The Definitive Guide to Strategic Marketing Planning

By Joe Weller | June 23, 2017

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In this article, we’ve researched and outlined the key components of a strategic marketing plan that will help you align your overall marketing and business goals.

Included on this page, you’ll find the essential steps to develop a strategic marketing plan with free downloadable templates, examples of how various marketing processes work , and how marketing automation can give you a competitive edge .

5 Essential Steps for a Successful Strategic Marketing Process

The strategic marketing process is a deliberate series of steps to help you identify and reach your goals. Even more, you’ll discover what your customers want and develop products that meet those needs. Here are the steps to a successful strategic marketing process.

  • Situation Analysis
  • Marketing Strategy/Planning
  • Marketing Mix
  • Implementation and Control

Marketing Process Overview

Strategic marketing planning involves setting goals and objectives, analyzing internal and external business factors, product planning, implementation, and tracking your progress. Consider the example of Apple, winner of the CMO Survey Award for Marketing Excellence for the past seven years. Here’s an example of the strategic marketing plan for one of the most successful companies in the world.   Mission: Apple is dedicated to making innovative, high-quality products.

Situation Analysis: Apple’s competitive advantage is driven by its commitment to understanding customer needs, focusing on the products that are core to its mission, and fostering a collaborative work culture.

Marketing Strategy: Apple usually is first to the marketplace with new products and the company relies on brand loyalty from existing customers as a strategy when launching new products and services.

Marketing Mix: While Apple offers a range of products, it values premium pricing and relies on strict guidelines for distribution.

Implementation and Control: Each Apple product complements the others and work within the same ecosystem, so customers tend to stay with the brand, creating loyal consumers.   The strategic marketing process puts all the pieces together so that everything you do contributes to the success of your business. Rather than executing haphazard activities and ideas, developing a solid plan that weaves goals and tactics into a seamless experience is essential. You can follow these steps to create products and services that will delight your customers and beat out your competitors.

Step One: Mission

First, identify and understand the company’s mission. Maybe it’s written down and promoted throughout the organization. If not, talk to stakeholders to find out why your company exists. A mission statement explains why a company is in business and how it can benefit consumers. Sometimes, the mission statement is aspirational, motivating staff and inspiring customers. Or it is simply a straightforward statement about who you are. Either way, you can’t plan a marketing strategy without knowing clearly what business you are in and why.   Here are some example mission statements:   Citigroup: Our goal for Citigroup is to be the most respected global financial services company. Like any other public company, we’re obligated to deliver profits and growth to our shareholders. Of equal importance is to deliver those profits and generate growth responsibly.   IKEA: At IKEA, our vision is to create a better everyday life for many people. Our business idea supports this vision by offering a wide range of well-designed, functional home furnishing products at prices so low that as many people as possible will be able to afford them.   Universal Health Services: To provide superior quality healthcare services that: PATIENTS recommend to family and friends, PHYSICIANS prefer for their patients, PURCHASERS select for their clients, EMPLOYEES are proud of, and INVESTORS seek for long-term returns.   Unlike the other steps in the planning process, senior leaders or the board of directors typically develop the mission statement and corporate objectives. Your role is to identify those objectives in the planning process to ensure that your efforts stay aligned with corporate leadership.   The mission statement is a core message that guides and influences your marketing strategy. Questions to ask when evaluating the mission:

  • Why is your company in business?
  • What is the purpose of your business?
  • What is the strategic influence for your business?
  • What is the desired public perception for your business?
  • How does your mission statement clarify your strategy?
  • How does your mission statement unify your team?

Step Two: Situation Analysis

The second step of the strategic marketing process is to evaluate internal and external factors that affect your business and market. Your analysis will illuminate your strengths and the challenges you face — either with internal resources or with external competition in the marketplace. Situation analysis provides a clear, objective view of the health of your business, your current and prospective customers, industry trends, and your company’s position in the marketplace.   There are several methods to conduct this analysis. A typical analysis is called a SWOT analysis: strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.

Strengths and weaknesses are internal factors, under your company’s control. What do you do well? What needs to be better? Opportunities and threats are external factors, such as interest rates or a new competitor in the market. Here are some questions that can help you identify internal and external factors:

  • Strengths: What do you do well? What are the factors that you control? What is your competitive advantage? How are your products and services superior to others in the marketplace?
  • Weakness: Where are you underperforming? What is limiting your ability to succeed? Where do limited resources affect your success?
  • Opportunities: What are untapped markets? Where is the potential for new business? Can you take advantage of any market trends?
  • Threats: What are the obstacles? Which external factors (political, technological, economic) can cause a problem?

SWOT Analysis with Summary Template

Download SWOT Analysis Template With Summary

WORD | Smartsheet

A 5C analysis (Company, Customers, Competitors, Collaborators, Climate) is another way to evaluate the market environment. Like SWOT, it includes an internal analysis as well as an exploration of external factors.

steps in strategic planning in marketing

Here are some questions you can ask when working on a 5C analysis:

  • Company: How successful are your product lines? What is your image in the marketplace? How effectively are you achieving your goals? How does your company’s culture affect your performance?
  • Customers: Who is your audience and what is the market size? How much is your customer base growing? What motivates customers to buy your product or service? What are overall sales trends and how is the buying process changing? 
  • Competitors: Who are your direct, indirect, and future competitors? What are their products and market shares? How are they positioned in the market? What are their strengths and weaknesses?
  • Collaborators: Who are your suppliers, distributors, partners, and agencies? How can they help you grow your business? How does the stability of their business affect the success of your business?
  • Climate: What are the governmental policies and regulations that affect the market? What economic factors (inflation, interest rates) are at play? What trends influence your customers? What is the impact of technology on the demand for your product or how could technology give you an advantage over your competitors?

Download 5C Analysis Template

Excel   |   PDF

You can also conduct a PEST analysis (Political, Economic, Social, Technological), which is similar to the climate section of a 5C analysis. This method provides a comprehensive analysis of external factors that could affect your company.

PEST Analysis

Here are some questions you can ask when performing a PEST analysis:

  • Political: What laws and regulators affect consumers? What’s the impact of trade regulations, employment laws, and tax guidelines? How stable are the foreign markets and countries in which you sell products, contract with suppliers, or offer services?
  • Economic: How do interest rates, inflation, taxes, and exchange rates affect your customers and your bottom line? What is the impact of the stock market on your business? What are the local business cycles and overall economic growth?
  • Social: What lifestyles and attitudes affect the buying habits of your consumers? What are the demographics of your customers (age, gender, education, etc.)? How are they changing?  
  • Technical: What patents, innovations and licenses can influence your company? Which manufacturing trends can increase your production levels or drive down costs? How can information technology help or hurt your product placement, positioning, and promotion?

Download PEST Analysis Template

Your analysis, no matter which method you use, will help you list the most critical problems and relevant opportunities, as well as show you how well your company can tackle projects. Once you have a clear picture of your business, you can identify potential markets and products.

Step Three: Marketing Plan

Now that you’ve identified opportunities through your analysis, you should prioritize and map out which ones you are going to pursue. Writing a marketing plan will specify your target customers and how you will reach them, and should also include a forecast of the anticipated results. These questions can help:

  • How will customers respond to your marketing efforts? 
  • How much will the plan cost? 
  • How will your competition respond? 

The data from your market research and situation analysis will help you build these projections into your plan.   Define Your Target Audience

Few companies can meet the needs and wants of the entire market. You want to split the market into a segment that aligns best with your strengths and opportunities. Your goal is to identify customers. You can select your target market by choosing all kinds of characteristics, behaviors, and demographics. The important thing is to make sure the audience is clearly defined and large enough to support your product or service.  

how to segment your target market

  Even though you may have some information about your customers based on your situation analysis, you may need to conduct more research on their needs and wants. With research, you can create detailed profiles or personas of your ideal customers. The more you know about your target audience, the more effectively you can offer them value through your product or service. Nothing matters more than how you make customers feel about your company.   Set Measurable Goals 

How will you know if your plan succeeds? You need specific, measurable goals with milestones that measure your progress. Do you want to increase your sales? The goal you set should specify how much you want to grow the sales number, and the timeframe for meeting that target. Each goal should be actionable and attainable through tactics you control. At this stage, avoid contingent goals, which are dependent on circumstances beyond your control. With each goal, list the tactics or steps you will take to achieve it. Combine simple, clear, and precise goals (whether it’s gaining customers, improving brand recognition or something else) with a detailed plan that defines the tactics to meet your goal. For more information on writing SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-Bound) goals, read this article .    Identify and Set a Marketing Budget 

Now it’s time to allocate the resources that will turn your plan into action. Your budget will outline all the expected costs for implementing your marketing plan, including advertising, online content, branding, public relations, staffing costs, and more. Depending on the size of your budget, you may have to make some tough choices about which goals and tactics are the top priorities. Or you may have to adjust your tactics until you reach a budget that’s affordable. By creating the budget, you can finalize and stick to your plan. For more help with marketing budgets, read 12 Free Marketing Budget Templates .

Step Four: Developing Marketing Mix Decisions

At this stage of the strategic marketing process, it’s time to focus on the “how” of planning. Your marketing mix is based on the 4Ps of marketing, including Product, Price, Promotion, and Place.  In 1960, E. J. McCarthy first expressed the 4Ps, and it is probably the best-known way to describe the marketing mix. The 4Ps will guide the way you convey the value of your product to your customers. You are positioning your product and its competitive advantage. You need to be clear about what you are marketing: convenience or quality? And you need to know who is likely to buy your product or service.    By using the market research conducted in step two, you can develop the ideal marketing mix for your target audience and the type of product or service you sell. Although there are dozens of marketing channels, you will want to choose the tactics that will reach your prospects when they’ll be most receptive to your message.  

The Four Ps of Marketing

  Product: A product is a good or service that meets the needs of your target market. Even more, products solve problems. Whether you are developing a marketing plan for Coca-Cola, a luxury hotel, or a cell phone, you have to know what problem it solves and why your product is a unique solution. Make sure you have a clear understanding of all the details of your product, including its features, branding, and packaging.

  • What is the product or service?
  • What does the customer want from it?
  • What needs does it satisfy?
  • What features does it have to meet these needs?
  • How and where will the customer use it?
  • How does it compare with similar products?
  • Who are the competitors? 

Price: The price is the amount of money your target market is willing to pay for your product. Factors for price include any discounts, payment periods, and list price, as well as how much it costs your company to produce the product. You also need to consider overall marketplace conditions and your competition. How healthy is the economy? How much are your competitors charging for a similar product? Do they have the same business model?   The marketing message around your price depends on your market and your audience. Maybe it’s a way to position your product in a crowded marketplace. It might be a competitive advantage or a way of demonstrating the value of your product.

  • What is the value of the product to the customer?
  • Are there existing price points for similar products? If so, what are they?
  • Will a small decrease give you extra market share? How much will that affect the product’s perceived value?
  • Will discounts to certain market segments be part of your strategy?

Promotion: The way you communicate with your target audience about the value and benefit of your product is promotion. Think of promotion as an opportunity to educate your customers about your products and services. You teach them the value of what you offer and how your product meets their needs or solves their problem. There are countless ways to educate them through marketing channels including direct marketing, paid search and social, advertising, public relations, and sales promotions that create brand awareness. This extends to almost every aspect of how you present the product to your target market, and is everything that teaches your audience about your product or brand. 

  • Where can you get your marketing messages across to your target market? Options include advertising on TV and billboards, direct marketing, public relations, sponsored events, and promotions. Consider the details you used when segmenting your audience.
  • What marketing channels does your target market use on a regular basis? Where and when are they most ready to buy your product?
  • When is the best time to promote?
  • How do your competitors do their promotions?

Place: Consider place as product distribution or how you plan to get your product to your customers and make the buying process easy. Place includes distribution channels, outlets, and transportation to get the product to the target market.

  • Where do customers look for your product? In a store? Online? Through a catalogue?
  • Do you need a sales force to reach customers or should you sell directly to your target market?
  • What are the best distribution channels?
  • Where are your competitors reaching customers?

Step Five: Implementation and Control

Now it’s time to put your plan into action. Identify how and when you will launch your plan. At this stage of the strategic marketing process, you will reach out to customers to inform and persuade them about your product or service. Your next steps include getting the resources (cash and staffing) to market your product, organizing the people who will do the work, creating calendars to keep the work on track, and managing all the details for each goal. It will help you stay focused and energized if you create monthly benchmarks and projects, weekly action steps, and daily marketing appointments.   Remember, the strategic marketing process is dynamic. You need to regularly measure and evaluate the results of your plan in order to succeed. This will help you see whether you are accomplishing your goals and where you need to adjust tactics to improve your results. This can include looking at revenue, sales, customer satisfaction, the number of views your website receives, or other metrics. If the numbers aren’t meeting your projections, you can make changes to get back on track. You also need to monitor the actions of your competitors. How does the success of your product affect the price of similar items on the market? Are new products being released that could be perceived of greater value by your audience? Use this information to make informed decisions about the 4Ps for your product.

What Is the Definition of Strategic Marketing?

A marketing plan establishes the goals and tactics of every marketing campaign. It keeps everyone in your organization on the same page about the direction and purpose of your marketing efforts. A marketing plan also provides a way for you to measure your success. Without a plan, you won’t really know whether you’re succeeding.

While every individual campaign should have a plan, your company also needs a strategic marketing plan to guide your overall efforts. A strategic plan identifies your business goals, the marketplace in which you compete, your target audience, the ways you want to reach them, and how you will evaluate your success. It integrates everything you say and do to grow your company. A strategic marketing plan is not a static document that gets tossed in a drawer once it’s written. Instead, a plan is a living document that guides your work and is regularly updated to reflect changes in your business, your customers, and your competition.

The process of developing a strategic marketing plan is crucial to your business. You cannot create strategic marketing without strategic thinking. This planning helps you clarify your goals and identify where you see your business in the future, which ultimately strengthens your strategy. A strategic marketing planning process also helps with:

  • Providing a clear map of your company’s goals and how to achieve them.
  • Getting all stakeholders to share a common goal and a have a common understanding of your company’s opportunities and challenges.
  • Identifying and meeting customer needs with the right products in the right places.
  • Growing your market share and product lines, leading to more revenue.
  • Enabling smaller companies to compete with bigger firms.

One caution: A strategic marketing plan focuses on your goals for your products and customers. The overall business plan, which outlines all of your company’s goals, should support the marketing plan. If they don’t work together, neither plan will succeed.   What Problems Should You Anticipate in the Strategic Marketing Process 

Every manager knows to expect the best but plan for the worst. In the marketing planning process, here are some challenges you may face:

  • Confusing Strategy with Tactics: A strategic marketing plan outlines your larger goal. Sometimes, this can be confused with a tactical marketing plan. The difference between the two is that the strategy identifies your goals and objectives and the tactical marketing plan outlines the details for how you’ll reach those goals. Your strategy may be a larger goal, such as increasing your market share. Tactics are the action steps, such as lowering your prices, so more people buy your product. A successful plan needs both, implemented at the proper stage of the process.
  • Lack of Resources: Maybe your goal is to increase sales, but you don’t have the workforce to meet all the incoming orders. Perhaps you don’t have the resources to hire experienced people who can adequately staff the marketing pipeline. The strategic planning process will help you identify the resources you have and the best way to put them to work for the good of the company.
  • Assumptions About Your Customers: Market research can help you identify your target audience. Sometimes the audience changes, and your planning process should include steps for adjusting to the evolving tastes of consumers.

How Do Specific Marketing Processes Work?

The steps of the strategic marketing process (mission, situation analysis, marketing plan, marketing mix, and implementation and control) are different than the process for a specific marketing effort. Specific efforts may support one goal or business line, but the strategic process supports the entire mission of your organization.   Target Marketing Process

Target Marketing Process

Target marketing identifies the specific market segments that will help your business grow. The three main activities of target marketing are segmenting, targeting, and positioning. Organizations use this S-T-P approach to pinpoint the best prospective customers.

  • Segmenting: Segmenting divides the overall market into smaller groups based on demographics, geography, lifestyle or behavioral approaches.
  • Targeting: Choose the segment of potential customers that offers the most business opportunity for you.
  • Positioning: The final step is to position your product in a way that will appeal to the needs of your target audience and encourage them to buy your product.  

Content Marketing Process 

Content marketers generate demand for a product by generating a steady flow of content that focuses on the problems and desires of potential and current customers. Here are the five steps of the content marketing process: 

  • Plan: Develop a plan that specifies the details of creating, publishing, distributing, and measuring a content marketing program.
  • Create: Take key ideas and themes, and turn them into raw material.
  • Publish: Turn raw material into various kinds of content assets, including articles, blog posts, whitepapers, online events, videos, printed documents, and podcasts.
  • Distribute: Use a range of promotional tactics to distribute content assets.
  • Analyze: Track and measure the results so you can publish more effective content in the future.

Product Marketing Process

The product marketing process is the pipeline from strategy to implementation for a product marketing campaign. To be successful, this process focuses on making sure the product continues to meet the needs of customers throughout the product cycle. Here are the stages of this process:

  • Product: Research new ideas for meeting customer needs from a wide variety of sources, including customer feedback, sales requests, and competitor products.
  • Reach: Work with other departments to implement new ideas and develop marketing plans to deliver new products to consumers.
  • Audience: Track response through metrics and direct customer feedback.
  • Pricing: Prioritize innovation based on the customer value, the cost of implementing them, and the revenue they will generate. 

Inbound Marketing Process

Inbound Target Marketing Process

Inbound marketing draws prospective customers to your product by providing useful and quality content that entices them to find out more. The inbound approach includes content marketing, social strategies, and search engine optimization, all tactics that bring your target audience to you. It’s different than outbound marketing, a traditional approach in which you advertise your product or service, typically through television and radio, print ads, and direct mail. Here’s how inbound marketing works:

  • Attract and Engage: Create targeted content that answers your customers’ questions and be readily available online. This includes blog content, a social media presence, keywords that guide prospective customers to your site when they are searching for answers, and a well-designed and helpful website.
  • Convert: Get more information about your prospective customers so you can guide them through the sales funnel. Start collecting details about your customers through sign-up forms and landing pages, email newsletters, ebooks, whitepapers, and tip sheets. The key is to deliver targeted marketing to the right audience at the right time.
  • Close: Once you’ve collected detailed information about your prospective customers, you can customize the marketing that leads them to buy your product or service. This includes email messaging, which is typically done using marketing automation software that responds to the actions of a prospective customer.
  • Delight: While an immediate goal may be the sale of one product, your strategic goals focus on brand loyalty and long-term value. In this stage, you should be staying in touch with your customers, monitoring the conversations on social media, asking for feedback through surveys, and finding ways to provide rewards for customer loyalty. 

