Marketing Strategy VS Marketing Plan 

Sometimes both terms can be used interchangeably, however they are two separate elements of your business. 

A marketing strategy describes how a business will accomplish a particular mission or goal. In other words, a marketing strategy is what you need in order to accomplish and reflect on the goals of your business. This includes campaigns, content, channels, and other kinds of marketing software that will be used to execute on that mission and track its success. 

Example: There might be a business or company that has a greater plan or department that handles social media marketing, however you might want to consider working on Facebook or Instagram as an individual marketing strategy. 

A marketing plan contains a list of marketing strategies. It is the step by step process and  framework from which all your marketing strategies are created. A marketing plan is pretty practical and helps you connect each strategy back to a larger marketing operation to promote and grow your business. 

Example: Your company is launching a new product and it wants customers to sign up for it. This calls for a marketing plan that will help introduce this new product and promote the business. 

It is important to be able to distinguish the two from each other. It is also important to know which one should come first. Marketing strategy should be your first move, once you understand what you are trying to achieve and strategize, you can then decide on how to reach those goals and plan everything out.