How do you know whether your marketing plan is on target? In today’s environment the more on target we are the better. If your marketing plan is based on the organization’s strategic plan then odds are you’re heading in the right direction. If there is a disconnect between the marketing plan and your enterprise’s strategic plan, then odds are you are setting you and your team up for trouble. Some people tell us that their organization doesn’t have a strategic plan. If that’s your situation, then insist on one before developing the marketing plan.
Why? Because the strategic plan is what binds all the different parts of the organization together so that each group knows what It needs to do to move the business forward. It is what the entire leadership team should use to define what success looks like in the future. This picture of the future is derived from a shared base of knowledge created by analyzing market, customer and competitive trends and the organization’s strengths and weaknesses. The process provides a disciplined approach for looking at external forces, such as economies, markets, competition, customers, suppliers, etc, considering a variety of potential scenarios, and exploring new opportunities for growth. As part of the process, the organization can determine how to best use its strengths while mitigating any weaknesses and examine the impact of new markets, products and services in order to achieve future success. By formulating a picture of the future, the organization is defining success and how success will be achieved and measured.
Based on the analysis and the vision, we recommend that the leadership team select a manageable number of key objectives – typically no more than 7 to 10, and less can definitely be more – to accomplish over the next 18 months to 3 years. These are the key objectives that if accomplished will enable the organization to achieve success. These mission-critical objectives provide the foundation for the work to be performed and the parameters by which success is measured. They define the company’s priorities and enable the rest of the organization to allocate resources accordingly.
These objectives in the strategic plan become the business outcomes and serve as the stakes in the ground around which each part of the organization builds its operational plan. Whether you’re in sales, marketing, engineering, manufacturing, customer services, these initiatives are the basis for your plan. This is why the strategic plan is so important – it is the cornerstone for action. Many of you tell us you are revisiting your marketing plans in light of the current economic environment. As you solidify your plan, be sure you have the strategic plan front and center so you the marketing objectives and performance metrics are aligned around what matters most to the organization.
VisionEdge Marketing, Inc, is a leading data-driven metrics-based strategic and product marketing firm located in Austin, Texas. The company specializes in consulting and learning services that help organizations use data to make fact based decisions to address market, customer, and product opportunities and to improve and measure marketing performance. For more information, go to www.visionedgemarketing.com.
About Nathan Kaiser
