A 90-day marketing plan for small businesses

Most small businesses don’t need a 40-page marketing strategy. They need to know what to do this week, and a simple way to tell whether it’s working.

A 90-day plan gives you both. It’s short enough to stay focused and long enough for most channels to show results. Here’s the structure we use with clients, the free tools that make it easy, and the weekly routine that keeps it going.

Why 90 days works

Annual plans tend to be written in January and forgotten by March. A quarter is different: long enough for search, email and social media to start working, short enough that the deadline feels real. It’s the idea behind Brian Moran and Michael Lennington’s book The 12 Week Year, and the reason many companies set OKRs (objectives and key results) every quarter.

It suits small firms in particular. Of the 5.7 million private sector businesses in the UK, three quarters have no employees other than their owners, according to the government’s 2025 business population estimates. When the person doing the marketing is also running the business, the plan has to be short and specific.

Before you start: pick one number

Choose the one result that matters most this quarter: enquiries, booked calls, online sales or new members. Write down where it is today and where you want it to be in 90 days, and make it SMART: specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound, the test George T. Doran set out in 1981. “More leads” isn’t a goal. “From 12 to 20 qualified enquiries a month by 31 December” is.

Then set a budget you can keep up for the whole quarter. For context, Gartner’s 2026 CMO Spend Survey puts marketing budgets at 7.8% of company revenue among the larger companies it surveys. Small businesses rarely need that much to start, but they do need enough to run each chosen channel properly for 90 days.

Days 1 to 14: foundations

• Describe your ideal customer in a paragraph: who they are, what they need and why they’d choose you.
• Write your offer in one sentence that a customer would understand.
• Set up tracking. In Google Analytics 4, mark form submissions, calls and purchases as key events. Add UTM tags to the links in your emails, social posts and ads with Google’s Campaign URL Builder, so you can see which activity brings enquiries.
• Connect Google Search Console to see which searches find you.
• Audit what you already have: website, Google Business Profile, social accounts, email list and reviews.

Days 15 to 45: fix the leaks

Before you spend more on getting attention, make sure you’re not losing the people you already reach. Small fixes here often bring more enquiries than a new campaign would.

• Make your homepage say what you do, who it’s for and what to do next, all within the first screen.
• Complete your Google Business Profile with photos, services, opening hours and a description that matches your website.
• Ask every happy customer for a review, and keep them coming: in BrightLocal’s 2026 survey, 97% of consumers read reviews of local businesses, and 74% only look at reviews from the last three months.
• Add a clear call to action to every page, and test your contact form yourself.
• Start an email list with something genuinely useful, such as a checklist, a short guide or a first-order discount, followed by a friendly welcome email.

Days 46 to 75: pick two channels and commit

Trying every channel at once spreads you thin. Pick the two where your customers already spend time, do them well, and give each one the full 30 days before you judge it:

Balance quick wins with long-term reputation. Les Binet and Peter Field’s research for the IPA found that consumer brands grow best with roughly 60% of effort on brand building and 40% on direct response; for B2B, their work with LinkedIn’s B2B Institute suggests 46% and 54%. For a small business, that simply means keeping some activity that makes people remember you, not only ads that ask for a sale.

Days 76 to 90: review and double down

Go back to your one number. For each activity, compare what it cost with what it produced:

A quick worked example: say you spent £600 on Google Ads and received 15 enquiries. Your cost per lead is £40. If one in five enquiries becomes a customer, each new customer cost £200 to win. If a typical customer spends £1,500 with you over two years, that channel deserves more budget next quarter. If they spend £150, it doesn’t.

Keep what worked, drop what didn’t, and use what you learned to write the next 90-day plan.

Free and low-cost tools

You don’t need expensive software to run a good plan. These cover most needs:

Free plan limits checked in October 2026. They change often, so check with each provider before you choose.

If you email customers in the UK, follow the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations: you need specific consent to send marketing emails to individuals, with a limited “soft opt-in” exception for your own previous customers. The ICO’s guidance explains both.

The weekly 30-minute check-in

Put a recurring 30 minutes in your calendar, at the same time every week. Look at three things: your main number, what you did last week and what you’ll do this week. Write the answers down in one place, such as a shared document or a Trello board. That small habit is what keeps a plan alive when the business gets busy. If you’d like a plan built and run with you, it’s how every Brielgio engagement starts.

Frequently asked questions

Sources

1. Business population estimates for the UK and regions 2025, GOV.UK, 2 October 2025
2. Gartner 2026 CMO Spend Survey, Gartner, 11 May 2026
3. Local Consumer Review Survey 2026, BrightLocal, February 2026
4. How B2B marketing really drives growth, LinkedIn B2B Institute, October 2019
5. Mark events as key events, Google Analytics Help
6. Campaign URL Builder, Google
7. Electronic mail marketing (PECR), Information Commissioner’s Office
8. Kit pricing, Kit
9. Mailchimp pricing, Mailchimp
10. MailerLite pricing, MailerLite
11. Brevo pricing, Brevo

Written with the assistance of AI, then reviewed and refined by the Brielgio team.