Did you know that marketers who follow a plan have 538% more more likely to succeed than those who go to the element? This is according to data provided by the Content Marketing Institute. Marketing planning gives measurable benefits. Therefore, as much as 89 percent of marketers who are responsible for strategic B2B marketing planning use a clearly defined plan. Are you among them?
When you plan marketing in your company, are you going to the element? Or maybe you write down the steps and always act according to the plan? Find out why strategic marketing planning can save your business. To grow your business, you must have marketing goals. Then you need the resources to achieve them. In short, these two steps consist of strategic marketing planning.
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What is Strategic Marketing Planning?
In previous articles, we have already thoroughly discussed individual elements of the plan, such as: vision, campaign or marketing communication channels. What will really shift the operation of the company to a different path will be the combination of all these factors into a whole, which should be a coherent strategy. Only then will you see if the pieces of this puzzle fit together and create the effect you want.
McDonald and Wilson, the authors of one of the planning methods, write that: “strategic Marketing plan is a clear statement of the main market trends with goals in key market segments and values that distinguish one company from the competition. The plan should focus on objectives and priority strategies. It must also include their financial consequences.”
Various models of marketing planning
Some marketers cling to a single planning model. Meanwhile, models are only tools that are to help you take the right steps and achieve success. It is worth mentioning a few of the most popular. Perhaps one of them will inspire you in your strategic marketing planning:
- SOSTAC model,
- ASP model,
- McDonald's four-phase model,
- APIC model.
The SOSTAC model consists of six steps. The starting point is the analysis of the situation: where is the company at this point? What does its environment look like in terms of competition and trends? Then ask yourself what effect you want to achieve and where you are going. In the next step, you plan strategies and tactics that are to bring you closer to this goal and put them into practice. The last step is to check the effects.
ASP is another popular model of marketing planning. There are only three steps here: Analysis, Strategies and finally Programs, that is: sales goals, branding, PR campaigns and everything that is needed to put the right strategies into practice. The McDonald model consists of four phases: goal setting, situation review (marketing audit, analysis), strategy formulation, and finally resource allocation and monitoring. In the APIC model, marketing planning consists of analysis, proper planning, implementation and control. As you can see, most steps are duplicated between models. It cannot be said that one of them is better than the other. Rather, it all depends on experience in selecting them for a specific situation.
The benefits of marketing planning
It is difficult to list all the benefits of marketing planning. First of all, you know what effect you can expect. You are also able to check if the chosen strategies are really effective. Marketing planning in just a few steps allows you to break down big ideas into smaller stages. This will make your management easier. At this point, one may ask if this can be reconciled with the fashionable concept of agile marketing.
In short, it is about changing assumptions at any time during the ongoing control of the implementation of assumptions. In such a model, it is still worth using strategic marketing planning models. The only difference is that these cycles will be shorter. You plan goals, set measures to achieve them and control the effect. If something goes wrong - you modify your assumptions. Strategic marketing planning is great both when you want to set goals for the coming years and when you want to test the solution for several weeks or months. Here, too, individual steps will work, which will allow you to more clearly set goals and set ways to achieve them.
Marketing planning step by step
We have already discussed several methods for implementing a marketing planning strategy. Can they be reduced to a common denominator? In simple terms, no matter which method you will use, you need to focus on a few of the most important stages. The first is an analysis of the current situation. You can conduct it thanks to opinion polls, profit and loss control, and a summary of the effects of the campaigns carried out so far. Do not disregard the external situation. Consider the changing trends and actions of your competitors. The next point is planning actions that could improve the situation. Start with broader strategies, e.g. using a SWOT analysis or Porter's five forces. Then break down these broad plans into steps that you can implement on a daily basis: social-media channels, employee relations, pricing policy.
After implementing these actions, analyze what has worked well. Perhaps it will turn out that certain assumptions need to be changed or completely different means should be used. With such a foundation, you can start the next cycle and strategic marketing planning with the new data you already have. As you can see, even a strategy that doesn't work out isn't really a failure. You have learned which measures will not lead you to your goal, and this is capital that will allow you to implement more effective solutions next time. Of course, it would be best to "hit" the first try and create a solution that meets the needs of your business. To make it easier, please contact us to discuss your first marketing strategy.