Email Marketing Process  

Email Campaign Segmentation Process

  Email marketing is one of the most powerful drivers of sales for many businesses. It has an advantage over direct mail because you can track and measure your results, and it tends to be less expensive than other marketing channels. Here’s an overview of the email marketing process:

  • Define: Identify your goals and your audience. Base the content of your email on who you want to reach and what you want them to do.
  • Test: Email marketing has a range of variables that can affect the performance of your campaign. You need to choose the best design, content, and format for the message you want to send.
  • Send: Email is one of the largest drivers of sales for many products. Each email you send has to align with your brand, connect with your audience, and offer a clear call to action.
  • Measure and Report: You want to understand how people interact with each campaign. Track the open rate for your email, the number of clicks through to your site, and when they read your marketing. This data will help you create a more effective campaign next time.

How Is Marketing Automation Changing the Strategic Marketing Process?

Marketing automation is about software that streamlines, automates, and measures marketing processes and tasks. It reduces the amount of manual effort and tracking that marketing campaigns require. Automation makes your marketing, and your company, more efficient, effective, and profitable. Whether you have a small company or a large organization, you can gain a competitive edge by automating your ability to target your audience and track and measure your results. Here’s how:

  • Marketing automation helps you nurture prospects for the long-term. Automation connects multiple digital channels, including social media, email, and content marketing. You can create and deliver a comprehensive plan in which every consumer touch point is optimized for conversion.
  • Marketing automation makes your communication stronger. Once you’ve collected user data, you can add dynamic content that adds personal touches to your campaign. You’re not blasting customers with broad or irrelevant advertising messages. Instead, you’re guiding prospects through the sales funnel. With every action by your prospective customer, you can automate a response.
  • Marketing automation can help your company find an effective approach for email campaigns. You can test different variables like email send times, subject lines, and ideas for personalization.
  • Marketing automation improves your ability to segment your customers. As you gather data about their behavior, interests, and demographics, you can refine your messaging.
  • Marketing automation helps you listen to your customers. You can map sales cycles, collect email data (unsubscribe rates, open rates, spam complaints), and customer service feedback.

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  • What is strategic planning? A 5-step gu ...

What is strategic planning? A 5-step guide

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Strategic planning is a process through which business leaders map out their vision for their organization’s growth and how they’re going to get there. In this article, we'll guide you through the strategic planning process, including why it's important, the benefits and best practices, and five steps to get you from beginning to end.

Strategic planning is a process through which business leaders map out their vision for their organization’s growth and how they’re going to get there. The strategic planning process informs your organization’s decisions, growth, and goals.

Strategic planning helps you clearly define your company’s long-term objectives—and maps how your short-term goals and work will help you achieve them. This, in turn, gives you a clear sense of where your organization is going and allows you to ensure your teams are working on projects that make the most impact. Think of it this way—if your goals and objectives are your destination on a map, your strategic plan is your navigation system.

In this article, we walk you through the 5-step strategic planning process and show you how to get started developing your own strategic plan.

How to build an organizational strategy

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What is strategic planning?

Strategic planning is a business process that helps you define and share the direction your company will take in the next three to five years. During the strategic planning process, stakeholders review and define the organization’s mission and goals, conduct competitive assessments, and identify company goals and objectives. The product of the planning cycle is a strategic plan, which is shared throughout the company.

What is a strategic plan?

[inline illustration] Strategic plan elements (infographic)

A strategic plan is the end result of the strategic planning process. At its most basic, it’s a tool used to define your organization’s goals and what actions you’ll take to achieve them.

Typically, your strategic plan should include: 

Your company’s mission statement

Your organizational goals, including your long-term goals and short-term, yearly objectives

Any plan of action, tactics, or approaches you plan to take to meet those goals

What are the benefits of strategic planning?

Strategic planning can help with goal setting and decision-making by allowing you to map out how your company will move toward your organization’s vision and mission statements in the next three to five years. Let’s circle back to our map metaphor. If you think of your company trajectory as a line on a map, a strategic plan can help you better quantify how you’ll get from point A (where you are now) to point B (where you want to be in a few years).

When you create and share a clear strategic plan with your team, you can:

Build a strong organizational culture by clearly defining and aligning on your organization’s mission, vision, and goals.

Align everyone around a shared purpose and ensure all departments and teams are working toward a common objective.

Proactively set objectives to help you get where you want to go and achieve desired outcomes.

Promote a long-term vision for your company rather than focusing primarily on short-term gains.

Ensure resources are allocated around the most high-impact priorities.

Define long-term goals and set shorter-term goals to support them.

Assess your current situation and identify any opportunities—or threats—allowing your organization to mitigate potential risks.

Create a proactive business culture that enables your organization to respond more swiftly to emerging market changes and opportunities.

What are the 5 steps in strategic planning?

The strategic planning process involves a structured methodology that guides the organization from vision to implementation. The strategic planning process starts with assembling a small, dedicated team of key strategic planners—typically five to 10 members—who will form the strategic planning, or management, committee. This team is responsible for gathering crucial information, guiding the development of the plan, and overseeing strategy execution.

Once you’ve established your management committee, you can get to work on the planning process. 

Step 1: Assess your current business strategy and business environment

Before you can define where you’re going, you first need to define where you are. Understanding the external environment, including market trends and competitive landscape, is crucial in the initial assessment phase of strategic planning.

To do this, your management committee should collect a variety of information from additional stakeholders, like employees and customers. In particular, plan to gather:

Relevant industry and market data to inform any market opportunities, as well as any potential upcoming threats in the near future.

Customer insights to understand what your customers want from your company—like product improvements or additional services.

Employee feedback that needs to be addressed—whether about the product, business practices, or the day-to-day company culture.

Consider different types of strategic planning tools and analytical techniques to gather this information, such as:

A balanced scorecard to help you evaluate four major elements of a business: learning and growth, business processes, customer satisfaction, and financial performance.

A SWOT analysis to help you assess both current and future potential for the business (you’ll return to this analysis periodically during the strategic planning process). 

To fill out each letter in the SWOT acronym, your management committee will answer a series of questions:

What does your organization currently do well?

What separates you from your competitors?

What are your most valuable internal resources?

What tangible assets do you have?

What is your biggest strength? 

Weaknesses:

What does your organization do poorly?

What do you currently lack (whether that’s a product, resource, or process)?

What do your competitors do better than you?

What, if any, limitations are holding your organization back?

What processes or products need improvement? 

Opportunities:

What opportunities does your organization have?

How can you leverage your unique company strengths?

Are there any trends that you can take advantage of?

How can you capitalize on marketing or press opportunities?

Is there an emerging need for your product or service? 

What emerging competitors should you keep an eye on?

Are there any weaknesses that expose your organization to risk?

Have you or could you experience negative press that could reduce market share?

Is there a chance of changing customer attitudes towards your company? 

Step 2: Identify your company’s goals and objectives

To begin strategy development, take into account your current position, which is where you are now. Then, draw inspiration from your vision, mission, and current position to identify and define your goals—these are your final destination. 

To develop your strategy, you’re essentially pulling out your compass and asking, “Where are we going next?” “What’s the ideal future state of this company?” This can help you figure out which path you need to take to get there.

During this phase of the planning process, take inspiration from important company documents, such as:

Your mission statement, to understand how you can continue moving towards your organization’s core purpose.

Your vision statement, to clarify how your strategic plan fits into your long-term vision.

Your company values, to guide you towards what matters most towards your company.

Your competitive advantages, to understand what unique benefit you offer to the market.

Your long-term goals, to track where you want to be in five or 10 years.

Your financial forecast and projection, to understand where you expect your financials to be in the next three years, what your expected cash flow is, and what new opportunities you will likely be able to invest in.

Step 3: Develop your strategic plan and determine performance metrics

Now that you understand where you are and where you want to go, it’s time to put pen to paper. Take your current business position and strategy into account, as well as your organization’s goals and objectives, and build out a strategic plan for the next three to five years. Keep in mind that even though you’re creating a long-term plan, parts of your plan should be created or revisited as the quarters and years go on.

As you build your strategic plan, you should define:

Company priorities for the next three to five years, based on your SWOT analysis and strategy.

Yearly objectives for the first year. You don’t need to define your objectives for every year of the strategic plan. As the years go on, create new yearly objectives that connect back to your overall strategic goals . 

Related key results and KPIs. Some of these should be set by the management committee, and some should be set by specific teams that are closer to the work. Make sure your key results and KPIs are measurable and actionable. These KPIs will help you track progress and ensure you’re moving in the right direction.

Budget for the next year or few years. This should be based on your financial forecast as well as your direction. Do you need to spend aggressively to develop your product? Build your team? Make a dent with marketing? Clarify your most important initiatives and how you’ll budget for those.

A high-level project roadmap . A project roadmap is a tool in project management that helps you visualize the timeline of a complex initiative, but you can also create a very high-level project roadmap for your strategic plan. Outline what you expect to be working on in certain quarters or years to make the plan more actionable and understandable.

Step 4: Implement and share your plan

Now it’s time to put your plan into action. Strategy implementation involves clear communication across your entire organization to make sure everyone knows their responsibilities and how to measure the plan’s success. 

Make sure your team (especially senior leadership) has access to the strategic plan, so they can understand how their work contributes to company priorities and the overall strategy map. We recommend sharing your plan in the same tool you use to manage and track work, so you can more easily connect high-level objectives to daily work. If you don’t already, consider using a work management platform .  

A few tips to make sure your plan will be executed without a hitch: 

Communicate clearly to your entire organization throughout the implementation process, to ensure all team members understand the strategic plan and how to implement it effectively. 

Define what “success” looks like by mapping your strategic plan to key performance indicators.

Ensure that the actions outlined in the strategic plan are integrated into the daily operations of the organization, so that every team member's daily activities are aligned with the broader strategic objectives.

Utilize tools and software—like a work management platform—that can aid in implementing and tracking the progress of your plan.

Regularly monitor and share the progress of the strategic plan with the entire organization, to keep everyone informed and reinforce the importance of the plan.

Establish regular check-ins to monitor the progress of your strategic plan and make adjustments as needed. 

Step 5: Revise and restructure as needed

Once you’ve created and implemented your new strategic framework, the final step of the planning process is to monitor and manage your plan.

Remember, your strategic plan isn’t set in stone. You’ll need to revisit and update the plan if your company changes directions or makes new investments. As new market opportunities and threats come up, you’ll likely want to tweak your strategic plan. Make sure to review your plan regularly—meaning quarterly and annually—to ensure it’s still aligned with your organization’s vision and goals.

Keep in mind that your plan won’t last forever, even if you do update it frequently. A successful strategic plan evolves with your company’s long-term goals. When you’ve achieved most of your strategic goals, or if your strategy has evolved significantly since you first made your plan, it might be time to create a new one.

Build a smarter strategic plan with a work management platform

To turn your company strategy into a plan—and ultimately, impact—make sure you’re proactively connecting company objectives to daily work. When you can clarify this connection, you’re giving your team members the context they need to get their best work done. 

A work management platform plays a pivotal role in this process. It acts as a central hub for your strategic plan, ensuring that every task and project is directly tied to your broader company goals. This alignment is crucial for visibility and coordination, allowing team members to see how their individual efforts contribute to the company’s success. 

By leveraging such a platform, you not only streamline workflow and enhance team productivity but also align every action with your strategic objectives—allowing teams to drive greater impact and helping your company move toward goals more effectively. 

Strategic planning FAQs

Still have questions about strategic planning? We have answers.

Why do I need a strategic plan?

A strategic plan is one of many tools you can use to plan and hit your goals. It helps map out strategic objectives and growth metrics that will help your company be successful.

When should I create a strategic plan?

You should aim to create a strategic plan every three to five years, depending on your organization’s growth speed.

Since the point of a strategic plan is to map out your long-term goals and how you’ll get there, you should create a strategic plan when you’ve met most or all of them. You should also create a strategic plan any time you’re going to make a large pivot in your organization’s mission or enter new markets. 

What is a strategic planning template?

A strategic planning template is a tool organizations can use to map out their strategic plan and track progress. Typically, a strategic planning template houses all the components needed to build out a strategic plan, including your company’s vision and mission statements, information from any competitive analyses or SWOT assessments, and relevant KPIs.

What’s the difference between a strategic plan vs. business plan?

A business plan can help you document your strategy as you’re getting started so every team member is on the same page about your core business priorities and goals. This tool can help you document and share your strategy with key investors or stakeholders as you get your business up and running.

You should create a business plan when you’re: 

Just starting your business

Significantly restructuring your business

If your business is already established, you should create a strategic plan instead of a business plan. Even if you’re working at a relatively young company, your strategic plan can build on your business plan to help you move in the right direction. During the strategic planning process, you’ll draw from a lot of the fundamental business elements you built early on to establish your strategy for the next three to five years.

What’s the difference between a strategic plan vs. mission and vision statements?

Your strategic plan, mission statement, and vision statements are all closely connected. In fact, during the strategic planning process, you will take inspiration from your mission and vision statements in order to build out your strategic plan.

Simply put: 

A mission statement summarizes your company’s purpose.

A vision statement broadly explains how you’ll reach your company’s purpose.

A strategic plan pulls in inspiration from your mission and vision statements and outlines what actions you’re going to take to move in the right direction. 

For example, if your company produces pet safety equipment, here’s how your mission statement, vision statement, and strategic plan might shake out:

Mission statement: “To ensure the safety of the world’s animals.” 

Vision statement: “To create pet safety and tracking products that are effortless to use.” 

Your strategic plan would outline the steps you’re going to take in the next few years to bring your company closer to your mission and vision. For example, you develop a new pet tracking smart collar or improve the microchipping experience for pet owners. 

What’s the difference between a strategic plan vs. company objectives?

Company objectives are broad goals. You should set these on a yearly or quarterly basis (if your organization moves quickly). These objectives give your team a clear sense of what you intend to accomplish for a set period of time. 

Your strategic plan is more forward-thinking than your company goals, and it should cover more than one year of work. Think of it this way: your company objectives will move the needle towards your overall strategy—but your strategic plan should be bigger than company objectives because it spans multiple years.

What’s the difference between a strategic plan vs. a business case?

A business case is a document to help you pitch a significant investment or initiative for your company. When you create a business case, you’re outlining why this investment is a good idea, and how this large-scale project will positively impact the business. 

You might end up building business cases for things on your strategic plan’s roadmap—but your strategic plan should be bigger than that. This tool should encompass multiple years of your roadmap, across your entire company—not just one initiative.

What’s the difference between a strategic plan vs. a project plan?

A strategic plan is a company-wide, multi-year plan of what you want to accomplish in the next three to five years and how you plan to accomplish that. A project plan, on the other hand, outlines how you’re going to accomplish a specific project. This project could be one of many initiatives that contribute to a specific company objective which, in turn, is one of many objectives that contribute to your strategic plan. 

What’s the difference between strategic management vs. strategic planning?

A strategic plan is a tool to define where your organization wants to go and what actions you need to take to achieve those goals. Strategic planning is the process of creating a plan in order to hit your strategic objectives.

Strategic management includes the strategic planning process, but also goes beyond it. In addition to planning how you will achieve your big-picture goals, strategic management also helps you organize your resources and figure out the best action plans for success. 

7 Steps to a strategic marketing plan

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Table of Contents

Creating a strategic marketing plan is a vital part of any marketing process because a good marketing plan brings a competitive advantage and leads to commercial success .

Of course, whatever your marketing goal might be — you won’t arrive there in a day. 

You need to invest some time into careful planning, and — most importantly — you need to maintain realistic objectives. 

Luckily, there are certain steps you should go through if you want your plan to be successful. 

So, keep reading, as in this blog post we’ll give you a quick overview of the 7 steps to creating a strategic marketing plan. 

7 Steps to a strategic marketing plan

What is a marketing strategic planning process?

The strategic marketing planning process is a procedure a company goes through to arrive at a practical marketing plan. 

In other words, an actual marketing plan is the output of a marketing process. 

One of the main characteristics of a strategic marketing process is that it should focus on pursuing a concrete goal. This makes the process more feasible in the long run.

Planning processes are usually 1–3 years long. However, the length of the process often depends on the size of your company. 

Usually, larger companies need more time to implement any changes. 

This is because these processes are often highly formalized at large companies — and need to go through several predetermined stages before they can take effect.

7 Steps to a successful strategic marketing plan

Achieving a certain marketing goal is possible only if you develop a step-by-step strategy , which should be based on detailed research and solid data.

Understanding the crucial steps of the planning process will improve your chances of creating a winning strategy. 

Here are the 7 steps to creating a successful strategic marketing plan:

  • Align your marketing goals with overall company objectives
  • Research the market 
  • Do the SWOT analysis 
  • Determine you “marketing mix”
  • Set a budget
  • Pick a PM tool 
  • Review and update

Step 1: Align your marketing goals with overall company objectives 

First and foremost, planning is all about creating a practical plan and pursuing a clear marketing goal. 

But, in order to do that, you first need to have a clear understanding of the company’s overall goals.

In the initial stage of your marketing process, you should determine your company’s primary mission , as well as the company’s values . 

If you’re not exactly sure how to do that, our advice is to start by answering some of these questions: 

  • What do we plan to achieve? 
  • What’s the purpose of our plan?
  • What values do we keep to?
  • What are our long-term goals and objectives?
  • What’s our corporate vision?

You need to understand your company’s overall goals so that you can align your marketing objectives with them.

In addition, according to Malcolm McDonald , you should think of the company’s plans for the future, including:

  • What the company will do,
  • What the company might do, and
  • What the company will never do.

💡 Plaky Pro Tip

If you want to find out more about setting goals in a company whose work involves project management, check out this blog post:

  • How to define S.M.A.R.T. goals in project management

At this point, you probably have an overall idea of what you’re heading for. 

