Saas Marketing Plan

SaaS Marketing Plan

Audience: developers and technical founders. Explain things in engineering terms. Before advising, read saas-marketing-background/references/background.md and gather missing background. Be a strategic advisor and coach — diagnose where they are, what they realistically have to work with, and build a plan that fits their actual situation, not a textbook ideal.

This is the coordinator skill. It helps founders decide what to do and when, then routes to channel-specific skills for execution. Don't give tactical implementation advice here — route to the appropriate skill.

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Table of Contents

1. [Why Strategy Before Tactics](#why-strategy-before-tactics)
2. [Situation Assessment](#situation-assessment)
3. [Three Tiers of Marketing Sophistication](#three-tiers-of-marketing-sophistication)
4. [Channel Selection Framework](#channel-selection-framework)
5. [Competitive Context for Channel Selection](#competitive-context-for-channel-selection)
6. [Phasing and Sequencing](#phasing-and-sequencing)
7. [Budget Allocation](#budget-allocation)
8. [Routing to Channel Skills](#routing-to-channel-skills)
9. [Reference Files](#reference-files)

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Why Strategy Before Tactics

Most technical founders skip strategy and jump straight to execution: "I should run Google Ads" or "I need to be on Twitter." This is like writing code before understanding the requirements.

Strategy answers three questions in order:

1. Who are you trying to reach? (audience — informed by saas-audience-research)
2. Where can you reach them? (channels — this skill)
3. What do you say when you get there? (messaging — informed by audience research language)

Without answers to these, every tactical channel is a guess. A channel that works brilliantly for one product is a money pit for another — not because the channel is bad, but because the audience isn't there, the messaging is wrong, or the product stage doesn't support it.

The resource constraint is real. A solo technical founder with 10 hours/week for marketing cannot run Google Ads, write blog posts, manage a Twitter account, build a newsletter, post on Reddit, and launch on Product Hunt. Trying to do all of them means doing none of them well. The plan's job is to pick the 1–3 channels that have the highest probability of working given your specific situation, and sequence everything else for later.

Example — API monitoring product: A solo founder with strong DevOps community ties and no marketing budget. Strategy says: community-first (Reddit, Hacker News, DevOps Slack groups) + documentation-driven SEO. Paid ads come later when there's revenue to fund them. Trying to run Meta Ads for a developer tool with no creative assets would be wasted money.

Example — SEO keyword research tool: A two-person team with some budget and strong content skills. Strategy says: content/SEO (practice what you preach — rank for your own category keywords) + targeted Google Ads for high-intent searches. Meta Ads come later, if at all, because the audience searches for solutions rather than discovering them on social.

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Situation Assessment

This is the most important section. The plan depends entirely on what the founder actually has to work with. Don't skip this to get to the "fun" channel selection part.

Resource Inventory

Time available for marketing:

• LTV, or conversion quality is fundamentally low), cut it. Redirect the time and budget to what works. Killing underperformers is as important as scaling winners.

See references/planning.md → Planning Templates for structured planning frameworks.

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Budget Allocation

Zero Budget — Time Is the Currency

At $0, you're spending time instead of money. The same prioritization rules apply — focus beats spread.

| Time budget | Allocation | |---|---| | < 5 hrs/week | 100% on one channel | | 5–10 hrs/week | 70% primary channel, 30% supporting channel | | 10–20 hrs/week | 50% primary, 30% secondary, 20% experimental |

With Budget — Start Concentrated, Expand with Data

| Monthly budget | Allocation approach | |---|---| | $1,000–3,000 | 100% on one paid channel to validate. Don't split. | | $3,000–10,000 | 100% on the proven paid channel — scale it, don't diversify yet | | $10,000+ | Now consider a second paid channel, but only if the first is performing well OR hitting diminishing returns |

The single-channel rule for paid: Do not add a second paid channel until your first paid channel is spending $10,000+/month or its performance is clearly slowing (CPA rising, audience saturating, frequency too high). Splitting $3,000 across two paid channels means neither gets enough data to optimize. Concentrate your budget, prove the channel, then expand.

The testing rule: Budget at least $1,000 to test a new paid channel — anything less doesn't produce enough data to evaluate. If $1,000 on Google Ads produces zero conversions, the problem isn't budget — it's targeting, messaging, or channel fit. Diagnose before scaling.

Example — API monitoring product, $2,000/month: Put it all on Google Ads targeting "API monitoring tool," "uptime monitoring," "endpoint alerting." Run for 4–6 weeks. If CPA is viable, keep scaling this single channel toward $10K. If not, pause paid entirely — switch to $0 community approach and save the budget until you've fixed messaging or found better keywords.

Example — SEO keyword research tool, $3,000/month: $3,000 on Google Ads (high-intent keywords: "keyword research tool," "find low competition keywords"). Don't split with Meta or content freelancers yet. Prove Google Ads works first. Once you're at $10K/month on Google and performance is stable, then consider allocating budget to a second paid channel or content investment.

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Routing to Channel Skills

This skill decides what to do. The channel skills explain how to do it.

| Decision | Route to | |---|---| | Need to understand your audience first | saas-audience-research | | Need competitive analysis or competitor profiles | saas-competitive-research | | Need analytics to measure channels | saas-data-analysis | | Ready to launch a product or feature | saas-product-launches | | Running or planning Google Ads / paid search | saas-google-ads | | Running or planning Meta (Facebook/Instagram) Ads | saas-meta-ads | | Need a content strategy, editorial calendar, or content roadmap | saas-content-strategy | | Need to write, brief, edit, or repurpose content | saas-content-production | | Need website copy, email sequences, ad copy, or any marketing copy | saas-copywriting | | Need to improve or audit organic search / SEO | saas-seo-audit | | Need keyword research or competitive SEO analysis | saas-seo-research | | Need to understand buyer psychology or improve conversion | saas-customer-psychology | | Building or improving a landing page or marketing site | saas-landing-pages | | Improving signup flow, activation, or trial conversion | saas-onboarding | | Channel doesn't have a dedicated skill | See references/channels-paid.md or references/channels-organic.md |

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Reference Files

• saas-marketing-background/references/background.md — shared intake questions; read before advising
• references/channels-organic.md — organic channel deep dives: content/SEO, programmatic SEO, email, social media, community, Product Hunt, YouTube, partnerships, podcast guesting
• references/channels-paid.md — paid channel deep dives: LinkedIn Ads, affiliate/referral programs, events/conferences, PR/press, sponsorships (Google Ads and Meta Ads route to their own skills)
• references/planning.md — planning templates (one-page, quarterly, 6-month), funnel projection model with channel-specific conversion ranges and spreadsheet instructions, phasing frameworks, multi-channel coordination, content repurposing, review cadence
• references/resource-planning.md — budget allocation frameworks, resource planning (time estimates, hire-vs-DIY, freelancer budgets, first marketing hire). For competitive analysis, route to saas-competitive-research.

Source & license

This open-source skill is cataloged on AgentStack and links to its original source — we do not rehost the code.

• Author: jonbishop1
• Source: jonbishop1/saas-marketing-skills
• License: MIT
• Homepage: https://saasgrowthpros.com

Install and usage instructions live in the source repository linked above.