About the Author
Corey Morris is the President and CEO of VOLTAGE, a search marketing and website agency for expertise-driven organizations. He has spent more than two decades in digital marketing and SEO, and he wrote the book on the Digital Marketing Success Plan® (DMSP), the planning process VOLTAGE uses with clients. Corey has published more than 150 articles and expert contributions across Search Engine Journal, Search Engine Land, and Forbes over nearly a decade, and he still writes regularly for the first two. His Search Engine Journal articles alone have been read nearly 1.7 million times. He has spoken at SMX, Digital Summit, and SMPS. He's also a sought-after podcast and media guest, with more than 75 speaking, podcast, and media appearances. He served as an officer on the board of the global search marketing trade association, founded a Kansas City search marketing conference, and was named the 2019 KCDMA Marketer of the Year.
The unspoken assumption is the real danger.
I love iteration, optimization and making continuous improvements, and I also love return on investment (ROI). That means we sometimes have to get out of our own way, apply different processes and make room for uncomfortable levels of change.
Many marketing teams begin annual planning by mapping out goals, tactics and campaigns for the year ahead. It’s a natural starting point that feels productive and gives everyone a sense of forward momentum, but in many cases this start is already too far ahead.
Before choosing tactics or refining strategy, there’s a foundational step that often gets skipped. Teams need to step back, acknowledge the assumptions they’re already making about the coming year and challenge those assumptions before they shape the plan. Every belief a team holds about budgets, traffic, conversion rates, internal alignment and search algorithms is an assumption, and when these go unspoken and unchallenged, they become hidden risks that cause even strong plans to break down.
Plans fail when assumptions go unchecked.
A marketing plan doesn’t fall apart because one tactic underperforms. It falls apart because the environment the plan assumed it would operate within turns out to be different, and many marketing challenges in the first half of the year come from mismatches between our assumptions and reality.
If a plan assumes search visibility will grow at the same pace as last year, it may overlook the impact of AI-driven answers in large language models. If a plan assumes budgets will hold steady, it may be blindsided by a midyear adjustment. If a plan assumes the team has the capacity to execute a large volume of work, it may collapse under operational constraints, and if it assumes sales will respond consistently to leads, it may misinterpret performance signals.
Surface your assumptions, then test them.
A successful digital marketing strategy requires clarity, and that clarity begins with identifying what you believe to be true and what you’re guessing about. Here’s how we build a stronger foundation.
1. Identify what you’re taking for granted.
Sit down with your team and list the core truths your new plan relies on. What are you assuming about your target audience, and what are you assuming about your cost per acquisition? Naming these beliefs brings them out of the background and into the light.
2. Test your assumptions against recent data.
Once you’ve listed your assumptions, compare them to the actual data from the past six months. Are your conversion rates holding steady or drifting, and has your competition changed? If the data doesn’t support an assumption, the assumption has to change.
Some assumptions can’t be checked in analytics alone. Assumptions about capacity need input from your team, and assumptions about lead follow-up need alignment with sales.
3. Decide which assumptions need monitoring.
Some assumptions will remain uncertain even after validation. We can’t fully remove them, and it’s healthy to plan around them when they’re named and known. These should become part of your ongoing review cadence so the team can revisit them as conditions change, which creates a natural bridge between the Strategy phase of the START Planning Process® and the Review and Transformation work that keeps the plan aligned during implementation.
Build clarity before chaos sets in.
A strong marketing plan doesn’t begin with tactics or timelines. It begins with acknowledging the assumptions your team is already making and challenging them before they take root.
When assumptions remain hidden, they weaken the foundation of the entire plan. When they’re brought out, examined and validated, they become a tool that strengthens alignment. If you’d like help building a plan on tested assumptions, see how our strategy and measurement team works. Are you building a plan grounded in reality, or are you assuming everything will work out?