Fork This: The Open-Source B2B Marketing Plan for Developers

As engineers, we build systems. We design architecture, define APIs, and write code that solves complex problems. But once the product is built, another system comes into play: marketing. For many of us, it feels like a black box with unpredictable outputs.

What if we treated a B2B marketing plan not as a fluffy slide deck, but as a system architecture document? A well-defined, version-controlled plan for your growth engine.

This guide is for developers, by a developer-minded marketer. We're going to architect a B2B marketing plan from scratch. Forget the jargon; let's talk specs, metrics, and implementation. I've even included a B2B_Marketing_Plan.md template you can fork and use.

Your Marketing Plan is a System, Not a Static Document

Think of your marketing plan as the README.md and core architecture for your Go-to-Market (GTM) strategy. It’s not a write-once, deploy-forever binary. It's a living system with:

• Inputs: Budget, team hours, market data.
• Processing: Content creation, ad campaigns, community engagement.
• Outputs: Leads, signups, revenue.
• Feedback Loops: Analytics, KPIs, customer feedback for iteration.

Let's break down the core modules of this system.

The Core Components: A Developer's B2B Marketing Plan Template

A solid plan has several key functions. Here’s how to structure yours.

1. The README.md: Executive Summary

This is the high-level overview. If someone only reads this section, they should understand the mission. Keep it concise.

• Mission Statement: What are you trying to achieve? (e.g., "Become the default CI/CD tool for serverless developers.")
• Core Problem: The specific pain point your product solves.
• High-Level Goals: The top 1-3 business objectives for this plan (e.g., "Acquire our first 100 paying customers in 6 months.")

2. The API Consumer: Your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP)

Who are you building for? In marketing, this is your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) and Buyer Persona. Don't guess. Talk to users. Look at your early adopters. Define them with the precision of a data model.

Think of it as a JSON object:

const idealCustomerProfile = {
  "company": {
    "industry": "SaaS, Fintech",
    "size": "50-200 employees",
    "techStack": ["AWS", "Kubernetes", "Go", "TypeScript"],
    "painPoints": ["Slow build times", "Complex deployment pipelines", "High cloud observability costs"]
  },
  "persona": {
    "title": "Head of Engineering / Senior DevOps Engineer",
    "goals": ["Improve developer velocity", "Maintain 99.99% uptime", "Control infrastructure budget"],
    "challenges": ["Managing microservices sprawl", "Onboarding junior developers", "Security compliance"],
    "wateringHoles": ["Hacker News", "Dev.to", "r/devops", "KubeCon", "AWS re:Invent"]
  }
};

Your entire B2B marketing strategy will be engineered to reach and resonate with this specific profile.

3. Setting SLOs: Goals & Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)

How do you know if your system is working? You need metrics. Abstract goals like "increase awareness" are useless. You need quantifiable Service Level Objectives (SLOs).

Structure your goals using the Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) framework. The Objective is the qualitative goal; the Key Results are the measurable outcomes.

const marketingKPIs_Q3 = {
  "objective": "Generate a pipeline of qualified product-led signups.",
  "keyResults": [
    {
      "metric": "Website Organic Traffic (Unique Visitors)",
      "target": 20000,
      "current": 8000
    },
    {
      "metric": "New Free Trial Signups",
      "target": 400,
      "current": 150
    },
    {
      "metric": "Signup-to-Paid Conversion Rate",
      "target": "5%",
      "current": "3.5%"
    }
  ]
};

Track these relentlessly. This is your monitoring and alerting dashboard.

4. The Core Logic: B2B Marketing Strategy & Channels

This is where you define how you'll reach your ICP and hit your KPIs. A strategy isn't just a list of things to do; it’s the logic behind your choices.

• Positioning: How are you different from the competition? Are you the faster, cheaper, or more developer-friendly alternative? This is your unique value proposition.
• Content Strategy: Your product's documentation attracts users. Your content is the documentation for the problem your product solves. For a technical audience, this means blog posts with code, tutorials, benchmarks, and open-source contributions.
• Distribution Channels: Where will you publish and promote your content? Based on our ICP's wateringHoles, we'd focus on:
  • SEO: Creating technical blog content that ranks for problem-aware keywords.
  • Communities: Genuinely participating in Reddit, Hacker News, and other relevant forums (not just spamming links).
  • Developer Platforms: Writing for places like Dev.to or Hashnode.
  • Paid Ads: Highly targeted ads on platforms like LinkedIn or Twitter, aimed at specific job titles.

5. The Free Template: B2B_Marketing_Plan.md

Here it is. Copy and paste this Markdown into a new file in your team's repo. Version control your marketing plan like you do your code.

# B2B Marketing Plan: [Your Product Name]

**Version:** 1.0
**Date:** [Date]
**Owner:** [Your Name]

## 1. Executive Summary

- **Mission:** 
- **Problem We Solve:**
- **High-Level Goals (12 Months):**

---

## 2. Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) & Persona

### Company Profile
- **Industry:**
- **Size (Employees):**
- **Revenue:**
- **Geography:**
- **Tech Stack Markers:**

### Buyer Persona
- **Title:**
- **Key Responsibilities:**
- **Goals & Motivations:**
- **Pains & Challenges:**
- **Watering Holes (Where they hang out online):**

---

## 3. Goals & KPIs (for the next Quarter)

### Objective 1: [e.g., Increase Top-of-Funnel Awareness]
- **KR 1:** [Metric + Target]
- **KR 2:** [Metric + Target]
- **KR 3:** [Metric + Target]

### Objective 2: [e.g., Drive Product-Led Growth]
- **KR 1:** [Metric + Target]
- **KR 2:** [Metric + Target]

---

## 4. Strategy & Channels

- **Core Positioning Statement:**
- **Content Themes:**
  - [Theme 1]
  - [Theme 2]
  - [Theme 3]
- **Primary Distribution Channels:**
  - [Channel 1: Rationale & Key Tactics]
  - [Channel 2: Rationale & Key Tactics]
  - [Channel 3: Rationale & Key Tactics]

---

## 5. Budget Allocation (Quarterly)

- **Total Budget:** $
- **Paid Advertising:** $
- **Content/Freelancers:** $
- **Tools/Software:** $

---

## 6. Action Plan & Timeline (The Roadmap)

### Month 1
- [Action Item 1]
- [Action Item 2]

### Month 2
- [Action Item 1]
- [Action Item 2]

### Month 3
- [Action Item 1]
- [Action Item 2]

Compile and Run Your Plan

A plan is useless without execution. Treat it like a sprint. Assign owners to action items, set deadlines, and have weekly stand-ups to review progress against your KPIs.

Your first B2B marketing plan won't be perfect. It's v1.0. The market will give you bug reports (e.g., low conversion rates, poor engagement). Use that data to debug your assumptions, refactor your tactics, and deploy v1.1.

By treating your marketing plan as an engineering project, you transform it from a source of anxiety into a solvable problem. Now go build your growth engine.

Originally published at https://getmichaelai.com/blog/how-to-build-a-b2b-marketing-plan-from-scratch-free-template