Marketing Strategy Checklist

The PMM owns this. Pull firmographics (industry, employee count, revenue band, geo) and persona job titles from closed-won deals in the CRM over the last 4 quarters — not aspirational targets. Note any drift from last quarter's ICP and flag accounts in the pipeline that fall outside it.

Pick 3–5 direct competitors. Capture pricing page, positioning statement, top 10 organic keywords (Ahrefs or Semrush), paid ads running (Meta Ad Library, Google Ads Transparency), and recent content velocity. Save the teardown deck to the shared drive.

SEO lead pulls keyword rankings from Google Search Console and runs a gap analysis in Ahrefs against the competitor set. Flag BOFU keywords where competitors rank and we don't — those become content briefs in the next phase.

Pull the last quarter's win/loss notes from sales and any customer-interview transcripts (Gong, Chorus, or Grain). Document the top 3 reasons we win, top 3 reasons we lose, and the language buyers actually use — that vocabulary feeds messaging and ad copy.

The CMO syncs with the CRO and CFO on the revenue number marketing must source. Get the split: what percent of pipeline is marketing-sourced vs. sales-sourced vs. partner-sourced. Without this, the MQL target downstream is fiction.

Walk the funnel backwards: revenue target ÷ ACV = deals needed; deals ÷ opp-to-close rate = opps; opps ÷ SQL-to-opp rate = SQLs; SQLs ÷ MQL-to-SQL rate = MQLs. Use the last 4 quarters of conversion rates from Salesforce or HubSpot, not aspirational ones.

Lock the KPI list before the quarter starts: MQLs, SQLs, pipeline sourced, CAC, payback period, ROAS by channel, organic traffic, email engagement. Build or update the GA4 + CRM dashboard. Confirm WBR and MBR cadence with the team.

Brand and category-creation work won't show up in last-touch attribution for 2–4 quarters. Decide now whether the quarter includes one and how it gets measured (brand lift study, branded-search volume, share of voice via Sparktoro or similar).

Content manager owns the calendar. Map each piece to a target keyword from the gap analysis, a funnel stage (TOFU/MOFU/BOFU), the assigned writer + editor, and a publish date. Aim for steady cadence over a launch-and-go-quiet pattern.

Each pillar piece gets a brief covering target keyword, search intent, persona, key points, internal links to 2–3 related pages, and outbound citations. Use Clearscope or Surfer for keyword coverage targets, but don't let the SEO score override editorial judgment.

Brief creative on the brand bet: positioning narrative, channels (LinkedIn, podcast sponsorships, OOH if applicable), measurement plan. Coordinate with the brand manager on visual identity adherence and tone of voice. Skip if the previous step said no brand campaign.

Social manager schedules organic posts in Hootsuite or Sprout aligned to the editorial calendar. Lifecycle marketer maps the email calendar in HubSpot or Marketo — broadcasts, nurture sequences, and re-engagement for any segment quiet >90 days. Confirm SPF, DKIM, and DMARC are passing before any large send.

Marketing ops publishes the UTM convention doc — source / medium / campaign naming — and shares the link-builder tool. Drift across campaigns makes attribution reports uncomparable. Verify GA4 conversion events fire on the actual submit, not on email-blur.

Performance marketer builds the channel plan: Google Ads (search + brand defense), LinkedIn (ABM + sponsored content), Meta if persona warrants. Set monthly pacing targets and frequency caps. Decide attribution window (commonly 7-day click / 1-day view for B2B) up front so reports are consistent.

If running ABM, sync the target account list from Salesforce to LinkedIn Campaign Manager and 6sense or Demandbase. Confirm sales has signed off on the list — running ads against accounts a rep is mid-cycle on causes friction.

Verify the consent management platform (OneTrust, Cookiebot) gates Meta Pixel and other marketing tags on EU traffic. For any influencer or affiliate campaign, confirm FTC disclosure language (#ad at top of post, not buried in hashtags). Document approvals with timestamps — Slack DMs are not compliance evidence.

Triggered when the prior check found issues. Common fixes: tag-management gating by consent state, missing #ad on influencer drafts, stale unsubscribe-suppression list. Block paid launch until resolved and re-verified.

CMO and finance sign off on the total. Break it into paid media, content production, tools (martech stack renewals), events, agency retainers, and contingency (~10%). Include the brand bet line item if applicable.

Walk the calendar against current headcount and agency hours. Flag any pillar pieces or campaigns without a named owner. Common gotcha: a quarter's plan that requires 1.5 FTE of design but the team has 0.5.

Marketing ops reviews tools coming up for renewal: HubSpot/Marketo, Ahrefs/Semrush, Sprout Social, Litmus, Clearscope, the CMP. Cancel or downgrade what isn't load-bearing. Note any new tools needed for the quarter's plan.

Walk sales, CS, and product through the plan: target accounts, content themes, campaign timing, what to amplify. Sales enablement gets the messaging house and any new collateral. Misalignment here is what makes marketing-sourced pipeline get re-tagged as sales-sourced later.

Pull MQL pacing, channel ROAS, content engagement, and pipeline sourced against target. If a channel is pacing under 70% of plan, decide now to reallocate — waiting until the QBR is too late.

Compare actuals against the targets set at the start: MQLs, pipeline sourced, CAC, payback. Document what worked, what didn't, and which assumptions broke. The retro feeds directly into the next quarter's research phase.