So, you can proceed to Step 2.

Step 2: Research the market

Having established your goals, it’s time to analyze external factors that could influence your marketing strategy — such as:

  • Business environment 
  • Market trends and consumer behavior
  • Competition 

When it comes to the business environment , you should be aware of the current:

  • Economic, 
  • Political, 
  • Social, and
  • Cultural climate.

These factors could have a huge impact on the final outcome of your strategy. 

Furthermore, by understanding the market trends and consumer behavior , you directly increase the chances of your marketing plan’s success. While trends indicate recent developments in the marketplace, consumer behavior helps you understand consumers’ buying decisions and what drives them. 

On top of all, market research should include a competitive analysis.  

This means — determining major competitors, as well as comparing their products, pricing, and strengths and weaknesses. 

When analyzing competition, try focusing on the following questions:

  • How much do they invest in brand positioning, promotions, and advertising?
  • What are their distribution channels?
  • What are their new or improved products?
  • What makes a competitor stand out from others?
  • How do you differ from competitors?

Having conducted the market research, you should be ready to take the next step — the SWOT analysis.

Step 3: Do the SWOT analysis

The SWOT analysis is a great way of analyzing your own company’s position by identifying internal strengths and weaknesses in relation to external opportunities and threats . 

Here’s how the SWOT analysis works on an example of a new type of branded sunglasses being introduced in the market. 

The brand in question, Isee , specializes in distributing eyeglasses. The brand has great online selling rates and wants to broaden its distribution to sunglasses. The demand for sunglasses is high, and the already-established famous brands, such as Ray-Ban and Oakley , are the main competitors. 

So, what does the SWOT analysis say?

The SWOT analysis should:

  • Contain just a few paragraphs, focusing on key factors only 
  • Include a summary of reasons for potential good or bad performance
  • Be interesting to read
  • Contain concise statements
  • Include only relevant and important data

We hope these tips have helped you paint a clearer picture of what the SWOT analysis should look like. 

If the answer is yes — we can move on to the next step — determining your “marketing mix”.

Step 4: Determine your “marketing mix”

After you’ve determined your company’s objectives, as well as gathered all the necessary data, you’re ready to proceed to the next stage of the marketing planning process — creating the marketing strategy .

A successful marketing strategy is concerned with the marketing mix — the so-called ‘ four Ps ’ . 

The four Ps represent the factors you should take into account when working on your marketing strategy.

P #1: Product

To create a marketing strategy, a marketer first needs to understand the product, as well as all information on the product’s:

  • Modifications, 
  • Design, 
  • Branding, 
  • Positioning, and

P #2: Price

Marketers need to be well aware of the product’s price in relation to its value, so that they can justify it to potential customers.

When forming the price, you should consider the following:

  • Supply costs,
  • Seasonal discounts,
  • Competitor’s prices, and
  • Retail markup . 

P #3: Place

You also need to think about the best distribution channels for your product, i.e.:

  • Physical stores, and\or
  • Online stores.

Tip: Think of the place your product will gain the most attention, and reach its target audience — that’s the place you should provide.

P #4: Promotion

Finally, you need to think about how best to promote your product. 

You should determine the best communication channels with prospects, such as:

  • Advertising, 
  • Sales force ,
  • Sales promotion,
  • Exhibitions,
  • Affiliate marketing ,
  • Social networking, and\or
  • Digital marketing.

Determining the ‘four Ps‘ leads you one step closer to a strategic marketing plan completion — now, you’re ready to set the budget. 

Step 5: Set a budget

At this point of your strategic marketing planning process, it’s good to determine everything that has to do with your current marketing expenditures , including:

  • Advertising,
  • Digital assets (e.g. a website, social media, visual content marketing ),
  • Promotions,
  • Marketing events, and
  • Sponsorships.

Now is also the right moment to calculate the costs of the future marketing activities you’ve outlined in your marketing strategy.

Tip: Be especially careful when it comes to incremental marketing expenses , as those are all costs incurred after the product launch, other than those involved in its physical distribution. 

Most importantly, any form of discounting that reduces the expected gross income is considered an incremental marketing expense. 

This includes costs such as the following: 

  • Promotional discounts, 
  • Quantity discounts,
  • Sales commission, and 
  • Unpaid invoices.

After you’ve done the math — it’s time for the 6th step — picking a project management tool that will help you put your plan into motion.

Step 6: Pick a PM tool 

At this point, you probably think that managing a marketing plan is quite challenging. 

And, you’re mostly right. 

The marketing planning process requires you to stay on top of your tasks at all times. 

Apart from actually creating the strategy, a marketing planner should implement it — task by task .

Using a project management (PM) tool such as Plaky can make the entire process a lot easier. A project management tool is great for communication within your team, as well as managing and assigning individual tasks.  

Plaky also offers a pre-made marketing strategy plan template that can help you easily create your marketing strategy. 

This customizable template will save you valuable time and help you manage your strategic plan without having to start from scratch. 

Also, the template offers features such as: 

  • Person field, 
  • Status field, 
  • Date field, and 
  • Link field.

which will turn your marketing plan into an actionable plan.

An example of a Marketing Plan Strategy template in Plaky PM tool

In the Status field of the Plaky Strategy Plan template, you can manage tasks by priorities by assigning different statuses, such as: To Do, In progress, Done, and so on.

Also, you can assign tasks to one person or even add multiple people in the Assignee field . 

Moreover, the Due dates field allows you to track the progress of your strategic plan, as well as manage deadlines. 

The Tag field helps you manage your tasks by categories, while the Link field enables you to attach any files relevant to the marketing plan process.

Step 7: Review and update

The final step towards your marketing plan is quite simple — review and revise your plan , and be ready to make changes on the go.

As you’ve probably noticed, all the steps are tightly related to each other and shouldn’t be seen as independent, but as interconnected. This means they can and likely will affect each other.

Plus, it’s only normal that the external and internal factors change over time. 

That’s why it is important to update the plan when necessary.

It’s a good idea to do a monthly or quarterly review of your plan and make any necessary changes to prevent possible implementation pitfalls . 

As Nigel F. Piercy states in his book, Market-led Strategic Change , here are some of the things that could hinder the implementation of your strategy:

  • Strategic drift – losing the focus of where our strategy leads us may result in failure
  • Strategic ‘dilution’ – the lack of strong drive behind the strategy may cause managers to focus primarily on operational decisions rather than the strategic goals
  • Initiative fatigue – having too many ‘top priority ’ projects leads to failure
  • Impatience – expecting results too soon, and giving up, when we should’ve been patient
  • Not celebrating success – not recognizing and rewarding milestones

steps in strategic planning in marketing

Tool for managing marketing projects

Manage your marketing goals, budgets, and campaigns from start to finish, with Plaky.

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Conclusion: The best strategic marketing plan is flexible 

To conclude, a strategic marketing plan isn’t supposed to be followed word-for-word, but it should rather serve as guidance.

In short, this is what your strategic marketing plan checklist should look like:

After you have checked all these boxes — congratulations, you should have your strategic marketing plan!

Last, but not least — don’t worry if everything doesn’t go exactly according to your plan, as here comes a final tip for all the perfections out there: the best strategic marketing plan is a flexible plan.

✉️ Can you think of any other important steps to creating a strategic marketing plan? If yes, feel free to contact us at [email protected] , and we may include your ideas in this or any other future blog posts.

IsidoraDjekic

Isidora is a project management author and researcher at Plaky. She graduated from the Faculty of Philology, University of Belgrade where she got her MA degree in English. Isidora’s guiding principle as a writer is to create reliable content enriched with both textbook and real-life examples.

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  • 2.2 The Role of Marketing in the Strategic Planning Process
  • 1 Unit Introduction
  • In the Spotlight
  • 1.1 Marketing and the Marketing Process
  • 1.2 The Marketing Mix and the 4Ps of Marketing
  • 1.3 Factors Comprising and Affecting the Marketing Environment
  • 1.4 Evolution of the Marketing Concept
  • 1.5 Determining Consumer Needs and Wants
  • 1.6 Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
  • 1.7 Ethical Marketing
  • Chapter Summary
  • Applied Marketing Knowledge: Discussion Questions
  • Critical Thinking Exercises
  • Building Your Personal Brand
  • What Do Marketers Do?
  • Marketing Plan Exercise
  • Closing Company Case
  • 2.1 Developing a Strategic Plan
  • 2.3 Purpose and Structure of the Marketing Plan
  • 2.4 Marketing Plan Progress Using Metrics
  • 2.5 Ethical Issues in Developing a Marketing Strategy
  • 2 Unit Introduction
  • 3.1 Understanding Consumer Markets and Buying Behavior
  • 3.2 Factors That Influence Consumer Buying Behavior
  • 3.3 The Consumer Purchasing Decision Process
  • 3.4 Ethical Issues in Consumer Buying Behavior
  • 4.1 The Business-to-Business (B2B) Market
  • 4.2 Buyers and Buying Situations in a B2B Market
  • 4.3 Major Influences on B2B Buyer Behavior
  • 4.4 Stages in the B2B Buying Process
  • 4.5 Ethical Issues in B2B Marketing
  • 5.1 Market Segmentation and Consumer Markets
  • 5.2 Segmentation of B2B Markets
  • 5.3 Segmentation of International Markets
  • 5.4 Essential Factors in Effective Market Segmentation
  • 5.5 Selecting Target Markets
  • 5.6 Product Positioning
  • 5.7 Ethical Concerns and Target Marketing
  • 6.1 Marketing Research and Big Data
  • 6.2 Sources of Marketing Information
  • 6.3 Steps in a Successful Marketing Research Plan
  • 6.4 Ethical Issues in Marketing Research
  • 7.1 The Global Market and Advantages of International Trade
  • 7.2 Assessment of Global Markets for Opportunities
  • 7.3 Entering the Global Arena
  • 7.4 Marketing in a Global Environment
  • 7.5 Ethical Issues in the Global Marketplace
  • 8.1 Strategic Marketing: Standardization versus Adaptation
  • 8.2 Diversity and Inclusion Marketing
  • 8.3 Multicultural Marketing
  • 8.4 Marketing to Hispanic, Black, and Asian Consumers
  • 8.5 Marketing to Sociodemographic Groups
  • 8.6 Ethical Issues in Diversity Marketing
  • 3 Unit Introduction
  • 9.1 Products, Services, and Experiences
  • 9.2 Product Items, Product Lines, and Product Mixes
  • 9.3 The Product Life Cycle
  • 9.4 Marketing Strategies at Each Stage of the Product Life Cycle
  • 9.5 Branding and Brand Development
  • 9.6 Forms of Brand Development, Brand Loyalty, and Brand Metrics
  • 9.7 Creating Value through Packaging and Labeling
  • 9.8 Environmental Concerns Regarding Packaging
  • 9.9 Ethical Issues in Packaging
  • 10.1 New Products from a Customer’s Perspective
  • 10.2 Stages of the New Product Development Process
  • 10.3 The Use of Metrics in Evaluating New Products
  • 10.4 Factors Contributing to the Success or Failure of New Products
  • 10.5 Stages in the Consumer Adoption Process for New Products
  • 10.6 Ethical Considerations in New Product Development
  • 11.1 Classification of Services
  • 11.2 The Service-Profit Chain Model and the Service Marketing Triangle
  • 11.3 The Gap Model of Service Quality
  • 11.4 Ethical Considerations in Providing Services
  • 12.1 Pricing and Its Role in the Marketing Mix
  • 12.2 The Five Critical Cs of Pricing
  • 12.3 The Five-Step Procedure for Establishing Pricing Policy
  • 12.4 Pricing Strategies for New Products
  • 12.5 Pricing Strategies and Tactics for Existing Products
  • 12.6 Ethical Considerations in Pricing
  • 13.1 The Promotion Mix and Its Elements
  • 13.2 The Communication Process
  • 13.3 Integrated Marketing Communications
  • 13.4 Steps in the IMC Planning Process
  • 13.5 Ethical Issues in Marketing Communication
  • 14.1 Advertising in the Promotion Mix
  • 14.2 Major Decisions in Developing an Advertising Plan
  • 14.3 The Use of Metrics to Measure Advertising Campaign Effectiveness
  • 14.4 Public Relations and Its Role in the Promotion Mix
  • 14.5 The Advantages and Disadvantages of Public Relations
  • 14.6 Ethical Concerns in Advertising and Public Relations
  • 15.1 Personal Selling and Its Role in the Promotion Mix
  • 15.2 Classifications of Salespeople Involved in Personal Selling
  • 15.3 Steps in the Personal Selling Process
  • 15.4 Management of the Sales Force
  • 15.5 Sales Promotion and Its Role in the Promotion Mix
  • 15.6 Main Types of Sales Promotion
  • 15.7 Ethical Issues in Personal Selling and Sales Promotion
  • 16.1 Traditional Direct Marketing
  • 16.2 Social Media and Mobile Marketing
  • 16.3 Metrics Used to Evaluate the Success of Online Marketing
  • 16.4 Ethical Issues in Digital Marketing and Social Media
  • 17.1 The Use and Value of Marketing Channels
  • 17.2 Types of Marketing Channels
  • 17.3 Factors Influencing Channel Choice
  • 17.4 Managing the Distribution Channel
  • 17.5 The Supply Chain and Its Functions
  • 17.6 Logistics and Its Functions
  • 17.7 Ethical Issues in Supply Chain Management
  • 18.1 Retailing and the Role of Retailers in the Distribution Channel
  • 18.2 Major Types of Retailers
  • 18.3 Retailing Strategy Decisions
  • 18.4 Recent Trends in Retailing
  • 18.5 Wholesaling
  • 18.6 Recent Trends in Wholesaling
  • 18.7 Ethical Issues in Retailing and Wholesaling
  • 19.1 Sustainable Marketing
  • 19.2 Traditional Marketing versus Sustainable Marketing
  • 19.3 The Benefits of Sustainable Marketing
  • 19.4 Sustainable Marketing Principles
  • 19.5 Purpose-Driven Marketing

Learning Outcomes

By the end of this section, you will be able to:

  • 1 Explain the role of marketing in the strategic planning process.
  • 2 Discuss the business portfolio and identify planning tools.
  • 3 Describe a SWOT analysis.
  • 4 List and describe marketing strategies based on analytics.

Explain the Role of Marketing in the Strategic Planning Process

To get a better idea of the importance of marketing in the strategic planning process, let’s imagine that you’re the owner of a manufacturing business that produces widgets. You’ve been able to recruit top engineering talent to design these widgets and source components from trusted, reliable vendors, and your manufacturing facility is efficient and can produce the widgets in a cost-effective manner. Sounds like a winning business, doesn’t it?

Well, the only thing we’ve left out of the equation for success is customers, and without customers, the finest engineering staff and manufacturing facility in the world won’t ring the bell in terms of profits or revenue. You need to determine who your customers are, what their needs and wants are, how you’re going to reach them, and how you’re going to persuade them to buy your widgets. That’s where marketing comes into the strategic planning process, and that’s why it plays a crucial role.

Marketing in the strategic planning process has several basic but critical functions:

  • First, marketers assist the strategic planning team in executing a marketing philosophy throughout the strategic planning process.
  • Second, marketers assist the organization in gathering and analyzing information necessary to examine the current situation (the first step in a gap analysis).
  • Third, marketers are responsible for the identification of trends in the marketing environment and assessing the potential impact of those trends. 24

Business Portfolio Definition

As noted above, many businesses have a single product or business unit. However, larger organizations such as Apple , Alphabet , General Electric , Meta , and Microsoft often have multiple diverse business units called strategic business units. Despite the fact that these SBUs report directly to the parent company’s headquarters, they typically develop their own vision statements, mission statements, objectives, and goals, and the strategic planning for these SBUs is performed separately and apart from other SBUs within the organization. 25 When companies have multiple products or business units, these comprise the business portfolio —the total group of product lines, services, and business units that the company possesses.

To give you a better sense of what a business portfolio entails, look at Figure 2.5 , which illustrates the products and services of Microsoft and how each offering contributes to the overall strategic plan of the company. 26 Microsoft reported $168 billion in revenue in fiscal year 2021, and each of its product lines (or strategic business units) contributes to this revenue in differing amounts. 27 It’s easy to see from this breakdown why each of these businesses under the Microsoft “umbrella” would have different strategic plans to execute within the markets they serve. You likely wouldn’t have one overarching marketing or business strategy for all of these SBUs because the markets for Office, Gaming, LinkedIn , and the other SBUs are likely very different and would require different strategies to reach and retain customers.

Analyze and Design the Business Portfolio

There are many reasons why an organization would establish separate business units or product lines as it grows. For example, if the current product line is in a market where growth is limited, it may choose to branch out to other product lines or markets. Alternatively, an organization may choose to expand into other product lines to take advantage of emerging opportunities.

Emerson Electric , headquartered in St. Louis, Missouri, has five business segments: Network Power, Process Management, Industrial Automation, Climate Technologies, and Commercial and Residential Solutions (i.e., tools and storage). These business segments provide products as diverse as hardware and software technologies; motors; fluid control systems; heating and air-conditioning products and services; and tools, storage products, and appliances for residential, health care, and food services. 28 When you consider divisions as diverse as these, it should be readily evident why each is a separate division with separate strategies to compete in its respective marketplaces.

Conversely, a business may choose to expand in areas in which it already has experience and can use the power of its core competencies to establish sustainable competitive advantage with new products in existing markets.

There are a few tools that can help determine which course of action is best advised given the current circumstances of the organization, the marketplace, and other factors. Let’s take a look at a few of them.

Boston Consulting Group (BCG) Matrix

The BCG matrix is a model developed by Boston Consulting Group that can be used to analyze a business’s product lines or SBUs and make decisions about which to invest in in the future and which they should try to minimize further investment in or even eliminate. The bottom line is that no business has unlimited funds to invest in its product lines, and the BCG matrix is a useful model in determining how to allocate money in terms of marketing, research and development (R&D), etc. to that portfolio.

As shown in Figure 2.6 , the BCG matrix considers both market share and market growth rate. The SBUs or products that have high market share in a high-growth market are called stars and are placed in the upper left quadrant. These are the opportunities that hold the most promise for the organization.

