Strategic Planning for Small Business: What You Should Know

Where do you see yourself in five years? Most business owners should know the answer to this question. 

While it’s impossible to predict the future, strategic planning helps small businesses set long-term goals for success. They use it to identify key milestones, generate practical marketing ideas, and measure growth over time.

As a small business owner, you should use strategic planning to create a roadmap for your business. This will give you a better idea of where your brand is headed and how to get there quickly. 

Read on to learn more about strategic planning for small businesses, including how to create a growth plan for your company with templates and examples that you can customize.. Let’s get started. 

In other words, think of strategic planning as a blueprint for your business. It outlines specific goals and highlights the resources needed to achieve them. It also maps individual steps for marketing and how you can measure progress over time. That way, you can keep referring to your strategic growth plan as you develop new promotional strategies and navigate unexpected challenges at your business.

Why is strategic planning important for small businesses?

We all have to start somewhere, and creating the business you always dreamed of takes time. Things don’t always go as expected, and plenty of variables can impact your success. 

Strategic planning helps you bring your business vision to life by creating a guide for growing your company. It establishes clear instructions to follow, and when unexpected obstacles pop up, you’re more prepared to handle them because your company is organized and aligned on the same goals. You can react quicker to trends, opportunities, and emergencies because you understand what contributes most to your success.

Ready to create a strategic growth plan for your business? Read on for a free template and comprehensive guide to strategic planning for small businesses.

Strategic Growth Plan for Small Businesses

Here’s what you’ll need to create a strategic growth plan for your business:

1. Introduction & Executive Summary

Your plan should start with an introduction and an executive summary. Oddly enough, while this should come first, it’s actually something you might want to write after you complete the rest of the document. This section summarizes all your growth plans, which might be easier to do once you’ve outlined the specifics of your strategy.

Your intro and summary are like snapshots of your plan. If someone doesn’t have time to read the entire document or isn’t familiar with your company, this section explains your key points and value proposition. It’s something stakeholders and investors can read quickly to understand what you plan on doing with your company.

2. Business Goals & Objectives

The first step in creating any plan is setting a goal. What do you want to achieve? What should success look like? 

It’s important to be specific. I recommend using the SMART goal framework. SMART stands for Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-bound. This will help you create goals with clear outcomes so you know if you’re growing your business or not.

You may also want to create small goals or milestones to reach along the way. For example, if your goal is to increase your social media followers by 50%, then you may set individual goals for Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok. Or, you might commit to posting a certain number of posts each week and a/b test elements within your content. 

Smaller goals help you feel like you’re making progress, especially if it takes a lot of time to meet your long-term goals. Plus, these are good opportunities to reassess your strategy. If you fail to hit a milestone, then you may want to pivot to another approach.

3. Industry Analysis

Your industry analysis provides context to support your plan. It’s like showing your work for a math problem. It explains why you chose your goals and why those benchmarks matter in your marketplace.

There are two ways to approach this research. You can start with data and form a hypothesis, or vice versa — start with a hypothesis and look for trends that support it. Both options will help you create data-driven goals for your business.

Now is also a good time to conduct a SWOT analysis of your business. SWOT stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. It helps you distill findings from your industry analysis into actionable insights that you can use to create your plan. 

4. Marketing Campaigns, Strategies, & Plans

In this section, you should summarize your core marketing campaigns and strategies. You don’t have to write down every ad you’ll create, but you should highlight themes and offers you’ll promote, communication channels you’ll use, and where these campaigns exist in your customer journey. 

5. Physical & Digital Resources

You should also list the physical and digital resources needed to grow your business. This could be technology like software and apps, or physical products like equipment and tools. While this varies from business to business, here are some of the digital resources you might list: 

• Business Software: Most businesses use software to manage their websites, update local listings, and book appointments with customers online. 
• Customer Relationship Management (CRM): A CRM is a tool for managing customer relationships. It stores customers’ email addresses, company data, and contact information.
• Marketing Software: Marketing software will help you post on social media, create ads for your business, and sell products online. 
• Customer Communication: Customer communication includes phone, email, text, and other channels you use to connect with customers. 
• Payroll & HR Software: Payroll software helps you pay employees, while HR software manages tax documents, vacations, hiring, and more. 

6. Human Resources

Don’t forget about another major resource for your business – people. Even if you’re the only employee, you still rely on others for support. You might have partnerships with other businesses or events that you sponsor in your community. That network of contacts is essential and will help you execute sales and marketing campaigns.

There are a few ways you can add this to your plan. If you don’t have any employees (or plan to hire any), then you might just list your partnerships and what each one does for your business. 

7. Organizational Plan

If you manage a team, you might want to assign responsibilities to new and existing team members. Your organizational plan shows what each person does at your business. For example, if you’re going to invest more in your social media strategy, you might pick one of your employees to manage your accounts. Or, you might plan to hire someone, and you can use this space to discuss what that role might look like.  

Most brands will visualize this with a chart or graph, commonly called an “org chart.”  This lists each employee’s name, title, and core responsibilities at your business. It also shows the chain of command and who reports to whom. It’s great for setting expectations for employees and breaking down data silos as your team grows and develops. 

