Case: Klasna's marketing plan for 2027

A one-page marketing plan is eight decisions, each in a sentence or two, in the order a reader needs them:

1. Situation: what customers weigh you against, and the seasons you work in.
2. Segments: the groups of customers, who pays and who chooses.
3. First target: which segment new effort goes to first, and why.
4. Position: the difference that segment values and only you can prove.
5. Channels: where that segment can be reached and the message carried.
6. Messages and budget: what you say, and how much you spend, worked back from the goal.
7. Offer and growth: what you sell next and where you grow.
8. Metrics and review: how every claim above will be checked.

Each row needs the one before it. You can't pick a target before you know the segments, or choose channels before you know whom you're reaching and why they'd choose you. Position comes before channels because a channel has to carry the message, and the message comes from the position: a school teacher can vouch for Klasna's weekly note to a parent; a banner can't. Measurement closes the page because it checks every row above.

Each line on the page is a decision, and it lives in the row it decides. Keeping rows apart makes it easy to see when one contradicts another, and lets a reader find the answer to "whom?", "why us?" or "how will we know?" in one place.

Klasna's agreed decisions, by row:

• Situation: families weigh Klasna against a school teacher's paid lessons (26 of 160) and free videos with a chatbot (43); the large online school the ads copied, only 15.
• First target: EU diaspora families: year-round, 69% still active, reached through friends and community chats. Exam families stay served, but aren't the focus of new spend.
• Position: the weekly progress note to parents, shown with a real sample. "Qualified tutors" and "learn from home" are table stakes.
• Channels: no lesson marketplace as a main channel: the cheapest enquiry, the dearest paying family, and Klasna doesn't own the relationship.
• Metrics and review: scale a channel under 4,000 per paying family for four weeks.

Write each row as a decision, not a list of activities. "Post three times a week" is an activity; "diaspora families first, through partners and referrals" is a decision.

Each row can make sense on its own and the page can still contradict itself. A plan fails at the joints. Read it top to bottom and ask of every row: does this serve the one above?

The typical break at Klasna: the first target is EU diaspora families, but every hryvnia of new spend goes to exam-season ads. The target row says one thing, the budget row another, and nobody reading the page can tell which is the real decision.

Other joints to check:

• does the position speak to the first target, or to someone else?
• can the chosen channels carry that position? A school teacher can vouch for the weekly note; a banner can't.
• does the growth row grow the target segment, or quietly another one?
• does the metrics row check the claims the rows above make?

Rows that agree look like this: the situation names a chatbot as the main alternative, and the position stops filing the Club as "a chatbot you pay for". Or the position is the weekly note, and the channels include school teachers who can vouch for it.

The slip: checking each row's wording and never reading the page as one argument.

A new plan rarely starts on a clean sheet. Some money is already committed, and it may not follow the new focus. The honest move is to say so on the page, not to hide it and not to drop it silently.

At Klasna, the spring money (300,000 a month in February–April 2027) was planned with Hanna as exam-season ads before anyone scored segments. The first target is now diaspora families. Pretending the spring spend serves diaspora families would be false; leaving it off the page would make the plan look consistent while the money goes elsewhere.

So the plan states it plainly:

• spring spend continues for exam families, and is measured with holdouts, like any campaign;
• diaspora families get their own line, through partners and referrals, with a target of their own.

That keeps the joint visible. Leo can see that most spring money still goes to exam families and why, and next year's plan can decide whether to move it, once the diaspora line shows results.

The slip: rewriting the target row to match the budget. Then the scoring that chose the target counts for nothing.

Every number on the page should survive the question "compared with what?". A claim measured without a baseline must be rewritten before the plan goes out, because the reader will act on it.

Leo's line: "The September campaign brought 410 families at 366 UAH each: double it in 2027." Against the holdout cities, the campaign added about 22 new families, not 410: 135 of the 410 were spring families returning at the usual 30%, and new families grew 10% in cities with no ads at all. Its return on contribution was 19.83%: positive, but small and uncertain. "Double it" has no evidence behind it.

The other draft lines hold up:

• "Diaspora families are the first target; exam families stay served" follows the scoring;
• "Keep programming: new families 64 and 66 in the last two school years, and the summer dip is the season" compares like with like;
• "Choose media on cost per useful contact, not reach" is a rule, not a claim.

The replacement line: the restart campaign added about 22 families, returned about 20% on contribution; next September, remind returners for free, aim ads at new families only, keep the holdout cities.

Once you know what a campaign adds, you can set the most it can cost and still break even on contribution:

break-even spend = incremental customers × contribution per customer.

Next September Klasna will remind returning families for free and aim ads only at new families. If the campaign again adds about 22 new families, each leaving 8,170 UAH of contribution in a year:

22 × 8,170 = 179,740 UAH.

Spend more than that and the campaign loses money, unless a holdout shows a bigger effect. This year's 150,000 left 29,740, a 19.83% return.

Use the range too. The holdout cities suggest about 19.44 to 24.09 added families, so the break-even spend is about 158,800 to 196,800. A budget near 150,000, with holdout cities kept, is the honest line, not double.

This also revises an earlier module: module 6's media plan of 246,000 assumed every family who came after the ads was brought by them. The holdout says only about 22 were, so until a holdout shows otherwise, the lower ceiling wins. Saying so openly is better than leaving two numbers that disagree.

The budget line on the page should follow from the evidence, not from the most exciting number in the room. For next September's restart campaign there are four candidates:

• double it to 300,000: rests on the 410-family claim, which counted returners and families who'd have come anyway;
• 246,000 from module 6's media plan: assumed every family after the ads was brought by them;
• zero, "marketing doesn't work": ignores that the campaign did add about 22 families and paid back;
• about 150,000, with holdout cities kept, returners reminded for free and ads aimed at new families only: inside the break-even ceiling of about 179,740 (range about 158,800–196,800), and set up to learn whether a bigger effect exists.

The last one is the honest line. It doesn't claim certainty it doesn't have, keeps the test running, and leaves room to scale next year if the holdout shows a bigger effect.

The general rule for any budget row: tie it to what the spend added, not to what showed up after it, and keep the measurement that would change your mind.

The last row isn't a list of numbers to report. It says how every claim on the page will be checked.

What it contains:

• leading and lagging metrics, each with one owner: enquiries from the target segments (Uliana), trial-to-paid (the academic lead), contribution (Hanna);
• a baseline or holdout for every campaign, so results are incremental, not totals;
• return on contribution, not on revenue or on everyone who showed up;
• a monthly review with scale and stop rules set in advance.

What it isn't: a monthly report of views, followers and enquiries (activity), counting every family who answers "an ad" as a campaign result (a clue, not evidence), or a single review at the end of the year, when it's too late to change anything.

How it fits together: eight decisions in order, joints that agree, claims rewritten against baselines, a budget tied to what spend adds, and a metrics row that checks it all monthly. The Pricing course picks up where the launch stance left off: what to charge.