Conversely, those SBUs or products that have low market share in a low-growth market are referred to as dogs and are placed in the lower right quadrant. These are prime candidates for divestiture or elimination because they have relatively low growth potential, and although the business has significant funds tied up in them, they bring in virtually nothing in terms of revenues. Divestiture could also provide needed capital to invest in your stars or question marks.

Cash cows , in the lower left quadrant, are an interesting breed, so to speak. A cash cow is an SBU or product that has high market share in a low-growth market. They’re valuable to a business because they generate significant revenue that can fund other strategic initiatives or emerging opportunities. Incidentally, they’re called cash cows because the thinking is to “milk” these products for profits.

Those SBUs or products that have a low market share in a high-growth market are called question marks (sometimes also called “problem children”) and are placed in the upper left quadrant. Question marks are among the most complex decisions to be considered when developing a BCG matrix because a root cause analysis may be required in order to determine why these SBUs are, in fact, question marks. Obviously, with high-market growth, the market is strong, but there are one or more reasons why your organization hasn’t been able to capitalize on it and gain market share. Does the product line need more investment in order to move into the “star” category? Is competition so strong in this market that additional funding in terms of advertising campaigns or other marketing tactics render them useless? Is the question mark just a trend in which you can expect high growth without a lot of market share for a short period of time?

Once you have categorized each of your SBUs or products on the BCG matrix, you’ll have a crystal-clear vision of where each stands and can identify which you should prioritize and which need to be divested.

To better understand the BCG model, let’s do a simplified matrix for Apple and some of its products (see Figure 2.7 ). Because Apple has so many products and services, we’re showing only four hardware products in this matrix.

In this sample matrix, we’re going to place the Apple iPhone in the star category. You’ll recall from our discussion above that stars have relatively high market share in a growing market. Let’s face it: the iPhone is the shining gem of Apple’s portfolio. Even though Apple has diversified its product line, the iPhone is still responsible for 52 percent of the company’s revenue, raking in an astounding $192 billion in 2021. 29

Next, we’re going to put the iPad and the MacBook in the cash cow category. Remember that the BCG matrix is built on two parameters—market share and market growth. Both the iPad and the MacBook have relatively high market share compared to competitors, but the market for these products is not growing much anymore. 30 The Apple iPad had a 31.5 percent share of the global tablet market during the first quarter (down from 38 percent in the previous quarter), and the MacBook still holds popularity, garnering 15.3 percent of the market share. 31 Both the iPad and the MacBook are well-established products that continue to generate substantial income for Apple, and these products require relatively little additional investment for them to remain profitable.

Let’s move on to the question mark category. Remember that question marks have low market share in a high-growth market, and we’re going to place the Apple iWatch in this category. The iWatch has the potential to become as big of a hit as the iPhone, but the jury is still out because there are too many unknowns in the market. Global sales of smartwatches increased by 13 percent in the first quarter of 2022, and the Apple iWatch continues to lead in market share. 32 However, Apple will need to analyze its iWatch vis-à-vis its other products to decide if it should continue to invest in the product. 33

Finally, let’s move on to the dog quadrant of the matrix. We’re going to place the iPod in this category because market growth has slowed considerably as people use their phones to listen to music or podcasts. The iPod has experienced a shrinking market share as a result, and it wouldn’t make sense for Apple to continue to invest in the iPod. 34 As a matter of fact, Apple announced in May 2022 that it would discontinue the iPod Touch, while the touch-screen model launched in 2007 will remain on sale until supplies run out. 35

Link to Learning

Would you like to learn more about the BCG Matrix? Watch this brief video from Solve It Like a Marketer.

SWOT Analysis

SWOT is an acronym for a business’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats, and it is a useful aid for zeroing in on a feasible marketing strategy. The purpose of a SWOT analysis is really quite simple. Marketers want to identify the strengths and weaknesses in the organization’s internal environment as well as the opportunities and threats that exist in the organization’s external environment. It is generally presented in the format seen in Figure 2.8 . You would complete the template with bullet points in each of the four quadrants.

A SWOT analysis will aid in taking advantages of the organization’s strengths and opportunities while avoiding (or at least minimizing) weaknesses and threats to its success. Realistically, some of the factors are in the control of the company (i.e., strengths and weaknesses), but other factors are outside the control of the company (i.e., opportunities and threats). Let’s consider each of these in a little more detail.

Strengths can be factors such as patents or trademarks possessed by the company that hinder competitors in participating in the market; a better cost structure than competitors; a talented, innovative staff; or strong brand recognition in the market. Strengths are internal to the organization, and they’re also positives. Questions to ask when developing this section may be: What do you do well? What unique resources you can draw on? Consider a company like Starbucks . If you were preparing a SWOT analysis for Starbucks, its strengths might include a strong brand image, solid financial performance, impressive growth in the number of stores, and an extensive international supply chain. 36

Weaknesses are also factors within a company’s internal environment, but these are hindrances to your success, so they’re categorized as negatives. Weaknesses may be difficulty in accessing capital or funding, outdated technology, an unmotivated workforce, weak brand recognition, or high levels of debt. Let’s go back to Starbucks. If you were preparing a SWOT analysis for Starbucks, some of its weaknesses may be high prices versus the competition and the imitability of its products. 37

Now we’ll switch over to external factors that affect the business. Opportunities are openings for something positive to happen if (and only if) you can capitalize on them. Opportunities can be moving into a new market segment that offers improved profits (like a snack food manufacturer moving into the health foods sector), competitors that have quality or delivery problems, or impending legislation that would favorably affect your organization if you’re able to capitalize on it. Once again, let’s go back to Starbucks. If you were preparing a SWOT analysis for Starbucks, some of its opportunities might be expansion in developing markets, a coffee subscription service similar to that offered by Panera Bread , and the introduction of new products and holiday flavors. 38

Finally, threats are anything external to your organization that can negatively impact your business. These may include supply chain problems, ongoing staffing problems, new competitors entering the market, or impending legislation that would negatively impact your organization, like tariffs. If you were doing a SWOT analysis for Starbucks, you might identify threats such as competition with lower-cost coffee sellers, tightening discretionary spending due to inflation, or the rising price of coffee beans. 39

Check out this video for a very simple example of a SWOT analysis.

When preparing a SWOT analysis, it is also helpful to compare elements by ranking strengths and weaknesses (internal factors) in terms of relative competitive importance. Marketers can also rank threats and opportunities (external factors) in terms of their likelihood and magnitude. 40

Earlier in this chapter, we pointed out the differences between corporate-level strategy, business-level strategy, and functional strategy. If you’re a fan of movies like Other People’s Money or Wall Street , you might think that corporate strategy focuses on hostile takeovers, mergers, and ruthless acquisitions.

The movie Moneyball is about a baseball general manager assembling a team by using computer analysis to hire new players. This is a great example of using analytics to inform strategy. Watch a clip of the movie here, where you see the analytics applied.

Market Penetration

When a company focuses on growing its market share in its existing markets, it is using what’s known as a market penetration strategy . This approach generally entails significant expenditures in advertising and other marketing efforts in order to influence consumers’ brand choice and create a brand reputation for the company, thereby increasing its market share.

In some mature industries (like soap, laundry detergent, or toothpaste), a market penetration strategy becomes a way of life because nearly all competitors are also engaged in intensive advertising and battle for market share. It becomes a way of life because companies fear that if they don’t advertise as much as or more than their competitors, they will lose market share.

To give you an idea of how fierce the competition is with a market penetration strategy, consider Procter & Gamble , which spent $4.7 billion on advertising in 2020. 41

Product Development

As noted above, a market penetration strategy focuses on existing products and existing markets. By contrast, a product development strategy involves the creation of new or improved products in order to drive growth in sales, revenue, and profit. Although the advertising expenditures involved with a market penetration strategy may be significant, they often pale compared to the expenditures involved in a product development strategy. This is because product development generally requires significant investment in R&D activities. 42

The automobile industry provides a good illustration of the product development strategy. Car makers generally refresh their models every few years to encourage car owners to trade in their old vehicles and buy the redesigned cars with the latest tech features such as driver assist, Wi-Fi hotspots, and Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. 43 At the same time, all the manufacturers are spending billions of dollars developing new electric vehicle models to meet ambitious goals for phasing out gasoline-powered engines.

Another great example of a product development strategy is Tide laundry detergent. Tide has undergone more than 50 formulation changes over the past 40 years in an effort to continually improve its product’s performance. The name always stays the same, but Tide has a “new and improved” formula with each new product release. 44

If you doubt the power of a product development strategy, the next time you go to the grocery store or supermarket, just look at how many “new and improved” products are on the shelves!

Market Development

A market development strategy involves searching for new market segments and uses for a company’s products. This strategy can involve the launch of its existing products into new markets or different geographical areas. In doing so, the company attempts to capitalize on the strength of the brand name it has developed in the existing markets and find new markets in which to compete.

Facebook is a great example of a market development strategy. It’s difficult to remember when Facebook wasn’t a household word, but Facebook started out as a small platform that enabled Harvard University students to compare headshots. The popularity of the platform spread to other college campuses, and eventually Facebook allowed nonstudents to join. It looks like the strategy worked—Facebook is now the largest social network in the world, with nearly 3 billion users! 45

To help you better understand these strategies, let’s consider each one from the perspective of one company— Harley-Davidson . If Harley-Davidson were to adopt a market penetration strategy, the company would focus on selling more Harley-Davidson motorcycles in the US market. If the company were to adopt a product development strategy, it would begin selling a new product such as biker clothing for children under the Harley-Davidson brand in the US market. Harley-Davidson is currently pursuing a market development strategy, with plans to develop a new motorcycle to manufacture and sell in China. Harley-Davidson’s diversification strategy might entail selling new products like children’s biker clothing in China for the first time.

Product Diversification

A product diversification strategy is still another tool that companies can use to improve profitability and increase sales of new products. This strategy can be utilized at both the business level and the corporate level. At the business level, marketers would expand into a new segment of an industry in which the company is already operating. 46 For example, consider Apple . The company launched its revolutionary iPhone in 2007, but it didn’t stop there. It has since diversified into tablets and other technology-related products. 47 At the corporate level, let’s consider a dine-in restaurant that adds corporate catering and perhaps a fleet of food trucks—both businesses outside the scope of its existing business.

There are three types of diversification techniques, as shown in Figure 2.9 .

Let’s look at each of these strategies in a little more detail.

The concept of concentric diversification revolves around the addition of similar products or services to an existing business. 48 If a picture is worth a thousand words, then an example has to be worth even more, particularly an example to which you can easily relate as a student. As you’re reading this chapter, consider book publishers, like Harper Collins , Simon & Schuster , or Penguin/Random House . These book publishers don’t only print the works of one author; rather, they have hundreds or perhaps thousands of authors’ works in their arsenals. These publishers will publish print books, e-books (like the one you’re reading right now), and audiobooks and may even sell the rights to some of the books for film and TV adaptations, allowing them to garner additional streams of revenue for one product. 49

Conversely, the concept of horizontal diversification involves making available to existing customers new and perhaps even unrelated products or services so that you can garner a larger customer base. 50 For example, consider a company that produces dental hygiene products like toothbrushes and dental floss. In order to increase sales to existing customers, the company may decide to introduce into the market a line of oral irrigators or teeth whiteners. These products are new to the company, but they still serve the same customer base as its existing products.

Finally, conglomerate diversification takes horizontal diversification one step further. Conglomerate diversification involves the development and addition of new products or services that are significantly unrelated. You’re not only introducing a new product, you’re introducing a new product that is completely unrelated to your existing line of business. 51 Consider General Electric when looking for an example of conglomerate diversification. General Electric started out as a lighting business, but over the years, it has diversified into medical devices, household appliances, aircraft engines, financial services, and more. That’s taking conglomerate diversification to a whole new level!

Blue Ocean Strategy

Learn about market-creating strategies known as the Blue Ocean strategy from Harvard Business Review , where it uses Cirque du Soleil as an example.

Knowledge Check

It’s time to check your knowledge on the concepts presented in this section. Refer to the Answer Key at the end of the book for feedback.

  • Opportunity
  • Market share and market growth rate
  • Market size and market share
  • The ratio of dogs to cash cows in the product portfolio
  • The potential for question marks to cross over and become stars
  • Question mark
  • Market development
  • Product diversification
  • Horizontal diversification
  • Product development

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  • Authors: Dr. Maria Gomez Albrecht, Dr. Mark Green, Linda Hoffman
  • Publisher/website: OpenStax
  • Book title: Principles of Marketing
  • Publication date: Jan 25, 2023
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What Is Strategic Marketing?

Flori Needle

Published: April 14, 2021

Marketing is the actions you take to attract an audience to your business. You aim to get people interested in what you have to offer and share content with them to help them decide to do business with you.

marketers working together during a strategic marketing process

However, since marketing helps you attract people to your business, it’s essential to know how to attract them, and even more so who the people are that you want to attract to begin with. Without this critical information, it will be challenging to be successful in your marketing processes.

The way you can get this information is through strategic marketing. In this post, we’ll define strategic marketing and explain the different phases of the process that will help you effectively market your business, attract customers, and drive revenue.

Download Now: Free Marketing Plan Template [Get Your Copy]

What is the strategic marketing process?

The strategic marketing process involves conducting research and establishing goals and objectives that will maximize the effectiveness and success of your overall marketing strategy.

This process is beneficial as it helps you be more intentional with your marketing. You’ll be able to ensure that you’ve targeted the right audience, entered the right markets, and used the correct mediums.

You can think of it like this: strategic marketing is the butter you spread on toast. You can have plain toast as it is, but the butter enhances the flavor and makes it better. Strategic marketing ensures that your marketing campaigns are well-planned, effective, and shown to the right people.

Essentially, strategic marketing is the act of uncovering the information you’ll need to create an effective marketing plan and execute successful campaigns.

Strategic Marketing Process Phases

Given that strategic marketing directly influences many elements of your overall marketing strategy, it’s important to approach the process carefully. Below we’ll discuss the different phases of a strategic marketing process.

1. Planning Phase

The first stage of strategic marketing is the planning phase. It’s the most critical step, as it is the basis of your efforts. You’ll want to identify your business purpose, needs, and the goals and objectives you want to accomplish, as the entire process will help you achieve them.

Without this information, it will be challenging to progress to the next steps as you won’t understand the purpose behind your marketing efforts, which makes it even harder to create a solid plan that helps you succeed.

2. Analysis Phase

The analysis phase involves taking an outward look at how your company measures up to your competitors and your industry. During this stage, many businesses will conduct market research and competitor analyses .

Market research will give you an understanding of what your industry looks like, like current trends, market share , and an overall sense of the playing field. The information you discover should also validate your goals and objectives and let you know if they’re achievable. For example, if your overall business goal is to bring a new type of fork to market, but there is no industry or consumer demand for this new type of fork, your efforts won’t be worthwhile.

A competitor analysis will teach you the ins and outs of how your competition works, their position in the industry, and any possible gaps in the market that you can take advantage of to out-perform them. You can look at competitors’ customer testimonials to get a sense of what your target audience is looking for that they don’t provide and use that insight to build a product that your ideal customer already wants.

You’ll also want to take time to study your target audience and create buyer personas . Aim to gain a well-rounded understanding of who your customers are, their needs, desires, interests, and where you’ll find them within the market.

All in all, your analyses should give you an understanding of how competitive you are, and how competitive you’ll need to be in your final strategy to outshine similar businesses and become a viable market competitor.

3. Development Phase

Once you have a clear picture of your industry and how you should present yourself in the market, the next step is to develop your marketing plan. This stage is more closely related to the aspect of marketing you may be most familiar with, as you’re establishing the marketing tactics that are informed by your strategic marketing process.

This stage involves defining your marketing mix, which is how you’ll meet the objectives from phase one concerning the information you discovered during phase two.

A marketing mix is composed of four Ps: product, price, place, and promotion. Let’s go over some brief definitions of each:

  • Product: This is what your business is selling. Product marketers or managers typically do this work, but it involves researching (from phase two), development, and creating a product launch timeline.
  • Price: The price point at which you’ll sell to consumers. Pricing should also be informed by market research and reference to different pricing strategies .
  • Place: Where your product or service will be sold, like online or in-store.
  • Promotion: How you’ll advertise your product and introduce it to the market. For example, the different promotional channels (like social media) you’ll use to get your audience excited and entice them to do business with you.

You can think of it like this: say your end goal, developed during phase one, is to create a full-service CRM. Your discoveries in phase two have shown you that the current CRM your customers use isn’t scalable, which is a consistent pain point. They also want a more reasonably priced option.

This current phase would help you create, price, market, and promote your full-service, scalable, and affordable CRM to the correct audiences that are ready and eager to purchase what you have to offer.

4. Implementation Phase

The final phase of the process is when you begin to act on your marketing efforts. As the name suggests, you’ll start implementing the strategy you’ve developed based on your planning and market research. You’ll launch your product and begin seeing sales.

After implementation, it’s also important to take time to review your processes and make changes as necessary. As the market is constantly evolving, you may need to re-address certain things from phase two due to new trends or changing consumer interests.

Strategic marketing is a full circle process.

Although each phase has its unique requirements, it all comes full circle; the marketing mix you created during phase three is based on research from phase two. And, if you’ve put time and effort into your overall strategic marketing process, you’ll attract customers, drive revenue, and meet the goals and objectives you identified in phase one.

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The Definitive Guide to Strategic Marketing Planning

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No matter your goal, it’s always better to have a solid plan with defined steps in place than to try and haphazardly complete tasks. With strategic marketing planning, you can ensure that every step your business takes, regardless of which team contributes, will all coherently move towards promoting your brand and attracting new customers. 

What is the Strategic Marketing Planning Process?

The strategic marketing planning process allows you to outline your company goals for reaching your audience and the steps of how to reach them. Each step of the process defines your business objectives, your customers’ needs, and how your products can meet those needs. As your goals are defined, the steps of the process also track your implementation and progress toward your objectives. 

Mission Statement

The first step for strategic marketing planning is to outline your mission statement. We describe in the section below what a mission statement is and how to write it to effectively describe your business objectives. 

What is a Mission Statement?

How to write a mission statement.

A mission statement should be no more than three or four short sentences and should contain your long-term goals as a business. Your mission statement should be concise and inline with your North Star metric. Outline your objectives and ensure they can be measured. Then, break them out into examples so that your mission is clear. 

