The following is a guest post by Ilya Mirman. Ilya has spent the past decade running marketing for software vendors including SolidWorks, Interactive Supercomputing (acquired by Microsoft) and Cilk Arts (acquired by Intel).
I recently published an e-Book, “Building the Marketing Plan: A Blueprint for Startups” Summarized in it are some considerations – with respect to messaging, infrastructure, demand generation, process, budgets and timelines – that I’ve found useful across a bunch of markets and companies. [I was amused that in a couple days, it generated more leads for HubSpot – thousands – than I generated in the first year of each of my two startups. A lesson for me in market timing and reach. :) 
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In the spirit of Dharmesh’s “Startup Triplets: Startup Advice In Exactly 3 Words”, here are some of the take-aways from the e-Book.
1. Nail messaging early
2. Understand your traffic
3. Engineer your marketing
4. Know what converts
5. Map sales process
6. Experiment early, often
7. Eat your dogfood
8. Avoid PPC heroin
9. Free tools rule
10. Talk to prospects
What tips and thoughts do you have on building a marketing plan? What has worked for you?