isn’t a single post or a single campaign — it’s the ongoing rhythm of showing up for your community in a way that actually serves them.
S — Serve
The third piece asks a deceptively simple question: what is the solution that you serve in the marketplace?
Your marketing plan has to be crystal clear on this. Not just what you sell, but the actual problem it solves and for whom. If you can’t articulate your solution clearly, your marketing will stay vague — and vague marketing rarely converts. This is the piece that connects everything else in the plan back to the actual value you provide.
T — Track
The fourth and final piece is tracking — and it’s the one most business owners skip entirely.
A marketing plan without tracking is just a set of intentions. Tracking is what tells you whether the plan is actually working: which content is resonating, which channels are attracting clients, where retention is strong or weak, and where you need to adjust. Without it, you’re marketing blind — repeating what feels productive instead of what’s actually effective.
Why God's Way Is the B.E.S.T. Way
Here’s the piece that ties the whole framework together: God’s way is the BEST way to market your business.
Build, Engage, Serve, Track — these four pillars work because they’re rooted in something more sustainable than the latest trend or tactic. They keep your marketing anchored to actual relationship-building (Build and Engage), actual value (Solution), and actual wisdom and discernment (Track) — rather than chasing whatever’s working for someone else this month.
Put It Into Practice
If you don’t currently have a written marketing plan, this is your sign to create one. Start simply: write down how you’re building (all three ways), how you’re engaging your community, what solution you provide, and how you’ll track whether it’s working.
I go much deeper into each of these four pillars — with real examples — on the podcast. You can listen to the full episode here: [S6, E7 — The B.E.S.T. Marketing Plan for Your Business]
**Want a head start on building your own plan?** Download the Aligned Marketing Plan guide — it walks through two powerful ways to plan your marketing with ease and flow: [nadinemullings.com/power]