Situation Analysis

The second step is to evaluate the situation and analyze any internal or external factors that affect your business. Depending on your industry, these factors can incorporate a large number of possible aspects. Some examples of factors include:

  • Industry competitors
  • Available resources
  • Current sales revenue
  • Customer desire

Analysis Methods

Strengths might include competitive advantages, how your products stand out in the market, what you hope to improve or do with your services, or how your employees work together. Weaknesses might include limited resources, issues your business is facing internally, or areas where you aren’t reaching your goals.

Opportunities are external and therefore not under your control. It’s important to be aware of the socio-political climate to monitor your customers’ changing needs. For example, a company that produces cleaning products likely saw the COVID-19 pandemic as an external opportunity to take advantage of by producing more and increasing their advertising. Threats are the opposite of opportunities and present unpredictable problems that your company must notice and address immediately.

5C Analysis

The five Cs in the title refers to Company, Customers, Competitors, Collaborators, and Climate. These Cs include both internal and external factors to accurately analyze the entire situation for your business.

  • Customers – Who are the people buying your products?
  • Climate – What kinds of external factors affect your business?
  • Competitors – Which other companies are producing similar products?
  • Company – Do people know your brand name? What do they think of you?
  • Collaborators – Do you work with distributors, suppliers, or other affiliated companies, and how do they affect your business?

PEST Analysis

A PEST Analysis measures the Political, Economic, Social, and Technological factors that affect your business. Unlike the previous analyses, the PEST Analysis only measures external factors, so we recommend using it in addition to another type of analysis that measures your internal factors, so you can have the complete picture of your business.

The political aspect looks at the laws and regulations that influence your customers and their purchasing habits—economics shows how the stock market, taxes, and exchange rates affect your services. Social demonstrates the attitudes and lifestyle demographics that define your customers. Technical examines any patents, technologies, or production trends that might influence your product.

Marketing/Strategy Plan

With the data you collected in the prior steps, you can start brainstorming which metrics you want to collect and leverage. Depending on your industry, some metrics may be more valuable than others.

How Does a Plan Help

With a marketing plan, you can identify the audience you want to appeal to and define the best ways to reach them. You’ll also be able to estimate how your marketing efforts will affect your business by predicting the rough costs and benefits.

What to Include in Your Plan

Ideally, your marketing plan should include overall cost, how you’ll place your product or brand among your competitors, and what your predictions for customer reactions are.

Using Kissmetrics, you can create a report documenting certain factors about your customers to see who is buying your product. You can also offer surveys and accept feedback from your customers to monitor their changing desires. Another option is to monitor social media interactions with your brand by your existing customers.

In order to see if your plan is working, you need measurable goals. The best goals are tangible, realistic, and have milestones for you to monitor during the timeline you choose. Your goals depend on what you want to achieve with your marketing plan. Do you want to grow your sales revenue? Brand awareness? Are you looking to increase the number of users on your website?

Be careful not to set any goals that are outside of your control. If you have a goal to increase the number of social media engagements on Twitter and a large number of people stop using that platform, you won’t be able to achieve the goal through no fault of your own.

Likely the first part of your marketing plan outlines the estimated budget. As with all plans, you should budget an extra amount for emergency funds, but you should be able to give a rough estimate of how much it will cost to create, implement, and monitor your plan.

Marketing Mix

Now that you’ve established what you want to achieve, who you are as a company, and what is happening inside and out of your business, it’s time to begin planning how you’ll actually accomplish your goals.

The first part is knowing what your company offers. What kind of product or service does your brand offer to your customers? How do you want them to interact with your offerings? The answers will dictate your metrics and how you measure your plan’s success. 

Knowing your customers also means knowing how much they’re willing to pay for what you have to offer. 

Promotion includes the platforms you plan on using to appeal to new and existing customers. Incorporating social media postings, a contact email, reviews, a phone number to call for support, and other communication methods are all essential for promoting your brand and spreading awareness. 

This aspect is more important for physical products because you’ll want to plan how you’ll get them to the customer. Are you planning to ship them from online orders? Will the customers need to come to your store to pick up their purchases? 

Implementation and Control

The final step means it’s time to put your plan into action. This means measuring your metrics over time and comparing them to your established objectives. As time goes on, you’ll likely need to come back to your marketing strategies to update them or change them in accordance with your company’s needs. 

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How To Build a Strategic Marketing Plan (+ a Free Template!)

You know what you want your campaigns to achieve, but you’re not quite sure how to get there yet.

Sound familiar?

For even the most experienced marketing teams, it can prove difficult to turn aspirational business objectives into actionable steps. While you’re busy trying to figure out what actually works, resources are being spent left and right while showing minimal returns. Fortunately, you can avoid falling victim to this common trap.

Read on to learn how to create a strategic plan to hit your own marketing goals — plus, since you’re already here, be sure to grab your free template to get the ball rolling.

What Is a Strategic Marketing Plan?

A strategic marketing plan is a comprehensive outline for the advertising and marketing efforts of a brand or organization. Founded on audience research and industry trends, this ultra-focused, strategic plan formalizes the steps an organization will take to promote its offerings to a target market of existing and potential customers.

The strategic marketing planning process follows 6 key components:

  • Know where you are .
  • Know your audience .
  • Know where you want to go .
  • Pick your channels and tactics .
  • Develop your budget and your revised tactics .
  • Measure and adjust your strategy periodically .

By following these steps, your team will be well on their way to achieving a sustainable competitive advantage — all while making sure each marketing dollar is well spent.

Strategic marketing plan template

Why Is a Strategic Marketing Plan Important?

Planning for any major undertaking is essential for success.

The modern media landscape is crowded; researchers have estimated that most Americans see between 4,000 and 10,000 advertisements per day .

A strategic marketing plan lays the groundwork for your brand to delight and satisfy your customers. As the old saying goes: “Proper prior planning prevents poor performance.”

By taking the time to develop a thoughtful marketing strategy, you’ll gain several benefits, including:

  • A better understanding of your brand’s value proposition.
  • Deeper knowledge of your audience’s needs and desires.
  • A roadmap for how to manage your brand’s growth.
  • Methods for measuring your marketing performance.

steps in strategic planning in marketing

Creating an effective plan takes time, but when you see the results, you’ll know it was well worth the effort.

4 Basic Marketing Strategies: The 4 P’s of Marketing

Today’s digital marketers have a long pedigree of great thinkers who have shaped the way we think about appealing to customers.

We may be producing content for distribution on digital channels that few people could have predicted several decades ago, but the basic principles combining human psychology and economics are still relevant and powerful today.

In fact, the marketing mix commonly deployed in any modern campaign was first conceived by Harvard Business School professor Neil H. Borden and subsequently expanded upon by University of Minnesota professor E. Jerome McCarthy.

Though first published in 1960, McCarthy’s four P’s of marketing are still the common starting point of an effective marketing strategy.

steps in strategic planning in marketing

A product can be a tangible item or an intangible service that satisfies a need or want.

B2B and B2C marketers need to possess a firm grasp of both what the product is and how it provides value to customers. The more specifically you can define these aspects, the more confident you will be in your marketing strategies.

For example, when selling products and services to other businesses, you’ll need to know what challenges your customers face and understand how your offering solves those problems.

Importantly, marketing and sales departments need to be aligned so that every customer encounter can occur within the same context.

The cost of your offerings has an obvious influence over your customers.

Having a complete understanding of the product and its features will help stakeholders determine the best possible pricing strategy.

You may need to determine if it’s better to offer your product on a subscription basis or as a one-time purchase.

Your product’s price point will impact your organization’s profit margins, inventory requirements and more. The marketing team can work with other business units to determine the best course of action.

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3. Promotion

With deep knowledge of the product, it’s value and price point, you can more effectively promote the offering in the marketplace.

This is where your strategic marketing strategy will come into play.

As you’ll see a little further on, your marketing plan should include the various channels you’ll use to communicate with your customers.

These days, the avenues for communication are much more varied than when the four P’s were developed, but the advice remains the same. Whether you’re promoting your product on a billboard or on Instagram, you need to ensure that each touchpoint supports your brand’s goals and addresses key customer needs.

The fourth P can refer to a physical location, a digital touchpoint or a mindset.

As the old saying goes, it helps to be in the right place at the right time. Marketers can control this factor by developing thoughtful buyer journeys – or sales funnels – and lead nurturing campaigns that help customers make a purchase decision.

For example, if you find that your customers are most inclined to buy once they understand the cost-saving benefits of your offering, you can construct a marketing funnel that places your audience in that position before making the hard sell. So, if customers read a blog and then download a white paper about cost savings, you could include a call to action at the end of the white paper, encouraging readers to call for more information.

6 Steps of the Strategic Planning Process

When making a marketing plan, it’s a common mistake for new marketers to start with the deliverables. Full of enthusiasm, they’ll dash off several blog articles, social media posts and pay-per-click ad headlines. Often, their eagerness will begin to wane when they don’t see huge results from their efforts.

This happens due to a lack of foundation.

The best marketing strategies aren’t built on gut feelings, enthusiasm or brute force; they’re built on carefully researched information, scientific analysis and psychological understanding.

An effective strategic marketing process includes:

  • Deep knowledge of your organization’s goals and how your marketing plan promotes those objectives.
  • Researched findings about your customers’ needs and desires.
  • Campaign-specific marketing goals (E.g. building thought awareness or driving sales) supported by measurable performance indicators.
  • Tangible collateral and associated distribution channels.

Follow these 6 steps to create an actionable marketing plan for your business:

1. Know Where You Are

Before you can make a plan, you need to know where your organization stands today.

Work with relevant stakeholders to define the goals of the business and how the marketing department currently supports them. Consider the brand’s current search engine optimization strategy and how it will benefit the organization’s marketing efforts.

Conduct a SWOT analysis (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats) to pinpoint what you’re doing right, what you can improve on and how external market factors will affect your customer relationships. This process can open up areas in need of further analysis.

The beginning of the planning stage is the time to consider everything that might influence your market position.

SWOT analysis

2. Know Your Audience

Understanding your organization is one side of the coin, knowing your customers is the other side.

Segmenting your audience is a good way to identify the number of marketing tactics you’ll need to employ. For example, if you find that only half of your customer base uses social media, you’ll need to spread your efforts across multiple channels.

The importance of scientific research at this stage cannot be overstated. Even if you have years of experience in the field, you can’t fully predict how your customers’ expectations, needs and wants will evolve over time.

Conduct surveys, do research and – most importantly – talk to your audience!

3. Know Where You Want to Go

With a firm understanding of your offerings and your audience, you can start thinking about next steps.

Define your goals for the year, then break them down into quarterly, monthly and weekly objectives. Tie these goals to the organization’s long-term goals. For example, if your organization wants to increase revenue by 10% over four years, what marketing objectives must be accomplished for that to happen?

Be optimistic when setting goals, but never lose sight of real market conditions.

For every target you establish, you should define metrics by which to judge your success. Metrics can tell you when to adjust your course of action.

4. Pick Your Channels and Tactics (Think Big)

An effective marketing strategy addresses the entire sales cycle.

For B2C brands, that might be as simple as making customers aware of your brand. For more complex B2B brands, you may need to build thought leadership, spread awareness, develop engaging relationships with potential buyers and more.

There are many unique ways to appeal to B2B customers .

steps in strategic planning in marketing

At this stage, you should think big.

  • How would you market your product or service if you had an unlimited marketing budget?
  • What channels would you use?
  • What type of content would you create?

Get all of your ideas out so you can consider each one carefully. At this stage, you may need to conduct further research into the cost and ROI of each tactic.

5. Develop Your Budget and Your Revised Tactics (Pare Down)

Now it’s time to solidify your plans into actionable tactics.

Decide which channels you want to use and create a calendar of content you want to promote. If you’re using paid advertising like billboards, radio ads or pay-per-click display networks, you’ll need to create budgets and bidding strategies.

Compared with the previous step, this is where you get realistic.

To maximize your marketing budget, and choose the ideal mix of collateral, you’ll need to be confident that each investment of time and resources is relevant to your business goals and your customers’ needs.

6. Measure and Adjust Your Strategy Periodically

Implementing your marketing plan isn’t the end.

Once your strategy is off the ground, you’ll need to watch it carefully to determine if it’s meeting expectations. By giving every tactic a metric by which to judge its performance, you can make valuable adjustments to your strategy over time.

These alterations may be small, like posting to your social media accounts at a different time of day; they might be big, such as swapping out one tactic for another. The important thing to remember is that any change you make should be informed by keen analysis of your current progress.

Your Free Strategic Marketing Plan Template

Use this template to structure your own marketing plan. It’s designed to be extensible and easy to use. Simply make a copy of it and add or delete fields as they apply to your needs. By filling it out, this template will help you visualize your strategy more clearly and ultimately become more confident in your ability to grow your brand’s footprint in the marketplace.

Your ability to clearly plan your marketing strategy will determine your future success. The more detailed your plan, the better your chances of success. Map out your goals, choose your metrics and commit to adjusting your strategy based on scientific evidence.

[Company name]

Marketing mission statement.

Briefly outline how your marketing strategy will support your organization’s business objectives.

SWOT Analysis

What are you currently doing that’s giving you an edge over your competitors? What do your customers like about your brand?

What do your competitors do better than you? What can you do more efficiently? Where do you struggle to fully support your customers?

Opportunities

How is your industry changing? How can you prepare for the future? How can you better define your value proposition to engage new customers?

What could draw your customers away from your brand? What industry disruptions are on the horizon? What could slow the growth of your organization?

Marketing actions

Overview: Briefly describe the initiative. (E.g. We’ll build a library of infographics to help our customers understand market trends.)

Desired outcome: What’s your goal? (E.g. We want to increase organic traffic to our resource library by 3% over the next quarter)

KPI / Metric: How will you objectively measure your outcome? (E.g. Page visitors, time-on-site, clicks, etc.)

Desired outcome:

KPI / Metric:

Market segments

[segment 1].

Demographics: Superficial details about your audience. (E.g. gender, age, income and marital status.)

Psychographics: What motivates your audience? (E.g. personal interests, attitudes, values, desires.)

Challenges: What problems do they need to overcome?

Preferred channels: Where do they absorb industry news? Where do they go to ask questions and seek professional insights?

Preferred content types: How do they prefer to gain new knowledge? Do they prefer video, audio or written content?

[Segment 2]

Demographics:

Psychographics:

Challenges:

Preferred channels:

Preferred content types:

[Segment 3]

Buyer personas, [persona 1].

Name: Each persona should have a unique name.

Age: What’s the average age range of this persona?

Job title: List a few common job titles.

Motivations / goals: What do they hope to achieve? What drives them?

Personal interests: What do they like to do outside of work?

Challenges: What business challenges do they face? What’s stopping them from achieving their goals?

[Persona 2]

Motivations / goals:

Personal interests:

[Persona 3]

Competitor analysis, [competitor 1].

Company name:

Competing products: How are their offerings similar to your own? How are they different?

Areas of overlap: How do they market their offerings? Are you competing for space in the same channels ?

[Competitor 2]

Competing products:

Areas of overlap:

[Competitor 3]

Strategy overview, [product / service 1].

Price: What’s the current pricing strategy? How do customers perceive the price in relation to the value of the product?

Promotion: How will you communicate the offering’s value proposition?

Place: Which channels will you use to promote this offering?

[Product / Service 2]

[product / service 3], website / content.

Channel Name:

Intent: What’s your goal? (E.g. We will promote brand awareness through a series of blog posts written by our senior leadership.)

KPI / Metric: How will you measure your progress? (E.g. Organic traffic, bounce rate, conversions.)

Social media

Influencers.

Editor’s Note: Updated November 2021.

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By Alexander Santo

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What is Strategic Marketing Planning?

strategic marketing planning process

The strategic marketing planning process involves creating a marketing strategy that outlines what your objectives are, what programs you’ll use to achieve those objectives, who is responsible for those metrics, and by when you’ll be achieving those goals. In short, developing and managing a strategic marketing plan is crucial in reaching business objectives.

What is the strategic marketing planning process?

Step 1: liaise with other departments.

While marketing does proactively drive demand and new business, they need to do so in the framework of supporting the larger business objectives. That’s why when it comes to the planning process, start by looking at other departments. Here’s what to ask yourself before developing and managing a strategic marketing plan: 

  • What are the executive team’s top priorities for this year and long term?
  • Who is our target market?
  • What pipeline and revenue numbers are we aiming for this fiscal year?
  • Are any adoption rates or implementation goals being set for our products and services? 

Step 2: Create marketing goals that align with the business

Now that you’ve understood the business goals, you’re more informed on  how to plan marketing strategy.

For example, if the business has a goal to generate $5 million in new business from Jan. 1 to June 1, you have to ask yourself how marketing can drive new business. For instance, let’s say in your business, each new client would be purchasing an average of $500,000. That means sales needs to close 10 new clients in order to meet their $5 million goal. 

Then you need to figure out how many qualified accounts you need to tee up for sales, in order to close 10 new clients. For example, a good way to start is: how many accounts today engage with our marketing content, get passed to sales, are qualified, have a demo, and then book? If the percentage is 10%, then you need 100 contacts to get transferred to sales in order to close about 10 new clients. 

That is to say, starting with a focus on your goals, you ensure that you are actually building a marketing strategy vs. plan (a list of marketing tactics). 

Step 3: Determine which campaign planning will achieve that marketing goal 

In order to generate 100 engaged contacts for sales, you want to look at your existing programs and determine the success of each at driving engagement. For example, let’s say you ran four webinars last quarter. Each had 100 registrants, and 30 people attended. Of those 30 people, 10 requested a demo and five were from qualified accounts. Once passed over, sales closed one lead. 

If that’s the average data, then you now know that you can expect a webinar to result in five contacts and one deal.

After that, replicate the process across your campaigns to plan out which activities will actually support your company growth goals.

Step 4: Create a marketing campaign calendar that aligns with your goals 

Now that you have focused goals that are strategically aligned with business objectives, you can create a calendar of activities, from content marketing to events. The best part? You won’t have someone asking “why is marketing running that webinar again” because you’d know the answer—it’s to drive X number of leads to sales.

