Senior management dictates a company’s strategic direction or mission and the marketing plan is developed to effectively support that direction.
Marketing strategies are also established to support and sell a company’s products or services while supporting the company’s overall business strategy.
Creating a strategic marketing plan is easier when you use a linear ten step approach. So …
Develop a clear well-articulated mission statement
Determine the company’s revenue and financial goals
Conduct an internal and external audit consisting of interviews and review of all communication tactics
Perform a SWOT … Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats analysis and evaluate industry positioning
Develop assumptions and hypothetical scenarios from the audit and SWOT analysis
Establish marketing and communications objectives based on the assumptions
Project result expectations
Identify alternative or strategic options
Establish a realistic annual marketing budget … key word here is realistic
Finally develop an annual execution strategy of all integrated marketing and communication tactics with defined deadlines, related sub-budgets and implementation measurement models.
These simple ten steps will help you create a successful well-organized marketing plan.