5 Reasons Why It’s Important to Make an Achievable Marketing Plan
Too many startups fall into the trap of ambition over action. They create expansive marketing roadmaps, brimming with campaigns, channels, and KPIs—only to find themselves weeks later, paralysed by bottlenecks, sign-off delays, and resource overload.
What’s missing? Achievability.
In the startup world, momentum beats perfection. Consistency beats complexity. Execution beats everything.
Here’s why achievability needs to be the foundation of your marketing strategy—and how to build plans that don’t just look good, but actually get done.
1. Most Plans Overestimate Capacity by 40–60%
Let’s start with some hard truth: most marketing plans are wildly optimistic about what a lean team can deliver—especially when non-marketing stakeholders are involved in scoping them.
Campaigns take time. Quality content takes thought. And even with the rise of GenAI and automation tools, execution still requires people, planning, approvals, and iteration.
We regularly see plans that don’t account for:
Internal sign-off time
Cross-functional dependencies (hello, sales and product!)
The effort behind “just a quick LinkedIn post”
Production timelines for video, design, and copy
👉 Planning for capacity, not fantasy, is step one in delivering a marketing plan that works.
2. Momentum > Ambition
We love big ideas. We really do. But at Cittadina, we’ve found that sustainable growth comes from consistent, achievable actions—not sporadic, high-effort “big swings” that rarely land on time.
Studies show that brands which deliver steady, measurable wins outperform those who bet it all on one-off hero campaigns. That’s not to say bold marketing is off the table—it just needs to be built on a rhythm of repeatable, realistic activity.
Whether it’s weekly content, monthly campaigns, or quarterly PR pushes—momentum matters.
👉 Small, consistent steps build more growth (and more trust) than grand gestures that fizzle out.
3. Resource Constraints Are Real
Startups operate in a world of finite time, talent, and budget. The best marketing plan in the world will collapse if it doesn’t match your actual resources.
This is where we see teams run into trouble:
Hiring one junior marketer and expecting full-stack output
Banking on freelancers with no project manager
Allocating budget to paid media but not creative
Stretching the team across too many channels, with no depth
At Cittadina, we help teams define their Minimum Effective Marketing Mix—the smallest combination of activity that still drives meaningful results.
👉 Less burnout. More impact. And a stronger case for scaling up later.
4. Achievability Builds Stakeholder Trust
Marketing isn’t just external—it’s internal too. Investors, boards, and leadership teams are watching. And when a startup consistently misses deadlines or quietly drops campaigns from the roadmap, it chips away at credibility.
On the flip side? Delivering consistently—however modestly—builds trust.
When your team sees the plan in action, and your stakeholders see progress against targets, confidence grows. And with that comes more buy-in, more budget, and more freedom to experiment.
👉 If you want room to take bigger swings in future, start by showing you can hit the basics.
5. You Can’t Optimise What You Don’t Launch
Optimisation is the magic word in modern marketing—but it’s only possible when things actually go live.
Realistic execution gives you enough data to spot patterns, identify what’s working, and double down. If campaigns never launch—or launch too inconsistently—you’re left making decisions in the dark.
The most successful scaleups we work with are those who treat marketing as an iterative system, not a series of one-off experiments. They test, learn, tweak, and grow. And that all starts with a plan they can reliably deliver.
👉 Execution isn’t the end of strategy—it’s the beginning of better strategy.
Our Approach: Ambition Backed by Reality
At Cittadina, we believe in setting bold goals—but backing them with achievable plans. That means:
Building roadmaps that match actual capacity
Prioritising the highest-impact channels and campaigns
Accounting for internal processes, not ignoring them
Supporting teams with the right mix of strategic thinking and hands-on delivery
We’ve helped scaling startups move from over-scoped plans and marketing paralysis to clear execution paths, consistent output, and growing traction.
Because great marketing doesn’t live in a slide deck—it lives in results.
Want a Plan That Gets Done (Not Just Admired)?
If your current strategy feels more like a wishlist than a roadmap, we can help.
Let’s build a marketing plan you can actually deliver.
Smart, realistic, and designed to grow with your business.