How to Create a Weekly Marketing Plan That Actually Gets Done

Every founder has been here: you sit down on Monday with a long list of marketing tasks. By Friday, maybe two got done—and they weren't even the important ones.

The problem isn't effort. It's that most marketing plans are designed to fail. They're too ambitious, too scattered, and completely disconnected from what actually moves the needle.

Here's a different approach: a weekly marketing plan built around 3-7 prioritized moves—small enough to execute, ranked by impact, and designed for founders who don't have a marketing team.

Why Most Marketing Plans Fail

Let's be honest about why your last marketing plan didn't work.

Problem 1: Too Many Things at Once

A 47-item marketing to-do list isn't a plan—it's a guilt trip. When everything is a priority, nothing is.

Problem 2: No Clear Prioritization

Even shorter lists fail when you can't tell what matters most. You end up doing whatever feels easiest instead of what's highest impact.

Problem 3: Dashboards Without Direction

You have analytics for traffic, social metrics, email opens, SEO rankings, and more. But dashboards tell you what happened—not what to do next. They diagnose without prescribing.

Problem 4: No Feedback Loop

Without tracking what worked, you can't improve. Each week starts from zero instead of building on the last.

The result? Scattered effort, slow progress, and the creeping suspicion that you're working on the wrong things.

The 3-7 Moves Framework

Here's the system that actually works:

Every week, commit to 3-7 prioritized marketing moves. Not 30. Not "whatever I can get to." A specific, small set of actions ranked by expected impact.

Why 3-7?

• 3 is the minimum for meaningful progress
• 7 is the maximum before you're overcommitting
• This range forces prioritization—you can't fit 15 things into 7 slots

What counts as a "move"?

A move is a discrete action that ships something. Examples:

✅ This is a move	❌ This is not a move
Publish the comparison blog post	"Work on content"
Send outreach to 5 co-marketing partners	"Do more partnerships"
Add FAQ schema to the pricing page	"Improve SEO"
Update homepage headline based on feedback	"Optimize website"

Moves are specific and completable. Vague goals are not moves.

How to Rank Moves by Impact

Not all moves are equal. A move that takes 20 minutes and drives signups beats one that takes 4 hours and generates vanity metrics.

The Simple Ranking Formula

Score each potential move on two dimensions:

1. Impact: How much could this move the needle? (1-5)
2. Effort: How much time/energy does it require? (1-5, where 1 = easy)

Priority Score = Impact ÷ Effort

Move	Impact	Effort	Score
Add schema markup to 3 key pages	3	1	3.0
Write comprehensive industry guide	4	5	0.8
Reach out to 5 potential partners	4	2	2.0
Fix broken backlinks	2	1	2.0
Launch a co-marketing webinar	5	4	1.25

Sort by score. Take the top 3-7. That's your week.

Impact Categories

Not sure how to score impact? Think about which lever each move pulls:

• Visibility: Will more people find you? (SEO improvements, AI visibility, backlinks)
• Conversion: Will more visitors become customers? (Landing page fixes, CTAs, social proof)
• Distribution: Will existing content reach more people? (Partnerships, outreach, syndication)

Moves that pull multiple levers score higher.

The 10-Minute Weekly Planning Session

You don't need a 2-hour strategy meeting. You need 10 focused minutes once per week.

Step 1: Review Last Week (2 minutes)

• What did you ship?
• What worked? What didn't?
• Any surprises or learnings?

Step 2: Gather Candidate Moves (3 minutes)

Pull from:

• Insights from your analytics and visibility data
• Ideas you captured during the week
• Recurring opportunities (weekly newsletter, partner check-ins)
• Unfinished high-priority items from last week

Step 3: Rank and Select (3 minutes)

Score candidates by Impact ÷ Effort. Pick your 3-7 for the week. Put them in order.

Step 4: Block Time (2 minutes)

Assign each move to a day or time block. Marketing that isn't scheduled doesn't happen.

Done. You've gone from scattered to focused in 10 minutes.

Sample Weekly Marketing Plan

Here's what this looks like in practice for an early-stage B2B SaaS founder:

Move	Day	Impact	Effort	Why
1. Publish "How We Reduced Churn by 40%" case study	Mon	4	3	High-value content for SEO + sales enablement
2. Send to newsletter list	Tue	3	1	Distribution for the case study
3. Outreach to 3 co-marketing partners with backlink swap pitch	Tue	4	2	Build authority + relationships
4. Add FAQ schema to pricing page	Wed	3	1	Quick SEO win, AI visibility boost
5. Update homepage headline based on customer feedback	Thu	4	2	Conversion improvement
6. Post Twitter thread summarizing case study insights	Fri	2	1	Content repurposing, reach

That's 6 moves. Achievable in a week alongside product work. Each one ships something concrete.

Building the Feedback Loop

The system gets better over time—but only if you track results.

Weekly Tracking

At minimum, note:

• Which moves you completed
• What outcome each produced (if measurable yet)
• What you learned

Monthly Review

Once a month, zoom out:

• Which move types consistently delivered?
• Which should you do more of?
• What should you stop doing?

Over time, you'll develop intuition for what works for your specific business. The framework accelerates that learning.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

Mistake 1: Planning but Not Executing

A perfect plan you don't follow is worthless. Start with 3 moves if you need to—then build the habit.

Mistake 2: All Creation, No Distribution

"Write blog post" is only half the move. Include "Distribute blog post to X, Y, Z" as a separate move. Content without distribution is a hobby.

Mistake 3: Ignoring Quick Wins

Founders love big projects. But a 15-minute fix that improves conversion beats a 3-week initiative that might not work. Don't skip the easy wins.

Mistake 4: No Visibility Into What Matters

If you're guessing which moves are high-impact, you'll prioritize wrong. You need data: Where are your visibility gaps? What's working for competitors? What pages convert best?

This is why we built GetFanatic—to surface the insights that turn vague planning into precise prioritization.

Why Dashboards Don't Ship

You might be thinking: "I already have analytics tools. Why do I need a new system?"

Here's the difference:

Dashboards	Weekly Playbook
Show what happened	Tell you what to do next
Require interpretation	Deliver prioritized actions
Updated constantly (distracting)	Weekly cadence (focused)
Generic metrics	Moves ranked by YOUR impact

Dashboards are inputs. A weekly playbook is output. You need both—but most founders have the first and lack the second.

The GetFanatic Weekly Playbook

This is exactly what we built GetFanatic to do.

Every week, you get:

• 3-7 prioritized moves across Visibility, Content, and Co-marketing
• Expected impact for each move
• Guidance to ship so you're not starting from scratch
• Built-in distribution through partner opportunities

Open the playbook, decide in 10 minutes, ship what matters, repeat.

No more scattered effort. No more guessing what to work on. Just a focused plan that fits how founders actually work.

Start Your First Weekly Plan Today

You don't need a tool to start. Here's your homework:

1. List 10 potential marketing moves for next week
2. Score each by Impact ÷ Effort
3. Pick your top 5
4. Block time for each on your calendar
5. Execute—then review on Friday

Do this for 4 weeks. You'll ship more than you did in the last quarter of "whenever I have time" marketing.

And when you're ready for a system that generates the candidate moves for you—complete with visibility data, content opportunities, and co-marketing plays—try GetFanatic.

Your first playbook is free. See how different focused execution feels.