The 1-Page Marketing Plan: A 9-Step System to Get New Customers and Scale Your Business

You know you need a marketing plan. But every time you sit down to write one, it turns into a 40-page document that no one reads, least of all you. The result? Most small business owners end up doing what Allan Dib calls “random acts of marketing”: a social media post here, a Google ad there, and no clear system tying any of it together. In this episode, David Jenyns sits down with Allan Dib, serial entrepreneur, #1 bestselling author of The 1-Page Marketing Plan, and founder of Successwise, to walk through his 1-Page Marketing Plan framework: a simple 3×3 canvas that maps your entire marketing strategy across nine steps and three phases.

Allan’s framework has been translated into over 40 languages and used by millions of businesses worldwide because it solves a problem most marketing advice ignores: the gap between knowing what to do and actually having a system for doing it. If marketing has always felt like the area of your business that’s hardest to systemise, hit play, this conversation will change that.

Today’s Guest, Allan Dib

Allan Dib is a serial entrepreneur, #1 bestselling author, and the founder of Successwise. After starting, growing, and successfully exiting multiple businesses – including a telecommunications company that earned a spot on BRW’s Fast 100 list of Australia’s fastest-growing companies in just four years – Allan turned his attention to helping other business owners master marketing. His book The 1-Page Marketing Plan has been an Amazon #1 global bestseller since its 2016 launch, has been translated into over 40 languages, and was named one of the top 10 marketing books for small business owners by the Huffington Post. His follow-up, Lean Marketing, continues the mission of giving business owners practical, no-fluff marketing systems they can implement immediately.

Website: successwise.com | Allan’s Guide: What Is a Marketing Plan

📋 THE 1-PAGE MARKETING PLAN: ALL 9 STEPS

Based on the book “The 1-Page Marketing Plan” by Allan Dib

The 1-page marketing plan framework is built around a simple 3×3 canvas: nine squares on a single page. It’s divided into three phases that mirror the customer journey: what happens before a prospect knows you exist, what happens during the period they’re evaluating you, and what happens after they become a customer. Each phase has three steps.

Phase 1: The “Before” Phase – Attracting the Right Prospects

What happens before a prospect even knows you exist.

Step 1: Select Your Target Market

Trying to market to everyone is the fastest way to reach no one. Allan’s framework starts by getting ruthlessly specific about who you’re trying to attract. This isn’t just demographics, it’s about identifying the exact type of person whose problem you solve best and who is willing and able to pay for that solution. When your target market is narrow enough, your marketing message practically writes itself.

Step 2: Craft Your Message

Once you know who you’re talking to, you need to say something that makes them stop scrolling. Allan emphasises that your message should speak directly to the pain your prospect is experiencing and position your product or service as the bridge to where they want to be. The goal is to have the reader think: “That’s for me.” A strong message isn’t clever. It’s clear.

Step 3: Reach Your Prospects with Advertising Media

Your message is only as powerful as the medium that carries it. Allan walks through how to choose the right channels to reach your target market, whether that’s paid search, social media, content marketing, direct mail, or a combination. The key insight is to match the media to where your prospects already spend their attention, rather than chasing whatever platform is newest.

Phase 2: The “During” Phase – Converting Interest into Action

What happens when someone shows they’re vaguely interested and want to know more.

Step 4: Capture Your Leads

Most businesses drive traffic and hope for the best. Allan’s system treats lead capture as a deliberate step: every marketing touchpoint should funnel interested prospects into a database you own. That might mean a lead magnet, an email opt-in, or a free tool. The point is that you’re building an asset of contacts you can follow up with on your own terms, not relying on a rented audience on someone else’s platform.

Step 5: Nurture Your Leads

Not every lead is ready to buy today, and that’s fine. The nurture step is about building trust over time through consistent, value-driven communication. Allan explains how an automated email sequence, combined with regular content, keeps you top of mind so that when the prospect is ready to make a decision, you’re the obvious choice. This is the step most small businesses skip entirely and it’s where the real compounding happens.

Step 6: Sales Conversion

Conversion isn’t about pressure tactics, it’s about having a repeatable process that takes a nurtured lead to a buying decision. Allan covers how to structure your sales conversations, proposals, and follow-up cadence so that closing feels like a natural next step for the prospect. When the first five steps are working, conversion becomes dramatically easier because trust has already been built.

Phase 3: The “After” Phase – Maximising the Value of Every Customer

What happens after someone becomes a customer and how to turn them into a referral engine.

Step 7: Deliver a World-Class Customer Experience

The sale isn’t the finish line, it’s the starting line. Allan explains that your post-sale experience is your most underutilised marketing asset. A systemised onboarding process, proactive communication, and consistent delivery quality don’t just reduce churn. They create the kind of customer satisfaction that generates word-of-mouth without you asking for it.

Step 8: Increase Customer Lifetime Value

It costs far less to sell again to an existing customer than to acquire a new one. Allan walks through strategies for increasing transaction frequency, raising your average sale value, and reactivating lapsed customers, all through simple, repeatable campaigns. This is the step that turns a good business into a highly profitable one, and it’s almost always under-systemised.

Step 9: Orchestrate and Stimulate Referrals

Referrals don’t happen by accident, or at least, they shouldn’t. Allan’s final step is about building a deliberate referral system: knowing when to ask, how to ask, and how to make it easy for happy customers to send you new business. He reframes referrals not as a favour you’re requesting but as a service you’re offering, giving your customer the chance to help someone they know solve the same problem.

At the top of this episode, we talked about the gap between knowing you need a marketing plan and actually having one you use. Allan’s framework closes that gap because it removes the complexity that stops most business owners from ever starting. Nine steps. Three phases. One page. The beauty of it is that the same canvas works whether you’re a solo consultant or running a team of fifty.

If this conversation resonated with you, here’s the simplest next step: download the free 1-page marketing plan canvas from Allan’s site, fill in one square, and see what it reveals about the gaps in your current approach. Small, systemised improvements compound, in marketing and everywhere else in your business.

Want to see business systemisation in action? Watch Dave walk through how to document your first business process, step by step.