Then, in your marketing campaign planning calendar, you’d want to include this information:

Period: Q1 Goal: Support sales in generating $5 million in new business, from Jan. 1 to June 1, by generating 100 engaged contacts.

Step 5: Establish your investments

After that, it’s time to align investments to your planned campaigns. The good news is that marketers who conduct the marketing strategy process from the get go can easily justify and secure budget for their activities—because they can directly tie that dollar into how it will impact the business goal. That’s one of the reasons why Uptempo’s process of marketing strategy planning encourages marketers to directly tie their spend to specific company goals.

Step 6: Let it run!

Finally, it’s time to execute on your plan—and start achieving business impact. While you execute on your strategic marketing plan, keep in mind that you should revisit the business goals quarterly. That keeps you on the right track to ensure the marketing organization continues to drive toward overarching corporate goals.

Knowing how to strategize marketing plans is a critical part of the marketing process. Now that you’ve completed the six steps of strategic marketing planning, you’ve set yourself and your team up for success. 

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  • The Strategic Marketing Process: A Complete Guide

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steps in strategic planning in marketing

A well defined and feasible marketing strategy makes meeting customer needs a likely and attainable goal. And while most companies do great marketing, only a few have created brand attachment and customer loyalty through their marketing practices and tactics.

The Strategic Marketing Process: A Complete Guide

© Shutterstock.com | PureSolution

In this article, we explore, 1) the definition and purpose of strategic marketing , 2) the three phases of the strategic marketing process , 3) guidelines for effective strategic marketing process , 4) problems to expect in the strategic marketing process , 5) p.e.s.t: trends to consider when implementing marketing strategy , 6) strategic marketing process simplified , and 7) why Apple’s strategic marketing process is genius .

DEFINITION AND PURPOSE OF STRATEGIC MARKETING

Strategic Marketing is a process of planning, developing and implementing maneuvers to obtain a competitive edge in your chosen niche. This process is necessary to outline and simplify a direct map of the company’s objectives and how to achieve them. A company wanting to secure a certain share of the market, should ensure they clearly identify their mission, survey the industry situation, define specific objectives and develop, implement and evaluate a plan to guarantee they can provide their customers with the products they need, when they need them. Of course, the central objective of any company will be customer satisfaction so they may dominate the market and become leaders in their industry and thus providing substantial business satisfaction. In order to do that, three phases of marketing strategy must be perfected to create delight in their customers and beat out the competition.

THREE PHASES OF STRATEGIC MARKETING PROCESS

1. planning phase.

The planning phase is the most important as it analyzes internal strengths and weaknesses, external competition, changes in technology, industry culture shifts and provides an overall picture of the state of the organization. This phase has four key components that will provide a clear diagram of where your company is and what it is doing.

  • Analyze competitors
  • Research company’s current and prospective customers
  • Assess company
  • Identifying trends in the company’s industry

Once this analysis is complete the results should be used as a basis for developing the company’s marketing plan, which should be measurable and attainable.

  • Marketing program – Once the needs of the customers have been determined, and the decisions have been made about which products will satisfy those needs, a marketing program or mix must be developed. This marketing program is the how aspect of the planning phase, which focuses on the 4Ps and the budget needed for each element of the mix.
  • Once the customer needs are understood, goals can be set to meet them, thus increasing the chances of success with new products.
  • Find points of difference: like your company’s unique selling point, each product should also have a certain set of traits or characteristics that makes it superior to the competitive substitute. For example, your product could be longer lasting, more accessible, more reliable or very user-friendly so the buyers will choose it over the competition each time.
  • Position the product: market so that in people’s minds your product is the “go to” for their problem. Through emotional and mental marketing customers will associate your brand with their solution and eliminate choice. For example, many mothers use “Pampers,” when referring to diapers, as this brand has been positioned as the go to in baby diapering needs.
  • Select target markets: based on the research and their commonalities, that way needs and goals are both met.
  • Price strategy : focuses on the list price, price allowances (reductions), discounts, payment periods, and credit contracts.
  • Place (Distribution) Strategy : the final ‘P’ in the marketing mix should focus on distribution channels, outlets and transportation to get the product to the customer when they need it.
  • Promotion Strategy : this element of the program should focus on direct marketing, advertising, public relations and sales promotions that create brand awareness.
  • Product Strategy : this element focuses on the features, packaging, branding and warranty of the product.

2. Implementation Phase

The implementation phase is the action portion of the process. If the firm cannot carry out the plan that was determined in the early stages, then the hours spent planning were wasted. However, if the planning was adequately and competently structured, then the program can be put into effect through a sales forecast and a budget, using the following four components.

  • Obtaining Resources – sums of cash to develop and market new products.
  • Designing marketing organization – there should be put in place a marketing hierarchy to properly see the plans to fruition.
  • Developing planning schedules – time needs to be allocated to specific tasks so they can be accomplished.
  • Executing the marketing plan – effectively executing the marketing plan will take attention to detail, and focus on the strategy and tactics defined in your marketing plan.

3. Evaluation or Control Phase

The evaluation phase is the checking phase. This process involves ensuring that the results of the program are in line with the goals set. The marketing team, especially the manager will need to observe any deviations in the plan and quickly correct negative deviations to get back on course; for example fluctuations of the dollar creates a lesser need for the product than in the past, then the production of said product should be repurposed for a new more desired item. And they should exploit the positive divergences as well, for example if sales are better than predicted for certain products then there could be more resources allocated to greater production or distribution of the same item.

A few ways to evaluate the effectiveness of your marketing strategy include paying attention to:

  • Strategy versus tactic – strategy defines goals and tactic defines actions to achieve goals.
  • Measurable versus vague – have milestones that define when you’ve achieved your goals.
  • Actionable versus Contingent – According to Inc.com : “ A strategic goal should be achievable through the tactics that support it, rather than dependent upon uncontrollable outside forces.”
  • Marketing strategy should be backed by a business plan with tactical moves to accomplish goals, or it is useless.

GUIDELINES FOR EFFECTIVE STRATEGIC MARKETING PROCESS

A well thought out plan for offering value and solutions to your target market allows the company to discover the needs of the targeted customers and fulfill those needs in a cost effective and timely fashion. This in turn allows for the marketing team to be able to measure a company’s value based on your ideal customer’s response to your product and strategy. Some guidelines to ensure this strategy is effective are:

  • Set measurable, achievable goals by ensuring they are clear, structured and measurable it will be easier to accomplish your purpose.
  • Base plans on facts and validated assumptions through market research .
  • Use simple, clear and precise plans to detail what benefits you will offer your clients and how. Customers are driven by needs and desires so a clear plan will target those to gain customer loyalty.
  • Have a feasible plan by using research to decide the best way to connect with and engage your ideal customers and then implement a plan your company can afford and carry to fulfillment to do so.
  • Ensure control and flexibility by customizing your business plans and goals to match the needs of the customers, as they determine the success or failure of your company.

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PROBLEMS TO EXPECT IN THE STRATEGIC MARKETING PROCESS

While creating the perfect marketing plan for your company, there are certain issues that could arise to deter the process. Here are a few possible issues to be prepared to face:

  • Organizational Issues such as Poor Assumptions : – assuming customer needs without validation, lack of skilled workforce to implement the plans once they are arrived at, loss of sight of customer needs during the planning phase and changing demographic of consumers.
  • Issues in the Marketing Department such as : inflexibility, performance assessment problems, coordination problems, poor information management and human relations issues.
  • General problems such as : trouble obtaining marketing feedback, issues related to cost of marketing and problems integrating collected information into plans.

P.E.S.T: TRENDS TO CONSIDER WHEN IMPLEMENTING MARKETING STRATEGIES

According to Business news daily , while industry related factors could affect a company’s performance, outside factors can also play a major role in the outcome of a business’s plans. To determine the role of the external factors, it is recommended that companies perform a PEST analysis. Below is a break-down of what the four factors analyze.

  • Political – this analyzes how legal issues and government regulations affect profit and consumer behavior. The major considerations of the political aspect are tax guidelines, political stability, trade regulations and embargos, employment laws and safety regulations. An example of this analysis and how it works is looking at the effects of political instability in a foreign market and how it affects your company’s plans.
  • Economic – this factor looks at the outside economic issues that affect a firm’s success. Companies should pay attention to economic growth, inflation rates, exchange, interest rates and local business cycles. Changes in interest rate could improve or decrease the company’s bottom line.
  • Social – demographic and cultural aspects affect whether a company can compete in the market or not. The social factor helps businesses to examine why customers purchase and what exactly their needs are. Issues to consider include lifestyle changes, health consciousness, environmental responsibility awareness, and attitudes toward work, education levels, population growth rates and country demographics. A certain shift in educational requirements may result in career changes that could reflect in changing needs of the customers.
  • Technical – this aspect considers how technology impacts product placement and marketing. Technology can bring advantages and challenges that will increase or decrease production level. Specific areas to consider are new technological advancements, the use of technology in marketing, the role of the Internet and the impact of the information technology changes. The introduction of the Internet has created an expectation of instant gratification in today’s consumer; so social media marketing has to be considered an option.

STRATEGIC MARKETING PROCESS SIMPLIFIED

According to Center for Simplified Strategic Planning , “ Any strategic planning process involves digesting information and some fairly difficult analysis. Good strategic planning should be simplified, not simplistic. ” And it should also answer the questions: what are we selling, to whom and how do we beat the competition? The first two questions will determine the focus of your overall business while the third will help you specify your strategies to market. The following five steps are essential to accomplishing a simple, effective strategic plan.

  • Identify objectives and determine mission
  • Do business environmental scan-including trends and competition
  • Devise strategy including SWOT , budget, marketing, price and distribution
  • Implement strategy-put your plan into action
  • Evaluate and modify- measure how close or far you are from objectives, track what works and change what doesn’t.

WHY APPLE’S STRATEGIC MARKETING PROCESS IS GENIUS

Apple has a significant competitive advantage over it’s rival because of it’s strategic marketing process. This company was voted overall winner of the 2012 CMO Survey Award for Marketing Excellence and before that it was listed in the top marketers group for five years in a row, as reported in Forbes.com . This competitive advantage is due to a thirty-five year old, 3-point philosophy employed by the Apple brand. The three points that constitute this philosophy include

  • empathy -authentic understanding of customer need,
  • focus- eliminate all unimportant opportunities and
  • impute – ensuring creative, professional presentation of products.

Listed below are some of the main strategies used by Apple to ensure they beat the competition in marketing, placement and brand awareness and loyalty.

  • Identify and respond to trends – though an innovative visionary, (the Apple Tablets ignited a market and were an industry leader) Apple’s team saw the digital trend shifting and responded with the iPad mini, despite Steve Jobs showing his disdain for smaller tablets in the past.
  • Analyze competition and adjust – Though Apple and Microsoft have always been in competition, the two technology giants have not passed up opportunities to collaborate. And while Apple worked with Microsoft to accumulate a very big share of the market, the company went ahead and added Intel chips into their computers to ensure they were a step ahead of the competition including Microsoft.
  • Innovation – Apple is usually first to market with products and visions customers love, and though it does not strive to be an innovator, usually focusing on specific strategy and enthusiasm, Apple is usually a leader in the market segment they occupy.
  • Emotional branding – Companies like Apple tend to have very specific strategic aims and work hard to ensure they are met. One such strategy can be seen as forming an emotional attachment to the products sold to ideal customers. By effectively integrating emotions into the marketing strategy, the brand recognizes positive results, such as customers spending nights lined up to be the first to own the newest product.
  • Enhanced distribution systems – Apple opened international retail stores and improved sales drastically. Now Apple representatives can be found in local malls and plazas to help solve customers’ issues and offer upsells and upgrades. This accessibility helps to build customer trust and helps make the decision process much easier when choosing a brand.
  • Excellent customer service – Apple brand is synonymous with excellence customer service, friendly environments, and great customer experiences. The secret lies in the acronym APPLE, which, according to Social media today spells out:
“ A pproach customers with a personalized warm welcome P robe politely to understand all the customer’s needs P resent a solution for the customer to take home today L isten for and resolve any issues or concerns E nd with a fond farewell and an invitation to return ”
  • Product placement – The Apple App store and iTunes compliment and extend the customer experience and the personality and reputation of the brand lead to loyalty and evangelism.

By incorporating these practices into your company’s marketing program and ensuring to follow through consistently, your company will be rewarded and recognized for its efforts.

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The strategic planning process in 4 steps, to help you throughout our strategic planning framework, we have created a how-to guide on the basics of a strategic plan, which we will take you through step-by-step..

Free Strategic Planning Guide

What is Strategic Planning?

Strategic Planning is when organizations define a bold vision and create a plan with objectives and goals to reach that future. A great strategic plan defines where your organization is going, how you’ll win, who must do what, and how you’ll review and adapt your strategy development.

What

Overview of the Strategic Planning Process:

The strategic management process involves taking your organization on a journey from point A (where you are today) to point B (your vision of the future).

Part of that journey is the strategy built during strategic planning, and part of it is execution during the strategic management process. A good strategic plan dictates “how” you travel the selected road.

Effective execution ensures you are reviewing, refreshing, and recalibrating your strategy to reach your destination. The planning process should take no longer than 90 days. But, move at a pace that works best for you and your team and leverage this as a resource.

To kick this process off, we recommend 1-2 weeks (1-hour meeting with the Owner/CEO, Strategy Director, and Facilitator (if necessary) to discuss the information collected and direction for continued planning.)

Strategic Planning Guide and Process

Questions to Ask:

  • Who is on your Planning Team? What senior leadership members and key stakeholders are included? Checkout these links you need help finding a strategic planning consultant , someone to facilitate strategic planning , or expert AI strategy consulting .
  • Who will be the business process owner (Strategy Director) of planning in your organization?
  • Fast forward 12 months from now, what do you want to see differently in your organization as a result of your strategic plan and implementation?
  • Planning team members are informed of their roles and responsibilities.
  • A strategic planning schedule is established.
  • Existing planning information and secondary data collected.

Action Grid:

What

Step 1: Determine Organizational Readiness

Set up your plan for success – questions to ask:

  • Are the conditions and criteria for successful planning in place at the current time? Can certain pitfalls be avoided?
  • Is this the appropriate time for your organization to initiate a planning process? Yes or no? If no, where do you go from here?

Step 2: Develop Your Team & Schedule

Who is going to be on your planning team? You need to choose someone to oversee the strategy implementation (Chief Strategy Officer or Strategy Director) and strategic management of your plan? You need some of the key individuals and decision makers for this team. It should be a small group of approximately 12-15 people.

OnStrategy is the leader in strategic planning and performance management. Our cloud-based software and hands-on services closes the gap between strategy and execution. Learn more about OnStrategy here .

Step 3: Collect Current Data

All strategic plans are developed using the following information:

  • The last strategic plan, even if it is not current
  • Mission statement, vision statement, values statement
  • Past or current Business plan
  • Financial records for the last few years
  • Marketing plan
  • Other information, such as last year’s SWOT, sales figures and projections

Step 4: Review Collected Data

Review the data collected in the last action with your strategy director and facilitator.

  • What trends do you see?
  • Are there areas of obvious weakness or strengths?
  • Have you been following a plan or have you just been going along with the market?

Conclusion: A successful strategic plan must be adaptable to changing conditions. Organizations benefit from having a flexible plan that can evolve, as assumptions and goals may need adjustments. Preparing to adapt or restart the planning process is crucial, so we recommend updating actions quarterly and refreshing your plan annually.

Strategic Planning Pyramid

Strategic Planning Phase 1: Determine Your Strategic Position

Want more? Dive into the “ Evaluate Your Strategic Position ” How-To Guide.

Action Grid

Step 1: identify strategic issues.

Strategic issues are critical unknowns driving you to embark on a robust strategic planning process. These issues can be problems, opportunities, market shifts, or anything else that keeps you awake at night and begging for a solution or decision. The best strategic plans address your strategic issues head-on.

  • How will we grow, stabilize, or retrench in order to sustain our organization into the future?
  • How will we diversify our revenue to reduce our dependence on a major customer?
  • What must we do to improve our cost structure and stay competitive?
  • How and where must we innovate our products and services?

Step 2: Conduct an Environmental Scan

Conducting an environmental scan will help you understand your operating environment. An environmental scan is called a PEST analysis, an acronym for Political, Economic, Social, and Technological trends. Sometimes, it is helpful to include Ecological and Legal trends as well. All of these trends play a part in determining the overall business environment.

Step 3: Conduct a Competitive Analysis

The reason to do a competitive analysis is to assess the opportunities and threats that may occur from those organizations competing for the same business you are. You need to understand what your competitors are or aren’t offering your potential customers. Here are a few other key ways a competitive analysis fits into strategic planning:

  • To help you assess whether your competitive advantage is really an advantage.
  • To understand what your competitors’ current and future strategies are so you can plan accordingly.
  • To provide information that will help you evaluate your strategic decisions against what your competitors may or may not be doing.

Learn more on how to conduct a competitive analysis here .

Step 4: Identify Opportunities and Threats

Opportunities are situations that exist but must be acted on if the business is to benefit from them.

What do you want to capitalize on?

  • What new needs of customers could you meet?
  • What are the economic trends that benefit you?
  • What are the emerging political and social opportunities?
  • What niches have your competitors missed?

Threats refer to external conditions or barriers preventing a company from reaching its objectives.

What do you need to mitigate? What external driving force do you need to anticipate?

Questions to Answer:

  • What are the negative economic trends?
  • What are the negative political and social trends?
  • Where are competitors about to bite you?
  • Where are you vulnerable?

Step 5: Identify Strengths and Weaknesses

Strengths refer to what your company does well.

What do you want to build on?

  • What do you do well (in sales, marketing, operations, management)?
  • What are your core competencies?
  • What differentiates you from your competitors?
  • Why do your customers buy from you?

Weaknesses refer to any limitations a company faces in developing or implementing a strategy.

What do you need to shore up?

  • Where do you lack resources?
  • What can you do better?
  • Where are you losing money?
  • In what areas do your competitors have an edge?

Step 6: Customer Segments

What

Customer segmentation defines the different groups of people or organizations a company aims to reach or serve.

  • What needs or wants define your ideal customer?
  • What characteristics describe your typical customer?
  • Can you sort your customers into different profiles using their needs, wants and characteristics?
  • Can you reach this segment through clear communication channels?

