10 Steps to an Ineffective Marketing Plan

Browsing in Half Price Books yesterday, I stumbled upon the business section and a multitude of seldom referenced marketing guidebooks with their spines intact, pages pristine, with no notes in the margins. In spite of the fact that there are so many marketing books written yet so many marketing books unread, there seems no end to their creation. In the interest of full disclosure, there is, in fact, a partially completed unpublished marketing tome residing on this hard drive. So, much like we buy diet books instead of dieting and fitness books instead of exercising, businesspeople too will apparently buy marketing books instead of, um, thinking. So perhaps what is necessary isn't a book of to-dos, but of to-don'ts. In this vein, I present my Top Ten List Of Things To Do To Make Your Marketing Plan Completely Ineffective.

1. Wait. Eventually priorities will change, opportunities fade, deadlines pass, and your choices will dwindle making analysis of them easier.
2. Evaluate sunk costs and resources as if they are equally as important as to those required going forward.
3. Analyze and segment data until it is unrelateable to the original objective.
4. Test, iterate, re-test, and reiterate until your brand, messaging and communications are thoroughly inconsistent.
5. Apply book learning to the exclusion of real-world knowledge and experience.
   
6. Apply real world knowledge and experience to the exclusion of book learning.
7. Budget based on past sales data.
   
8. Use an off-the-shelf, "marketing plan in a minute" template.
   
9. Exclude new ideas because they come from outside your industry.
10. Apply any idea because you heard (insert guru of the day here) say it at a conference.
    

Eventually, I bought a copy of Joshua Ferris' And Then We Came To The End, about a Chicago advertising agency and its staffers weathering a recession. (No, the coincidence did not escape my notice.)

What are your experiences? What would you add to this list?