What?

A Strategic Marketing Plan is a leadership business document that:

  • clearly defines your marketing situation in relation to the markets you operate in.
  • provides a written statement of your proposed direction and clearly maps a path to achieve your goals.
  • focuses and unites your stakeholders to deliver the desired outcomes effectively and efficiently
  • structures your marketing activities and defines the criteria and tools with which you will measure your success

How?

At BlueFrog Marketing we used a simple but very effective process for developing and implementing marketing plans around the acronym R.A.P.I.D. Rapid stands for; Research, Analyse, Plan, Implement and Detect (Measure). Like all good marketing plans it is cyclical and therefore constantly improving your marketing process and systems.

To design and deliver your strategic marketing plan would generally take between 8 to 12 weeks and involve the following stages in chronological order with deliverables at each of the four stages: Research, Thinking, Planning, Delivery

RESEARCH STAGE

1. A Situation analysis of the internal and external market environments including;

  • An Audit of your organisation’s marketing capabilities
  • List all your identifiable strengths weaknesses, threats and opportunities (SWOT & TOWS)
  • What they mean to your future in prioritised order and actions required.
  • Customer and competitor analysis (and suppliers if necessary) (MAPS)
  • An assessment of the environment in which your industry operates (PESTLE)

Presentation of the findings.

THINKING STAGE

2. Develop SMART Marketing objectives (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Timely) derived directly from your SWOT analysis

3. Proposed marketing strategies to achieve these objectives including a plan for the allocation of resources to acquisition, retention and referral activities. Positioning, a promise and A Unique Selling Proposition to clearly differentiate your offering plus a segmentation strategy to ensure you focus your activities on the productive markets.

Presentation of the findings.

PLANNING STAGE

4. Designing an implementation plan including a creative brief and suggestions for integrated media channel selection including:

  • Advertising (Niche specialist magazines/Radio)
  • PR (Editorial and Advertorial)
  • Direct Response (Direct Mail, Email and Telesales)
  • Personal Selling (Sales Kit and referral tools)
  • Online (Paid Search/SEO/Enews/Video/SocialMedia/Survey & Enquiries)

5. Charting a timeline and budget requirements with a break even analysis

6. Advising on an ongoing measurement and evaluation plan.

Presentation of the findings.

DELIVERY STAGE

Corrections and amendments.

7. Final Presentation to key stakeholders.

PROCESS

I prefer to adopt a collaborative approach to strategic planing. By sharing your experience and insights at each stage you ensure that the final document reflects your organisation’s cultural history and is driven by your business objectives to deliver the greatest return on your investment.

I measure my success by your success and will remain available after the delivery of the project on a consultative basis during the implementation and measurement of the plan.

The rules of marketing apply across all industries and sectors, however it is as much an art as a science. The science applies to the rigor and method behind the research, planning and execution of campaigns, however as each company is unique the art of drawing from experience to develop commonsense approaches often applies to the selection of tactics and appropriate tools. After 15 years working across a variety of B2B and B2C campaigns for various sectors I can safely assure you that despite the new buzz words and technology, the basic principles of marketing remain.

Call me on 0417 305 228 or email justin@jb.net.au for an obligation and cost free consultation.

Still not convinced…

Why?

The benefits of developing a strategic marketing plan:

Tracks Costs / Measures Value: A marketing plan provides a step-by-step guide to what you are spending money on and when. It enables you to budget marketing expenses–helping you keep control of your expenditures, manage your cash flow, track sales to marketing expense ratio, and measure success of your marketing efforts. It also ensures that product development dollars are not wasted.

Helps with Focus: Your marketing plan gives the company something to rally behind. It helps staff understand goals and become customer-focused. It also empowers them to make decisions on their own that are consistent with the company’s objectives.

Charts Success: A marketing plan helps you chart your destination point. It becomes a guide through unfamiliar territory.

Serves as a Business Handbook: Your marketing plan is a step-by-step guide for your company’s success. To put together a genuine marketing plan, you have to assess your company from top to bottom and make sure all the pieces are working together in the best way. What do you want to do with this enterprise you call the company in the coming year? It assigns specific tasks for the year.

Captures Thinking on Paper: The finance department isn’t allowed to run a company by keeping numbers in their heads. It should be no different with marketing. Your written document lays out your game plan. If people leave, if new people arrive, if memories falter, the information in the written marketing plan stays intact.

Reflects the Big Picture: In the daily routine of putting out fires, it’s hard to turn your attention to the big picture, especially those parts that aren’t directly related to the daily operations. Writing your marketing plan helps in determining your current business status and provides a roadmap for business goals.

Becomes a Document to Build On: Creating your very first marketing plan is a time and resource consuming endeavor, but well worth the effort. Once the plan is complete, you just need to make minor adjustments and tweaks to it; you won’t have to re-create it from scratch. It will serve as a template and benchmark for you to work from as you define your objectives and strategies for next year. It becomes a living document for measuring sales success, customer retention, product development, and sales initiatives.

To find out how a Strategic Marketing plan can help your business grow, call me on 0417 305 228

To view my strategic marketing folio, click here