Step 7: Develop Your SWOT

What

A SWOT analysis is a quick way of examining your organization by looking at the internal strengths and weaknesses in relation to the external opportunities and threats. Creating a SWOT analysis lets you see all the important factors affecting your organization together in one place.

It’s easy to read, easy to communicate, and easy to create. Take the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats you developed earlier, review, prioritize, and combine like terms. The SWOT analysis helps you ask and answer the following questions: “How do you….”

  • Build on your strengths
  • Shore up your weaknesses
  • Capitalize on your opportunities
  • Manage your threats

What

Strategic Planning Process Phase 2: Developing Strategy

Want More? Deep Dive Into the “Developing Your Strategy” How-To Guide.

Step 1: Develop Your Mission Statement

The mission statement describes an organization’s purpose or reason for existing.

What is our purpose? Why do we exist? What do we do?

  • What are your organization’s goals? What does your organization intend to accomplish?
  • Why do you work here? Why is it special to work here?
  • What would happen if we were not here?

Outcome: A short, concise, concrete statement that clearly defines the scope of the organization.

Step 2: discover your values.

Your values statement clarifies what your organization stands for, believes in and the behaviors you expect to see as a result. Check our the post on great what are core values and examples of core values .

How will we behave?

  • What are the key non-negotiables that are critical to the company’s success?
  • What guiding principles are core to how we operate in this organization?
  • What behaviors do you expect to see?
  • If the circumstances changed and penalized us for holding this core value, would we still keep it?

Outcome: Short list of 5-7 core values.

Step 3: casting your vision statement.

What

A Vision Statement defines your desired future state and directs where we are going as an organization.

Where are we going?

  • What will our organization look like 5–10 years from now?
  • What does success look like?
  • What are we aspiring to achieve?
  • What mountain are you climbing and why?

Outcome: A picture of the future.

Step 4: identify your competitive advantages.

How to Identify Competitive Advantages

A competitive advantage is a characteristic of an organization that allows it to meet its customer’s need(s) better than its competition can. It’s important to consider your competitive advantages when creating your competitive strategy.

What are we best at?

  • What are your unique strengths?
  • What are you best at in your market?
  • Do your customers still value what is being delivered? Ask them.
  • How do your value propositions stack up in the marketplace?

Outcome: A list of 2 or 3 items that honestly express the organization’s foundation for winning.

Step 5: crafting your organization-wide strategies.

What

Your competitive strategy is the general methods you intend to use to reach your vision. Regardless of the level, a strategy answers the question “how.”

How will we succeed?

  • Broad: market scope; a relatively wide market emphasis.
  • Narrow: limited to only one or few segments in the market
  • Does your competitive position focus on lowest total cost or product/service differentiation or both?

Outcome: Establish the general, umbrella methods you intend to use to reach your vision.

What

Phase 3: Strategic Plan Development

Want More? Deep Dive Into the “Build Your Plan” How-To Guide.

Strategic Planning Process Step 1: Use Your SWOT to Set Priorities

If your team wants to take the next step in the SWOT analysis, apply the TOWS Strategic Alternatives Matrix to your strategy map to help you think about the options you could pursue. To do this, match external opportunities and threats with your internal strengths and weaknesses, as illustrated in the matrix below:

TOWS Strategic Alternatives Matrix

Evaluate the options you’ve generated, and identify the ones that give the greatest benefit, and that best achieve the mission and vision of your organization. Add these to the other strategic options that you’re considering.

Step 2: Define Long-Term Strategic Objectives

Long-Term Strategic Objectives are long-term, broad, continuous statements that holistically address all areas of your organization. What must we focus on to achieve our vision? Check out examples of strategic objectives here. What are the “big rocks”?

Questions to ask:

  • What are our shareholders or stakeholders expectations for our financial performance or social outcomes?
  • To reach our outcomes, what value must we provide to our customers? What is our value proposition?
  • To provide value, what process must we excel at to deliver our products and services?
  • To drive our processes, what skills, capabilities and organizational structure must we have?

Outcome: Framework for your plan – no more than 6. You can use the balanced scorecard framework, OKRs, or whatever methodology works best for you. Just don’t exceed 6 long-term objectives.

Strategy Map

Step 3: Setting Organization-Wide Goals and Measures

What

Once you have formulated your strategic objectives, you should translate them into goals and measures that can be communicated to your strategic planning team (team of business leaders and/or team members).

You want to set goals that convert the strategic objectives into specific performance targets. Effective strategic goals clearly state what, when, how, and who, and they are specifically measurable. They should address what you must do in the short term (think 1-3 years) to achieve your strategic objectives.

Organization-wide goals are annual statements that are SMART – specific, measurable, attainable, responsible, and time-bound. These are outcome statements expressing a result to achieve the desired outcomes expected in the organization.

What is most important right now to reach our long-term objectives?

Outcome: clear outcomes for the current year..

Strategic Planning Outcomes Table

Step 4: Select KPIs

What

Key Performance Indicators (KPI) are the key measures that will have the most impact in moving your organization forward. We recommend you guide your organization with measures that matter. See examples of KPIs here.

How will we measure our success?

Outcome: 5-7 measures that help you keep the pulse on your performance. When selecting your Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), ask, “What are the key performance measures we need to track to monitor if we are achieving our goals?” These KPIs include the key goals you want to measure that will have the most impact on moving your organization forward.

Step 5: Cascade Your Strategies to Operations

NPS Step #5

To move from big ideas to action, creating action items and to-dos for short-term goals is crucial. This involves translating strategy from the organizational level to individuals. Functional area managers and contributors play a role in developing short-term goals to support the organization.

Before taking action, decide whether to create plans directly derived from the strategic plan or sync existing operational, business, or account plans with organizational goals. Avoid the pitfall of managing multiple sets of goals and actions, as this shifts from strategic planning to annual planning.

Questions to Ask

  • How are we going to get there at a functional level?
  • Who must do what by when to accomplish and drive the organizational goals?
  • What strategic questions still remain and need to be solved?

Department/functional goals, actions, measures and targets for the next 12-24 months

Step 6: Cascading Goals to Departments and Team Members

Now in your Departments / Teams, you need to create goals to support the organization-wide goals. These goals should still be SMART and are generally (short-term) something to be done in the next 12-18 months. Finally, you should develop an action plan for each goal.

Keep the acronym SMART in mind again when setting action items, and make sure they include start and end dates and have someone assigned their responsibility. Since these action items support your previously established goals, it may be helpful to consider action items your immediate plans on the way to achieving your (short-term) goals. In other words, identify all the actions that need to occur in the next 90 days and continue this same process every 90 days until the goal is achieved.

Examples of Cascading Goals:

What

Phase 4: Executing Strategy and Managing Performance

Want more? Dive Into the “Managing Performance” How-To Guide.

Step 1: Strategic Plan Implementation Schedule

Implementation is the process that turns strategies and plans into actions in order to accomplish strategic objectives and goals.

How will we use the plan as a management tool?

  • Communication Schedule: How and when will you roll-out your plan to your staff? How frequently will you send out updates?
  • Process Leader: Who is your strategy director?
  • Structure: What are the dates for your strategy reviews (we recommend at least quarterly)?
  • System & Reports: What are you expecting each staff member to come prepared with to those strategy review sessions?

Outcome: Syncing your plan into the “rhythm of your business.”

Once your resources are in place, you can set your implementation schedule. Use the following steps as your base implementation plan:

  • Establish your performance management and reward system.
  • Set up monthly and quarterly strategy meetings with established reporting procedures.
  • Set up annual strategic review dates including new assessments and a large group meeting for an annual plan review.

Now you’re ready to start plan roll-out. Below are sample implementation schedules, which double for a full strategic management process timeline.

Strategic Planning Calendar

Step 2: Tracking Goals & Actions

Monthly strategy meetings don’t need to take a lot of time – 30 to 60 minutes should suffice. But it is important that key team members report on their progress toward the goals they are responsible for – including reporting on metrics in the scorecard they have been assigned.

By using the measurements already established, it’s easy to make course corrections if necessary. You should also commit to reviewing your Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) during these regular meetings. Need help comparing strategic planning software ? Check out our guide.

Effective Strategic Planning: Your Bi-Annual Checklist

What

Never lose sight of the fact that strategic plans are guidelines, not rules. Every six months or so, you should evaluate your strategy execution and strategic plan implementation by asking these key questions:

  • Will your goals be achieved within the time frame of the plan? If not, why?
  • Should the deadlines be modified? (Before you modify deadlines, figure out why you’re behind schedule.)
  • Are your goals and action items still realistic?
  • Should the organization’s focus be changed to put more emphasis on achieving your goals?
  • Should your goals be changed? (Be careful about making these changes – know why efforts aren’t achieving the goals before changing the goals.)
  • What can be gathered from an adaptation to improve future planning activities?

Why Track Your Goals?

  • Ownership: Having a stake and responsibility in the plan makes you feel part of it and leads you to drive your goals forward.
  • Culture: Successful plans tie tracking and updating goals into organizational culture.
  • Implementation: If you don’t review and update your strategic goals, they are just good intentions
  • Accountability: Accountability and high visibility help drive change. This means that each measure, objective, data source and initiative must have an owner.
  • Empowerment: Changing goals from In Progress to Complete just feels good!

Step 3: Review & Adapt

Guidelines for your strategy review.

The most important part of this meeting is a 70/30 review. 30% is about reviewing performance, and 70% should be spent on making decisions to move the company’s strategy forward in the next quarter.

The best strategic planners spend about 60-90 minutes in the sessions. Holding meetings helps focus your goals on accomplishing top priorities and accelerating the organization’s growth. Although the meeting structure is relatively simple, it does require a high degree of discipline.

Strategy Review Session Questions:

Strategic planning frequently asked questions, read our frequently asked questions about strategic planning to learn how to build a great strategic plan..

Strategic planning is when organizations define a bold vision and create a plan with objectives and goals to reach that future. A great strategic plan defines where your organization is going, how you’ll win, who must do what, and how you’ll review and adapt your strategy..

Your strategic plan needs to include an assessment of your current state, a SWOT analysis, mission, vision, values, competitive advantages, growth strategy, growth enablers, a 3-year roadmap, and annual plan with strategic goals, OKRs, and KPIs.

A strategic planning process should take no longer than 90 days to complete from start to finish! Any longer could fatigue your organization and team.

There are four overarching phases to the strategic planning process that include: determining position, developing your strategy, building your plan, and managing performance. Each phase plays a unique but distinctly crucial role in the strategic planning process.

Prior to starting your strategic plan, you must go through this pre-planning process to determine your organization’s readiness by following these steps:

Ask yourself these questions: Are the conditions and criteria for successful planning in place now? Can we foresee any pitfalls that we can avoid? Is there an appropriate time for our organization to initiate this process?

Develop your team and schedule. Who will oversee the implementation as Chief Strategy Officer or Director? Do we have at least 12-15 other key individuals on our team?

Research and Collect Current Data. Find the following resources that your organization may have used in the past to assist you with your new plan: last strategic plan, mission, vision, and values statement, business plan, financial records, marketing plan, SWOT, sales figures, or projections.

Finally, review the data with your strategy director and facilitator and ask these questions: What trends do we see? Any obvious strengths or weaknesses? Have we been following a plan or just going along with the market?

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steps in strategic planning in marketing

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Here’s how to make sure both you and your patients know what makes your practice special .

REBECCA ANWAR, PhD, AND JUDY CAPKO

Fam Pract Manag. 2001;8(10):39-43

steps in strategic planning in marketing

For many physicians, marketing is simply a matter of putting an advertisement in the local newspaper, redecorating the waiting room or conducting a direct mailing to people in the community. But this is a haphazard approach that will accomplish little more for your practice than draining its marketing budget.

The key to successfully marketing your practice begins with developing a strategic marketing plan in which each activity is based on solid research and specific goals, and is implemented and carefully evaluated in a timely manner. The plan serves as a road map to help you achieve your marketing goals.

Why should you market your practice?

Some physicians still feel that marketing is at best unprofessional and at worst unethical. In fact, good marketing is no more than educating your patients and your community about your expertise and services, and there are a wide range of reasons for doing it, not all of which have a purely financial basis. However, if you do want to determine the value of each new patient to your practice, calculate the average of the revenue that 10 new patients generated during their first 12 months with you.

You might consider marketing your practice for any or all of the following reasons: to increase your income, expand your patient base, discourage competition, improve your practice image, promote current and new services, introduce new providers, enter a new marketplace or gain or retain market share. Whatever your motivation, make sure to get your staff involved right from the start. Share your reasons for marketing with them, and ask them for their ideas. If your staff is not involved early, it will be difficult to convince them to support the marketing plan and take on any additional work that comes with it.

The elements of a plan

There are nine major steps required to develop a well-crafted, strategic marketing plan: set your marketing goals, conduct a marketing audit, conduct market research, analyze the research, identify your target audience, determine a budget, develop specific marketing strategies, develop an implementation schedule for the strategies and create an evaluation process.

1. Set your marketing goals. Once you’ve decided to market your practice, you need to set realistic and measurable goals to achieve over the next 18 to 24 months. This time span allows you to plan activities around community events that are in line with your marketing goals. For example, you might help sponsor an annual walkathon for breast cancer or speak at your community’s annual health fair. Because of the rapid changes occurring in the health care environment, we don’t recommend planning specific activities more than two years in advance. One way to define your goals is to separate them into the following three categories: immediate, one to six months; short-term, six to 12 months; and long-term, 12 to 24 months. Here are some examples of measurable goals:

Increase the number of new patients seen in the practice by 5 percent within the first six months and 10 percent by the end of the first year.

Shift your patient mix by expanding the pediatric and adolescent patient base from 15 percent to 25 percent of total patient visits within 18 months.

Increase your gross revenue by 30 percent within 24 months.

Improve your practice’s image, which may be measured by “before” and “after” scores on a community survey or by reviews from focus group participants.

It’s important to share these goals with your staff members. They can tell you from their perspectives whether they believe the goals are reasonable. If you want your marketing plan to be successful, your staff needs to support your efforts to achieve the marketing goals.

Marketing can increase your income, introduce new providers or improve your practice image, among other things.

A strategic marketing plan requires you to define your practice in terms of what it does for patients.

Every goal, strategy and action in your marketing plan is subject to change as you evaluate your progress.

2. Conduct a marketing audit. A marketing audit is a review of all marketing activities that have occurred in your practice over the past three years. Be as thorough as possible, making sure to review every announcement, advertisement, phonebook ad, open house, brochure and seminar and evaluate whether it was successful.

3. Conduct market research. The purpose of market research is to draw a realistic picture of your practice, the community you practice in and your current position in that community. With this research, you can make fairly accurate projections about future growth in the community, identify competitive factors and explore nontraditional opportunities (such as offering patients nutritional counseling, smoking-cessation programs or massage therapy). Your research may even bring to light some problem areas in your practice as well as solutions you can implement right away. (See “ A guide to market research ” to find out what kind of information you need to gather and where to find it.)

Conducting market research is often the most time-consuming step in this process. However, it’s also one of the most important steps. It’s from this research that you’re able to find out what your practice does best and what you need to work on, what the needs of your community are, who your practice should be targeting and how you should go about it.

4. Analyze the research. Next, you need to analyze the raw data you collect and summarize it into meaningful findings that will be the foundation for determining which marketing strategies make the most sense and will get the best results for your practice The research will identify the wants and needs of your current and potential patients and will help you to define your target audience (for more on target audiences, see step 5, below). This is also a good time to look back at the goals you’ve chosen. Based on your research findings, you may need to modify some of your goals.

A strategic marketing plan requires that your practice be defined in terms of what it does for patients. The research analysis will reveal your practice’s strategic advantages. After looking closely at your own practice as well as your competitors’, you can ask yourself some key questions: What are the similarities and differences between your practice and your competitors’? What sets your practice apart from your competition? Is your location more desirable than your competitors’? Do you offer a broader scope of services than the competition? Is there a service you provide that no one else in the community currently offers? Your competitive edge may lie in your style of practice, the range of services you offer, the ease of making an appointment or the way you and your staff communicate with patients.

A GUIDE TO MARKET RESEARCH

To gather the kind of information you need to develop a strategic marketing plan for your practice, you need to conduct market research on your practice, your competition and your community. You can’t rely on intuition, judgment and experience; your practice needs hard data. Although it will take some time to gather this information, a number of resources are available that can make the process easier for you.

Your practice

Much of the information you need about your own practice can be found through discussions with staff members and other physicians, or by reviewing your patient records. You can also find out about your practice and whether it’s meeting the needs of your current patients by asking them to fill out a patient survey about the practice. Here are some of the questions you need answered about your practice:

What is the background and history of your practice? Has it been in the current community for a long time?

What are your practice’s strengths and weaknesses? Are there problems with scheduling, cancellations, staff turnover or reimbursement management?

Who are your current patients in terms of their age, sex, ethnic origin, type of insurance coverage, chief complaints and where they live?

What are the services provided by your practice? Who needs these services? Are these needs changing?

How is your practice perceived by your patients?

Your competition

You need to find out who your competitors are and what they have to offer. Check with your county or state medical society and your local hospital to find out how many other family physicians, nurse practitioners and general internists are in your service area, how long they’ve practiced in that location and how many have moved into your area over the past five years.

Once you’ve determined who your competitors are, you need to assess them. This information may be a little harder to come by, but you can try to gather as much information as you can by simply asking other physicians, listening to your patients, friends and neighbors when they talk about their physicians and keeping your eye out for competitors’ advertisements. To assess your competition, you need to ask the following questions:

What are your competitors’ target audiences and niche markets?

Why do certain patients or groups of patients particularly like or dislike your competitors?

How are your competitors viewed within the community?

What marketing activities have your competitors tried?

Your community

In addition to gathering information about your practice and your competitors’ practices, you need to learn as much as you can about the people in your community. You can find answers to the following questions by contacting your local Chamber of Commerce, your state vital statistics department or the U.S. Census Bureau ( www.census.gov ). Census data is available for every state, county, city, ZIP code, neighborhood, etc.:

How many people live in your service area? Is the population expected to grow or shrink? What are the demographic characteristics of the population in your area?

How is your practice perceived in the community? Are you known in the community?

