Module 12 workshop: your 90-day marketing plan

Turn your annual plan into a 90-day action plan with one goal, three priorities, a week-by-week schedule and checkpoints at days 30, 60 and 90. Work through each step for your own business, using Lantern & Lane's first quarter as the worked model.

Read the transcript

Module 12 workshop: your 90-day marketing plan.

An annual plan tells you where you are going.

A 90-day plan tells you what you are doing on Tuesday.

Step 1: Set one goal for the quarter.

Pick a single goal, stated as a number with a date.

Pull it from the annual plan and the season you are entering.

Step 2: Find the bottleneck.

Every goal has one constraint that limits it more than the others.

Use your dashboard to find it.

Step 3: Choose three priorities at most.

List every idea that could close the gap, then choose up to three, using two questions: how much will it move the bottleneck, and how much time and money does it need?

Lantern and Lane chose:

Step 4: Break it into 13 weeks.

Turn each priority into dated tasks.

Copy this format and fill in your own.

Step 5: Assign owners and protect the time.

Give every task one owner.

At Lantern and Lane, Marco owns the show and Google Ads; Priya owns partners and the newsletter.

That is the lesson. The worksheet and the quiz are just below this video.

What you will be able to do

• Set one 90-day goal and identify the bottleneck that most limits it
• Choose no more than three priorities and break them into a 13-week schedule with owners
• Define checkpoints, decision rules and a compliance check for the quarter

An annual plan tells you where you are going. A 90-day plan tells you what you are doing on Tuesday. Ninety days is long enough to finish something meaningful and short enough that you can still see the end from the start. This workshop takes the first quarter of your annual plan and turns it into a schedule you can follow. You will need your annual plan, your dashboard and about two hours.

Step 1: Set one goal for the quarter

Pick a single goal, stated as a number with a date. Pull it from the annual plan and the season you are entering.

Lantern & Lane’s annual plan needs 44 bookings. The first quarter is the heart of wedding inquiry season, so Priya and Marco set a larger share for it: 14 new bookings, worth $91,000 before HST, by March 31. At $6,500 each, 14 bookings is $91,000.

Resist adding a second goal. Everything else in the quarter should serve this one.

Step 2: Find the bottleneck

Every goal has one constraint that limits it more than the others. Use your dashboard to find it. Work down the chain and look for the weakest link.

The arithmetic: 14 bookings at a 25 percent inquiry-to-booking rate needs 56 inquiries (14 divided by 0.25). Last year’s first quarter produced 48. Response time is fine, and consultations convert well. The bottleneck is the top of the funnel: the studio needs about eight more inquiries, roughly 17 percent more, and they need to be the right ones.

Your bottleneck may be different. If you have plenty of inquiries but few bookings, the fix is in sales follow-up, proposals or price, not in more marketing.

Step 3: Choose three priorities at most

List every idea that could close the gap, then choose up to three, using two questions: how much will it move the bottleneck, and how much time and money does it need? Lantern & Lane chose:

1. Wedding show and 48-hour follow-up, expected to produce 15 to 20 inquiries from couples combining two traditions.
2. Google Ads wedding campaign at $675 a month, expected to produce about 27 leads over the quarter at $75 each.
3. Two new venue partners in Peel and York, with an introduction coffee and a give-first action each, expected to start producing referrals by spring.

Everything else, such as a new Instagram series and a website redesign, went on a “not this quarter” list. Writing it down makes it easier to say no.

Step 4: Break it into 13 weeks

Turn each priority into dated tasks. Copy this format and fill in your own.

Under the three columns, keep the routines from the annual plan running: newsletter, posting rhythm, review requests, monthly dashboard. They are not priorities, but the plan fails if they stop.

Step 5: Assign owners and protect the time

Give every task one owner. At Lantern & Lane, Marco owns the show and Google Ads; Priya owns partners and the newsletter. Then put the work in the calendar as fixed appointments: Marco blocks Tuesday mornings for ads and follow-up, Priya blocks Thursday afternoons for partners and content. Marketing that waits for spare time does not happen in a busy studio.

Step 6: Set checkpoints and decision rules

Decide now what you will look at and what you will do, so you are not tempted to explain away bad numbers later.

