How to Create a 90-Day Marketing Strategy for Your Small Business (Without the Agency Price Tag)

You know your small business needs a proper marketing strategy. Every expert says so. Every competitor seems to have one. But when you get quotes from marketing agencies, the numbers make your stomach drop: £2,000-£5,000 per month, 6-month minimum contracts, and no guarantee it’ll actually work.

Meanwhile, you’re juggling customer service, operations, finances, and trying to post something - anything - on social media when you remember. Sound familiar?

Here’s the truth: you don’t need a £24,000-per-year agency retainer to create an effective marketing strategy. What you need is a systematic approach, the right framework, and tools that work as hard as you do.

Why 90 Days is the Sweet Spot for Small Business Marketing

Before we dive into the how, let’s talk about why 90 days is the perfect timeframe for small business marketing planning.

It’s long enough to see results. Marketing isn’t magic. It takes time for content to rank, for social media algorithms to recognise your consistency, for email sequences to nurture leads. Three months gives you enough runway to build momentum.

It’s short enough to stay agile. The market changes. Customer needs evolve. A 90-day strategy keeps you flexible enough to pivot when needed, unlike those rigid annual plans that become outdated by March.

It creates accountability. When you’re planning a quarter at a time, you can actually track what’s working. You’re not drowning in a 12-month plan that feels impossible to execute.

The Real Cost of Not Having a Marketing Strategy

Let’s be honest about what happens when you’re “winging it” with marketing:

• You spend hours creating content that gets zero engagement

• You jump from tactic to tactic, never giving anything time to work

• You can’t tell which efforts actually drive revenue

• Your competitor with a clear message and consistent presence is winning customers who should be yours

• You’re spending money on ads or tools without knowing if they’re delivering ROI

The average small business wastes approximately £24,000 per year on ineffective marketing. Not because they’re not trying hard enough, but because they’re not working strategically.

What Makes a Marketing Strategy Actually Work

A marketing strategy isn’t a fluffy document full of buzzwords. It’s a practical roadmap that answers these questions:

1. Who exactly are you targeting? (Not “everyone” or “small business owners”)

2. What problem do you solve better than anyone else?

3. Where does your audience spend their time?

4. What content will you create and when?

5. How will you measure success?

6. What’s your budget and how will you allocate it?

This is what agencies charge thousands for. But here’s what they won’t tell you: the frameworks they use aren’t secret. You can apply them yourself.

Your 90-Day Marketing Strategy Framework

Week 1-2: Foundation & Research

Clarify Your Target Audience

Stop trying to appeal to everyone. Your ideal customer has specific:

• Demographics (age, location, income, role)

• Pain points (what keeps them up at night?)

• Goals (what success looks like for them)

• Objections (why they hesitate to buy)

Create 2-3 detailed customer personas. Give them names. Understand their journey from “I have a problem” to “I’m ready to buy.”

Competitive Analysis

Look at 3-5 direct competitors:

• What keywords are they ranking for?

• What type of content performs best for them?

• What’s their social media strategy?

• What are customers saying in their reviews?

You’re not copying - you’re finding gaps and opportunities.

Audit Your Current Marketing

Be brutally honest:

• What’s actually driving leads right now?

• Which channels are dead weight?

• What content has performed best historically?

• Where are you losing potential customers?

Week 3-4: Strategy & Planning

Set SMART Goals for the Quarter

Not “get more customers.” Try:

• Generate 150 qualified leads through content marketing

• Increase organic website traffic by 40%

• Achieve £15,000 in revenue from email marketing

• Grow LinkedIn following by 500 relevant connections

Choose Your Core Channels

You can’t be everywhere. Pick 2-3 channels where your audience actually is:

• SEO & Content Marketing: Long-term play, compounds over time

• Social Media: Choose ONE platform to dominate (LinkedIn for B2B, Instagram for visual products, etc.)

• Email Marketing: Highest ROI for most small businesses

• Paid Advertising: Only if you have budget and can track ROI

Create Your Content Calendar

Map out exactly what you’ll publish and when:

• 12 blog posts (one per week)

• 36 social media posts (3 per week minimum)

• 12 email newsletters (one per week)

• Any video content, case studies, or lead magnets

Batch create when possible. Use templates. Repurpose content across channels.