8. Budget

As a small business, your budget influences most of your strategic planning. While brands would love to dominate every advertising platform, the reality is that you have to pick and choose the most cost-effective channels for your business. 

Enterprise brands typically allocate a budget to different departments and teams. Smaller brands don’t usually have that same structure, so you might list your budget for each campaign or initiative. For instance, you might assign X% of your budget to online advertising, another to offline media, and so on.

9. Timeline

A timeline is important because it’s a visual roadmap for your business. It shows you when tasks should be completed and in what order.  

Fortunately, if you’ve created SMART goals, building your timeline should be easy. These goals are time-bound, so all you need to do is put them in the correct order. After that, it’s up to you how much additional information you’ll add in this section. 

10. Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)

Key performance indicators, or KPIs, are the data points that your business will prioritize most. Some companies call them “core metrics” because they represent your progress toward your goals. 

For example, if I want to acquire 10 new customers this month, I might pay attention to the number of leads my website generates and the number of people who clicked on my Facebook ads. You need to monitor these numbers consistently to ensure your growth strategy stays on track. 

I recommend circling back to your SMART goals and looking at the communication channels you will use to engage customers. Knowing where your key interactions occur makes it much easier to identify the KPIs that lead to them. 

Strategic Plan Example for Small Businesses

Before we wrap up, let’s review an example of what a strategic growth plan might look like for a small business. Below is a simple example for a plumbing company:

Introduction: Over the next six months, Pete’s Plumbing Co. will grow local brand awareness and streamline lead management through our “Summer Emergency Repair” marketing campaign. This initiative will lead to more bookings through our website and more calls through our phone lines. This document outlines our goals, supporting industry context, campaign information, budget, and other relevant details for this plan.

Goals & Objectives: Increase residential service calls by 20% (measured month-over-month, baseline = 50 calls/month in May 2025). Grow website lead submissions by 30% (baseline = 40 form submissions/month in May 2025).

Industry Analysis: Strengths: 10+ years of founder experience; 5-star online reviews Weaknesses: No dedicated marketing staff. Opportunities: Seasonal demand spike; under-utilized social channels Threats: New large chain offering discount coupons; rising ad costs on Google

Marketing Campaign(s): Campaign Name: Summer Emergency Repairs Start Date: 6/1/25 End Date: 8/31/25 Goal: Add 20 net new booked service calls per month during peak season. Description: For this campaign, we’ll launch Google Search ads for searches like “emergency plumber near me.” We will also boost Facebook and Instagram posts to customers within a 10-mile radius, promoting our 24/7 repair service. To drive conversions, every ad will highlight our “Same-Day Service” guarantee, ensuring customers know we’re there when they need us most. Channels: Google Ads, Facebook, Instagram

Business Resources: Physical: Fully equipped service van, Mobile toolkit, Tool identification stickers/labels Digital: CRM & scheduling software, Website & landing-page builder, Google Ads account & Facebook Business Manager, Phone system with call-tracking

Roles & Responsibilities: Pete (Owner/Technician) – Lead Technician: Service calls, quality control, customer follow-up Jane (Part-Time Admin) – Office Coordinator: Answering calls, updating schedules, managing invoices Note: Evaluate hiring a second technician in September if call volume exceeds capacity.

Budget: Google & Social Ads: $6000 (50%) Print Media: $2400 (20%) Customer Referrals: $1800 (15%) CRM Software: $1200 (10%) Remaining Budget: $600 (5%)

Timeline: June 1: Launch “Summer Emergency Repair” campaign July 1: Mid-campaign review — compare booked calls against +10 calls target August 31: Campaign ends; compile results

Key Performance Indicators: Number of booked residential service calls (goal: +20 calls/month) Website lead-form submissions (goal: +30% over baseline) Customer satisfaction rating (average star rating on Google/Facebook ≥ 4.8)

Strategic Plan Template for Small Businesses 

Introduction: Use this space to write an overview of your plan and include an executive summary for key stakeholders.

Goals & Objectives: Add a goal here Add a goal here Add a goal here

Industry Analysis: Use this space to add data from your industry, including trends, demographics, SWOT analysis, etc.

Marketing Campaign(s): Campaign Name: [Name] Start Date: [Date] End Date: [Date] Goal: Describe the goal of your campaign. Include key performance indicators. Description: Explain your campaign, what it should look like, who it should target, and any other relevant information. Channels: List the communication channels you will use.

Business Resources: Use this space to list the business resources needed for this growth strategy.

Roles & Responsibilities: List each employee’s name, title, and core responsibilities. Add hiring plans for future roles as needed.

Budget: Add a budget for each department, team, marketing campaign, etc.

Timeline: Add a timeline that reflects your goals and includes key milestones for your business.

Key Performance Indicators: List any key performance indicators that you will track and how you will monitor them.

Strategic Planning for Small Businesses

As a small business owner, you know not everything goes according to plan. But it’s important to have a vision for your business, and strategic planning is the roadmap that helps you bring it to life. Use these tips to create a strong plan for your business, and save the template above so you can update your goals over time. If you’re constantly updating that document with new goals, then your business is on the right track.