• Day 30: inquiries on pace? Target: at least 18 by January 31. If below 14, check tracking and the Google search terms report first, then raise the ad budget by 20 percent.
• Day 60: show leads followed up and consultations booked? Target: at least 8 consultations from show leads. If below 5, Priya calls every warm lead personally.
• Day 90: bookings against the goal of 14, cost per booking by channel against the $975 maximum, and one lesson per priority written into the annual plan.

Why 90-day plans stall

Most quarterly plans fail in the same few ways. Check yours against them before you start.

• Too many priorities. Five priorities means none gets finished. If you cannot choose three, your goal is probably too vague.
• No protected time. The first busy week pushes marketing aside, and it never comes back. Fixed appointments in the calendar prevent this.
• Tracking set up late. If the QR codes, UTM tags and CRM source field are not ready in week one, the day 90 review is guesswork.
• Changing course at week three. Early numbers are noisy. Unless a decision rule is triggered, give each priority the full quarter.

Step 7: Write the one-page 90-day plan

Assemble the page with this template.

1. Goal: one number, one date.
2. Bottleneck: the weakest link and the gap.
3. Three priorities, each with its expected contribution to the goal.
4. The 13-week schedule.
5. Owners and protected time.
6. Checkpoints and decision rules at days 30, 60 and 90.
7. Not this quarter: the ideas you are deliberately setting aside.
8. Compliance check: the rules the quarter’s activities touch.

Print it. Put it where you will see it every working day. At day 90, review it, keep what worked, and write the next 90 days from the next quarter of your annual plan. Four of these and you have run a full marketing year on purpose.

In Canada and the GTA

Time the quarter to the local calendar. In the GTA, the strongest quarter for a 90-day push depends on what you sell.

Start the 90 days a few weeks before the window opens, not on the day it does. Lantern & Lane’s plan begins in the first week of January because the build work, such as booth print and campaign set-up, must be finished before couples start searching.

The compliance check for your quarter

Go through your three priorities and note which rules each one touches. These are the ones that come up most often for a 90-day push.

• Show and event leads (CASL). A business card or a sign-up sheet can support implied consent, and an inquiry gives implied consent for 6 months. Add an unticked box for express consent to your newsletter, include identification and an unsubscribe mechanism in every follow-up, and process unsubscribes within 10 business days. See the CRTC’s CASL frequently asked questions.
• Prices in ads and on new pages (Competition Act). Any advertised price must include every mandatory fixed fee; only taxes imposed by law, such as the 13 percent HST, may be added. “Regular” prices beside sale prices must meet the ordinary selling price tests.
• Booth draws and contests. Section 74.06 requires adequate and fair disclosure of the number and approximate value of prizes and of facts that materially affect the chances of winning.
• Review requests (Google policy). Ask every client, offer nothing in return, and do not ask only the happy ones.
• Partners and endorsements. Disclose referral fees and any material connection behind a recommendation or testimonial. Ad Standards’ influencer guidelines call #ad the gold standard for social posts.
• Tracking (PIPEDA). Update your privacy policy for any new ad tag, CRM or call tracking tool you add this quarter.
• Hiring (Meta). If you advertise jobs for extra summer staff, declare the employment special ad category for Canadian audiences.
• HST registration. If a strong quarter pushes your taxable supplies above $30,000 in a single calendar quarter, you are no longer a small supplier and must register within 29 days. The CRA’s guide RC4022 explains the rules.

Capacity and weather. A 90-day plan that works in the GTA also allows for the realities of the region: January storms that empty a wedding show on a Sunday, summer weekends when every vendor is working and nobody answers email, and long drives between Durham, Peel and Halton that eat into the hours you planned for marketing. Build a week of slack into every quarter.

Plan the next quarter before this one ends. Because event buyers decide weeks or months ahead, the work for the next window has to start inside the current quarter. Lantern & Lane drafts its second-quarter plan in early March, so that spring partner shoots and review routines are ready by April, and it drafts the third-quarter plan in June, so the holiday party package and corporate ads are built before office managers return from summer holidays in late August. Put those drafting dates in this quarter’s schedule.

This is general information, not legal or tax advice. Check the source, your accountant or a lawyer for your situation.

Worksheet

Download the worksheet and complete it for your own business, using Lantern & Lane as the model where it helps. Keep it with your marketing plan. It takes about 15 minutes.

Download the worksheet (PDF)