Originally published in 2008. Updated in 2025 as part of the Personal Branding Blog relaunch under Brown Brothers Media.
Your Personal Marketing Plan Post Series
Section 1: Situational Analysis – A detailed description of exactly where you are in your life, as well as your mission, vision and life cycle.
Section 2: Audience Analysis – Researching what the market is for your brand, with both primary and secondary research and quantitative and qualitative measurements.
Section 3: Competitive Analysis – If you’re branded properly competition is irrelevant. If you’re still discovering and developing your brand, then you can only estimate who your competitors are by past data (Colleges) and from the strength of the brand you’re applying to (GE, Reebok, etc).
Section 4: Marketing Strategy – In this section I discuss the 4 P’s of personal branding, as well as how to segment your audience to find your niche and construct a positioning statement. Also, I explained how to create measurable goals and break down the integrated marketing plan, giving examples of different vehicles you can do to get your message out.
Today the “Your Personal Marketing Plan” post series comes to an end. This is a great way to kickoff the week and I have tons of other content to share with you that’s currently in the pipeline. If you’d like to go back to any post in this series, I’ve listed the 4 other sections above.
Section 5 is called “Budgeting and Action Plan.” Once you’ve delved into your strategies, you need to budget them because as a personal brand you simply cannot afford what a company can. Once you’ve budgeted, you need to execute your plan by forming an action plan.
Creating a Realistic Budget for Your Personal Brand
A budget is a simple allocation of resources to channels of best fit and most return on investment (ROI). Depending on which channels you select, you will be given requirements, such as paying for a 10-second spot on a radio station.
Another example could be your advertisement in the fall catalog of an athletic magazine. Google Ads, Facebook social ads and programmatic display ads are more targeted and offer comprehensive measuring services so you know if you hit your goal.
When you budget for your personal brand, you want to write down the channel’s name, a description and then the expense. The expense is calculated over the amount of months you run the advertisement.
Part of your budget may be your blog or website, which requires the registration of a domain name, hosting service, graphic design, website development and maintenance. The more knowledge and time you have, the less you have to pay for these services. If you’re a good networker, you can save money by budgeting out your time to meet a few new people each day and compiling a list for use in your newsletter.
Your budget should be annually documented because it’s nearly impossible to know how much value your brand will generate over several years.
Building an Action Plan That Drives Results
A budget and strategy are nothing unless you can execute on them with an action plan. An action plan has several line items, containing the title of the task and the due date by which the task must be accomplished. You can also integrate tools such as Asana, Trello or Notion to track your action items and deadlines.
As you build your action plan, you can also develop a timeline and follow the course of your brand from start to finish. As you complete each task, be sure to check them off so that you remember what you’ve accomplished and what remains. If your brand encompasses other personal brands, then they may have tasks tied to their activities.
Make sure you set “milestones” — key checkpoints (e.g., 1000 followers, first keynote, five published articles) — to measure progress and stay motivated.
Once you’ve completed your personal marketing plan, consider sharing a summary or downloadable PDF of it on LinkedIn or your website to showcase your professionalism and accountability.
Conclusion
Today, bringing your personal marketing plan to life is less about spending large budgets and more about consistent execution, tracking, and optimisation.
With so many free or low-cost digital tools, your biggest investment is time, clarity and discipline. Define your budget, build your action plan, monitor your metrics (followers, website traffic, speaking invitations, client leads) and iterate your plan regularly, every quarter or half-year.
In doing so, you turn your strategy into outcomes, and your brand into results.
This article is part of Personal Branding Blog’s Legacy Series — highlighting timeless insights from our archive. Learn more about our story here.
