Planning 360: what we deliver before the first campaign
How Mtools' Planning 360 works, the documents it produces and how they become each month's work, with the example of Dígitro's new positioning.
360 marketing planning is the first stage of our work with a client: before any campaign, we interview the team, research the competition and document who the brand is, who it talks to and how it communicates. It produces the documents that guide every month's content plan, campaigns and website. In this post, we show how it is done, what we deliver and how it worked in Dígitro's positioning.
Why positioning comes before the campaign
Without a settled positioning, every campaign becomes a new attempt, and the brand ends up saying the same as its competitors. The test is simple: swap the logo on your website for a competitor's and see whether the copy still makes sense. If it does, your communication does not yet say what only your company has, as we explain in the brand positioning swap test.
Planning 360 exists to solve this once, with a method, and leave the answer in writing for everyone who works with the brand. If you are evaluating partners, ask how each of them starts: it is one of the criteria in our guide on how to choose a marketing agency.
How 360 marketing planning is done
Planning 360 brings together three sources: what the client tells us, what our research shows and the synthesis we propose. Mixing them up is the classic mistake, so every piece of information is tagged with its origin.
The interviews
There are two rounds, because business and brand call for different mindsets, often with different people in the room:
- Market and business: what the company sells, to whom, the sales objections, the competition and the goals.
- Brand and communication: purpose, history, the real differentiator, culture, authority, restrictions and the visual identity.
When there is room for only one meeting, we prioritize scope, the differentiator, the audience, objections and goals, and the rest comes through research or a second conversation. We ask for real stories, not adjectives. Whatever the team cannot answer on the spot becomes an open item, and nothing left open goes in as fact: it shows up as a hypothesis, to be validated in the next round.
Competitor research
Before the interviews, we look at the brand and its direct competitors: what they promise, how they talk, which topics they own. The goal is to map what the whole category already says, to avoid the saturated cliché, and to find the space nobody occupies. That territory hypothesis is tested in the interview, not confirmed.
The documents Planning 360 produces
The result is a communication guide with the brand's decisions, each one answering a practical question.
| Document | What it answers |
|---|---|
| Communication drive and Golden Circle | what the real differentiator is and why the brand exists |
| Pillars, archetype and manifesto | what the brand stands for and how it sounds as a character |
| Persona and tone of voice | who the brand talks to and how it writes |
| Dos and don'ts | the limits of the discourse, set by the client |
| Editorial themes and channels | what to talk about and where |
| Metrics and roadmap | how to measure and what comes first |
The Golden Circle comes from Simon Sinek's talk, which proposes communicating from the why. In Planning 360, it structures the conversation with the client; the decision about the differentiator comes from crossing the interview with the research.
How Planning 360 becomes each month's work
The guide comes in two formats: the presentation, which makes the case for the positioning, and a reference base that guides every piece. The presentation convinces leadership. The reference base is what the person writing Tuesday's caption opens before starting.
In practice, Planning 360 feeds:
- the content plan, with the editorial themes and tone of voice already defined, as we show in our post on content ideas from the business;
- campaigns, which start from the differentiator and speak to the right persona;
- the website, which translates the positioning into the first screen and the copy on every page;
- lead magnets and emails, which use the same voice and answer the same sales objections.
The base starts lean and grows with production. Every approved adjustment becomes a rule, so the same mistake does not come back.
From Planning 360 to Dígitro's new positioning
At Dígitro, the Planning 360 of November 2024 opened a new cycle in a partnership that began in 2019. The challenge was in Dígitro's own words: the strength of its work was not being fully perceived. The company needed a positioning that matched the solidity of a business that operates where there is no margin for error, while still generating leads and showing a current brand, also as an employer.
Planning 360 produced the new positioning and the manifesto video, the new website home page and branding by segment, with a manifesto for each sector served. The full story is in the Dígitro case study.
Planning 360 is the first stage of our marketing planning, within 360° marketing management: the foundation that guides everything that follows.
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Frequently asked questions
Is 360 marketing planning sold on its own?
It is the first stage of our 360° marketing management. The foundation it creates only makes sense when it guides the work of the months that follow.
Who from my company takes part?
The people who know the business and the people who look after the brand. They are often different people in each interview round.
What if we cannot answer everything?
What you know goes in right away, and the rest becomes a list of open items for your team. Nothing left open turns into an assumption in the guide.
How is Planning 360 different from the annual marketing plan?
Planning 360 defines who the brand is and how it communicates. The annual plan sets goals, budget and priorities on top of that foundation, as we show in our post on marketing planning for 2027.