Month 2: Execute & Monitor

Follow Your Plan

This sounds obvious, but consistency is where most small businesses fail. Your mediocre strategy executed consistently beats a perfect strategy that never happens.

Track Key Metrics Weekly

Set up a simple dashboard tracking:

• Website traffic and top-performing pages

• Lead generation by source

• Engagement rates on social media

• Email open and click rates

• Conversion rates

• Revenue attributed to marketing efforts

Make Small Adjustments

Not working? Don’t panic and start over. Make incremental changes:

• Tweak your headlines

• Adjust posting times

• Try different content formats

• Refine your targeting

Month 3: Optimise & Scale

Double Down on What Works

Your data will show patterns. More blog traffic from LinkedIn than Instagram? Focus there. One email got 40% opens while others got 15%? Analyse why and replicate it.

Test New Angles

Try variations on your successful content:

• Different content formats (turn blog posts into videos)

• New keywords related to winners

• Audience segments you haven’t targeted

Plan Your Next 90 Days

Use everything you’ve learned to make your next quarter even better.

The Problem: You Still Need to Do All of This

Here’s where most small business owners get stuck. You now have a framework, but you still need to:

• Research competitors and analyse their strategies

• Create detailed customer personas

• Generate weeks of content ideas

• Write blog posts optimised for SEO

• Design social media content

• Write email campaigns

• Track analytics and spot trends

• Adjust strategy based on data

That’s a full-time job. And you’re already working 60-hour weeks running your business.

How Marketeze.ai Changes the Game

This is exactly why we built Marketeze.ai. We took everything that agencies do—the research, the strategy, the content creation—and trained AI to do it in minutes instead of weeks.

Here’s what happens when you use Marketeze.ai:

90-Day Strategy in 60 Seconds

Input your business details, and our AI analyses your industry, competitors, and target audience to generate a complete quarterly marketing strategy. You get:

• Target audience analysis with detailed personas

• Complete content calendar with topics and posting schedule

• Channel recommendations based on your business

• KPIs to track with realistic benchmarks

What takes agencies 2-4 weeks (and costs £3,000+) happens instantly.

Content Generation That Sounds Like You

Our AI learns your brand voice and creates:

• SEO-optimised blog posts

• Social media content tailored to each platform

• Email campaigns that convert

• All customised to your industry and audience

Competitor Tracking & Analytics

Stay ahead without the manual research:

• Automatic competitor monitoring

• Trend identification in your industry

• Performance analytics that actually make sense

• Data-driven recommendations for optimisation

Everything from £49/Month

That’s less than agencies charge for a single strategy meeting. And you get unlimited access to strategy, content, and analytics.

Making the Choice That’s Right for Your Business

You have three options for marketing your small business:

Option 1: DIY Everything

• Cost: Your time (valued at £50-100/hour = £800-1600/month minimum)

• Risk: Inconsistent results, steep learning curve, opportunity cost

• Best for: Very early stage with more time than money

Option 2: Hire an Agency

• Cost: £2,000-10,000/month

• Risk: Long contracts, generic strategies, misaligned incentives

• Best for: Established businesses with £50k+ monthly marketing budgets

Option 3: Use AI-Powered Marketing Automation

• Cost: From £49/month with Marketeze.ai

• Risk: Minimal - cancel anytime, no long-term commitment

• Best for: Growing SMBs who need professional marketing without the agency price tag

Take Action Now

Every day without a clear marketing strategy is a day your competitors are pulling ahead. Every week spent manually creating content is a week you could be focused on serving customers and growing revenue.

The good news? You don’t have to choose between doing it all yourself and spending £24,000/year on an agency.

Join the Marketeze.ai waitlist today. We’re launching in November 2025, and early members will get:

• Priority access to the platform

• Founding member pricing locked in for life

• Direct input on features and development

• Exclusive onboarding and support

Stop paying agency prices for marketing automation you can afford.

[Join the Waitlist Now →](https://www.marketeze.ai)

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Ready to transform your marketing strategy? Sign up for our waitlist and be among the first to access Marketeze.ai when we launch. Your £2,000/month savings start here.