Who are your potential patients? Are their wants and needs being met elsewhere in the community? If not, how can your practice meet those needs?

5. Identify a target audience. With the help of your market research analysis, you should be able to identify your practice’s “target audience,” which is the specific group of patients to which you’d like to direct your marketing efforts. Your target audience might include patients of a certain age, gender, location, payer type or language/ethnicity and patients with certain clinical needs. Keep in mind that your target audience should not only be the patients you want to attract but also the people who can influence and provide exposure to that segment of the population. For example, if you wish to treat patients with arthritis, you might want to get involved in the local and regional Arthritis Foundation and explore senior organizations in the community. If you want to treat young athletes, you might consider giving talks on sports safety and first-aid tips to coaches and athletes at the local high schools, colleges and YMCAs. The key to marketing lies in targeting the audience that your practice can serve better than your competition – and communicating this to that group.

6. Determine a budget. Before you can decide what specific marketing strategies you want to implement to achieve your goals, you need to examine your financial information and come up with a marketing budget. Marketing budgets vary by the type of market a practice is in, the age of a practice and whether the practice has marketed before. There’s no standard for how much a practice should spend. However, in our experience, practices in open markets have spent 3 percent to 5 percent of their annual gross incomes on marketing. If your practice is new, in a highly competitive market or has never been marketed before, or if you intend to roll out an ambitious new program or service, you can expect to spend 10 percent or more of your annual gross income the first year you implement the plan.

Some of the initial marketing activities can be expensive. For example, it can cost more than $5,000 to have a corporate image package (i.e., logo, stationery and collateral pieces) developed by a professional and as much as $10,000 if you add a brochure. On the other hand, some of the best marketing activities cost practically nothing. For example, to build your referral network, you might try meeting with new physicians in your community and sending follow-up/thankyou notes to referring physicians. Big or small, these are all worthwhile investments that will give the community a positive image of your practice.

7. Develop marketing strategies. With your budget in place, you can begin to define specific marketing strategies that will address your goals, reach your target audience and build your patient base. Remember to focus your strategies on the elements of your practice that can be used to create a special value in the minds of patients and referral sources. Each strategy should be related to a specific goal and should be made up of numerous actions. For example, one strategy related to the goal of increasing patient satisfaction might be to make the office more patient friendly. The actions required for that strategy might include the following:

Provide patient satisfaction training sessions to staff;

Develop a patient self-scheduling system within the practice Web site to eliminate the need to telephone the office for an appointment;

Improve the reception-room decor;

Provide name tags for staff;

Require staff to introduce themselves to each new patient;

Conduct post-encounter telephone interviews with new patients within three days of their appointments.

[Watch for an upcoming article in FPM about specific, cost-effective marketing actions you can try in your practice.]

8. Develop an implementation schedule. An implementation schedule is a time-line that shows which marketing actions will be done when and by whom. The schedule should also include the cost of each marketing action and how it fits into the budget estimates for the 24-month period. When creating the schedule, carefully consider how the activities will affect the current practice operations and whether there are sufficient resources (such as staff, time and money) to accomplish the necessary tasks. In some cases, it may be necessary to whittle down the list or postpone some activities. In other cases, it might be best to go ahead with full implementation of your plan. If you want to fully implement the plan but don’t quite have the staffing resources, you might consider bringing in a consultant to coordinate the marketing activities and/or adding a part-time staff member to handle the majority of the marketing tasks. The implementation schedule will also give you a basis on which to monitor the progress of your marketing plan.

9. Create an evaluation process. The value of a marketing plan is its effectiveness, which requires deliberate and timely implementation and monitoring and evaluation of results. It’s important to measure your results against the standards you set in establishing your goals. Review your plan periodically (we recommend quarterly) by comparing your progress with the implementation schedule. There are several ways you can measure the results of your progress: patient survey scores, referral sources, increased income, increased new patients and decreased complaints.

If at any time you find your progress does not measure up to your expectations, you need to determine why. Perhaps the advertisement about a new service you are marketing has not attracted new patients. If the ad campaign has been carried out as directed without results, dump the campaign and try other actions. Perhaps you’ll want to try giving a series of seminars specifically targeted to the group you want to attract or developing a new segment on your Web site for patients that describes the benefits of the new service. You may even find that if each physician in the practice talks about the new service with his or her patients as merely informational conversation, favorable results will follow. In other words, the actions – and even the strategies and goals – in the marketing plan are not written in stone. By regularly monitoring and evaluating each action, you can always change and try new approaches.

As good as you make it

A good marketing plan outlines realistic marketing goals, strategies and actions based on sound information and research about your practice and your community. But the plan is only as good as your commitment to implementing it, dedicating sufficient resources to the endeavor, involving your staff and communicating openly with them. The marketing plan should not merely be written, reviewed and put away on a shelf. Instead, your practice marketing plan should be an evolving blueprint that guides your efforts and monitors your success. Marketing works when the dedication is there. It’s up to you!

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Easy Step-by-Step Guide to the Marketing Planning Process

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An effective marketing planning process ensures your efforts are focused, your objectives are clear, and your campaigns are both creative and results-driven. It acts as a roadmap that keeps your marketing activities on track.

In this guide, we will walk you through the marketing planning process, breaking down its steps, highlighting its benefits with templates for practical use and showing you how to create a well-coordinated, strategic marketing plan.

What is a Marketing Planning Process?

Marketing planning process steps, benefits of a marketing planning process, who are involved in the marketing planning process, when to use the marketing planning process, how to improve your marketing planning process using creately.

The marketing planning process is a systematic series of steps that businesses and marketing teams follow to create a strategic plan for their marketing activities.

This process involves setting clear objectives, analyzing the market and competition, defining target audiences, selecting marketing strategies and tactics, creating a budget, and establishing timelines for execution. It makes sure that marketing efforts are well-organized, goal-oriented, and aligned with the company’s overall business objectives.

Regular assessment and adjustments are also part of the process to maximize the effectiveness of marketing campaigns.

What is a Marketing Plan

Here’s how to create a marketing plan with 6 effective steps .

Marketing planning toolkit

The marketing planning toolkit is a complete collection of tools, templates, and resources that you can use to streamline and improve your marketing planning processes. It serves as a centralized hub for essential materials that help with the development, execution, and evaluation of marketing strategies. This toolkit is designed to simplify planning, collaboration, and analysis, catering to the diverse needs of marketing teams.

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The marketing planning process typically involves several key steps, which are as follows:

Set clear objectives

Start by defining specific and measurable marketing objectives. These objectives should align with the broader business goals and provide a clear direction for your marketing efforts.

Know your Market

Conduct a thorough analysis of the market, including an analysis of your competition , industry trends, and customer behavior. Understanding the market landscape is essential for crafting effective strategies.

Identify your target audience

Define your ideal customers or target audience segments. Understand their demographics, preferences, and pain points to tailor your marketing efforts accordingly.

Learn how to find your idea customer with our guide on target audience analysis .

Develop your strategy

Identify the overarching marketing strategies that will help you achieve your objectives. This may include product positioning, pricing strategies, distribution channels, and promotional tactics.

Create a detailed action plan that outlines the specific marketing activities and campaigns you’ll implement. This step should include timelines, budgets, and responsibilities for each task.

Allocate a budget

Allocate financial resources to various marketing activities in a way that ensures cost-effectiveness and supports the achievement of objectives.

Implement your plan

Execute the planned marketing activities, such as content creation, advertising, social media campaigns, and more. Make sure that these activities are aligned with the strategy and tactics outlined in the plan.

Monitor and measure results

Continuously track and measure the performance of your marketing efforts. Use key performance indicators (KPIs) and metrics to evaluate the success of your campaigns.

Adjust and optimize

Based on the data and insights gathered from monitoring, be prepared to make necessary adjustments to your marketing strategies and tactics to improve performance and better achieve your objectives.

An effective marketing planning process offers several key benefits to businesses and marketing professionals, such as:

Clarity and focus : An effective marketing planning process gives a clear purpose and direction for marketing efforts making sure that everyone involved understands what is expected of them.

Alignment with business objectives : Marketing plans are designed to align closely with the broader business goals, making sure that marketing efforts contribute directly to the company’s success.

Efficient resource allocation : It helps in allocating resources, such as time and budget, more efficiently, reducing the risk of wasted efforts or overspending on ineffective strategies.

Risk mitigation : By conducting market research and careful planning, it minimizes the risk of investing in campaigns or strategies that may not resonate with the target audience or market conditions.

Measurable results : Marketing plans include clear objectives and metrics for success, making it easier to measure the impact of marketing activities and make data-driven decisions.

Consistency and coherence : It helps make sure that marketing efforts are consistent across various channels and messages, creating a unified brand image.

Increased collaboration : The planning process involves various team members and stakeholders, fostering collaboration and ensuring that everyone is on the same page.

Competitive advantage : A well-planned marketing strategy can give a business a competitive edge by identifying and capitalizing on unique selling points and market opportunities.

The marketing planning process typically involves various individuals and roles within an organization.

  • Marketing team : Responsible for developing and executing marketing strategies.
  • Senior management : Provides guidance and approval for the overall marketing strategy.
  • Sales team : Collaborates to ensure alignment with sales objectives.
  • Product managers : Offer insights into product positioning.
  • Market research analysts : Provide data-driven insights.
  • Creative teams : Contribute to content and materials.
  • Finance department : Manages budget and resource allocation.
  • External agencies : Collaborate on strategy and execution.
  • Legal and compliance teams : Ensure adherence to regulations.
  • IT and technology teams : Implement marketing technology.
  • Customer service and support : Offer customer feedback insights.
  • Suppliers and partners : Involved in collaborations or partnerships.

The marketing planning process is essential whenever a business wants to introduce a new product, expand its market reach, rebrand, or improve its competitive position. It’s also crucial during times of significant change, such as mergers, market shifts, or when there’s a need to address declining sales.

Moreover, it’s beneficial for startups looking to establish a market presence or for established companies aiming to refresh their strategies. Essentially, whenever there’s a need for a clear, structured approach to achieve marketing goals or when there’s uncertainty in the market, the marketing planning process becomes an invaluable tool for guiding successful marketing initiatives.

Creately serves as a versatile, collaborative space where marketing professionals can visually brainstorm, plan, and execute their marketing strategies efficiently, making the marketing planning process more dynamic and accessible.

Visual workspaces

Start by setting up a virtual workspace on Creately. Create boards that represent different aspects of your marketing plan, such as market analysis, user personas, objectives, strategies, and tactics.

Collaborative brainstorming

Invite your marketing team to the workspace and encourage them to brainstorm ideas visually . Use digital sticky notes, brainstorming templates from the in-app templates library, and text to capture insights, objectives, and strategies. This collaborative approach allows for a diverse range of ideas.

Market research

Embed market research findings, competitor analyses, and relevant data into your workspace. Or attach documents, reports, etc. under the notes section of relevant shapes. This provides a shared resource for the team to reference during planning.

Visual mapping

Use Creately’s visual mapping tools to outline the customer journey, sales funnel, or any visual representation that helps convey your strategies and tactics more effectively. Additionally you can also find templates for these from the in-app template library or the templates community on the site.

Task assignment

Assign tasks and responsibilities with shape data. You can use Kanban boards and task cards to create tasks and assign them to team members and track their progress.

Real-time collaboration

Creately allows real-time collaboration with real-time multi-user editing, comments, Microsoft Teams integration, etc. so team members can work together, even remotely. It’s perfect for cross-functional teams working on marketing planning.

Presentation and sharing

Once your marketing plan is ready, you can export it for presentations or sharing with stakeholders. Creately offers various export options to ensure your marketing plan reaches the right audience effectively.

An effective marketing planning process is your key to successful marketing strategies. By setting goals, understanding your market, and creating a well-structured plan, you’ve laid the groundwork for marketing success. With the right approach, your marketing efforts will not only be creative but also well-aimed at achieving your business goals.

Join over thousands of organizations that use Creately to brainstorm, plan, analyze, and execute their projects successfully.

More Related Articles

Create a Detailed Marketing Plan With 6 Effective Templates

Amanda Athuraliya is the communication specialist/content writer at Creately, online diagramming and collaboration tool. She is an avid reader, a budding writer and a passionate researcher who loves to write about all kinds of topics.

Strategic Planning Process: 7 Crucial Steps to Success

a transparent grid illustration connecting a circle and square representing the strategic planning process

What to read next:

Playing chess without a strong opening is a guaranteed way to disadvantage yourself. Just like in chess, organizations without an adequate strategic planning process are unlikely to thrive and adapt long-term. 

The strategic planning process is essential for aligning your organization on key priorities, goals, and initiatives, making it crucial for organizational success.   

This article will empower you to craft and perfect your strategic planning process by exploring the following:  

  • What is strategic planning
  • Why strategic planning is important for your business  
  • The seven steps of the strategic planning process   

Strategic planning frameworks

  • Best practices supporting the strategic planning process  

By the end of this article, you’ll have the knowledge needed to perfect the key elements of strategic planning. Ready? Let’s begin.  

What is strategic planning?

Strategic planning charts your business's course toward success. Using your organization’s vision, mission, and values — with internal and external information — each step of the strategic planning process helps you craft long-term objectives and attain your goals with strategic management.  

The key elements of strategic planning includes a SWOT analysis, goal setting , stakeholder involvement, plus developing actionable strategies, approaches, and tactics aligned with primary objectives.  

In short, the strategic planning process bridges the gap between your organization’s current and desired state, providing a clear and actionable framework that answers:   Where are you now?   Where do you want to be?   How will you get there?

7 key elements of strategic planning 

The following strategic planning components work together to create cohesive strategic plans for your business goals. Let’s take a close look at each of these:  

  • Vision : What your organization wants to achieve in the future, the long-term goal  
  • Mission : The driving force behind why your company exists, who it serves, and how it creates value  
  • Values : Fundamental beliefs guiding your company’s decision-making process  
  • Goals : Measurable objectives in alignment with your business mission, vision, and values  
  • Strategy : A long-term strategy map for achieving your objectives based on both internal and external factors  
  • Approach : How you execute strategy and achieve objectives using actions and initiatives   
  • Tactics : Granular short-term actions, programs, and activities  

Why a concrete strategic planning is important

Just as a chess player needs a gameplan to reach checkmate, a company needs a solid strategic plan to achieve its goals.   

Without a strategic plan, your business will waste precious time, energy, and resources on endeavors that won’t get your company closer to where it needs to be.   

Your ideal plan should cover all key strategic planning areas, while allowing you to stay present by measuring success and course-correcting or redefining the strategic direction when necessary. Ultimately, enabling your company to stay future-proof through the creation of an always-on strategy.   

An always-on strategy involves continuous environmental scanning even after the strategic plan has been devised, ensuring readiness to adapt in response to quick, drastic changes in the environment.

Let’s dive deeper into the steps of the strategic planning process.  

What are the 7 stages of the strategic planning process?

You understand the overall value of implementing a strategic planning process — now let’s put it in practice. Here's our 7-step approach to strategic planning that ensures everyone is on the same page:  

  • Clarify your vision, mission, and values  
  • Conduct an environmental scan  
  • Define strategic priorities  
  • Develop goals and metrics  
  • Derive a strategic plan  
  • Write and communicate your strategic plan  
  • Implement, monitor, and revise   

1. Clarify your vision, mission, and values 

The first step of the strategic planning process is understanding your organization’s core elements: vision, mission, and values. Clarifying these will align your strategic plan with your company’s definition of success. Once established, these are the foundation for the rest of the strategic planning process.   

Questions to ask:

  • What do we aspire to achieve in the long term?
  • What is our purpose or ultimate goal?
  • What do we do to fulfill our vision?
  • What key activities or services do we provide?
  • What are our organization's ethics?
  • What qualities or behaviors do we expect from employees?

Read more: What is Mission vs. Vision  

A green flag with hollow filling placed to the left of an outline of an eye, with the iris also outlined in green, all on a green background, to signal mission vs. vision

2. Conduct an environmental scan

Once everyone on the same page about vision, mission, and values, it's time to scan your internal and external environment. This involves a long-term SWOT analysis, evaluating your organization’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.  

Internal factors 

Internal strengths and weaknesses help you understand where your organization excels and what it could improve. Strengths and weaknesses awareness helps make more informed decisions with your capabilities and resource allocation in mind.  

External factors

Externally, opportunities and threats in the market help you understand the power of your industry’s customers, suppliers, and competitors. Additionally, consider how broader forces like technology, culture, politics, and regulation may impact your organization.   

  • What are our organization's key strengths or competitive advantages?
  • What areas or functions within our organization need improvement?
  • What emerging trends or opportunities can we leverage?
  • How do changes in technology, regulations, or consumer behavior impact us?

3. Define strategic priorities

Prioritization puts the “strategic” in strategic planning process. Your organization’s mission, vision, values, and environmental scan serve as a lens to identify top priorities. Limiting priorities ensures your organization intentionally allocates resources.  

These categories can help you rank your strategic priorities:  

  • Critical : Urgent tasks whose failure to complete will have severe consequences — financial losses, reputation damage, or legal consequences  
  • Important : Significant tasks which support organizational achievements and require timely completion  
  • Desirable : Valuable tasks not essential in the short-term, but can contribute to long-term success and growth  
  • How do these priorities align with our mission, vision, and values?
  • Which tasks need to be completed quickly to ensure effective progress towards our desired outcomes?
  • What resources and capabilities do we need to pursue these priorities effectively?

4. Develop goals and metrics

Next, you establish goals and metrics to reflect your strategic priorities. Purpose-driven, long-term, actionable strategic planning goals should flow down through the organization, with lower-level goals contributing to higher-level ones.  

One approach that can help you set and measure your aligned goals is objectives and key results (OKRs). OKRs consist of objectives, qualitative statements of what you want to achieve, and key results, 3-5 supporting metrics that track progress toward your objective.  

OKRs ensure alignment at every level of the organization, with tracking and accountability built into the framework to keep everyone engaged. With ambitious, intentional goals, OKRs can help you drive the strategic plan forward.  

  • What metrics can we use to track progress toward each objective?
  • How can we ensure that lower-level goals and metrics support and contribute to higher-level ones?
  • How will we track and measure progress towards key results?
  • How will we ensure accountability?

Get an in-depth look at OKRs with our Ultimate OKR Playbook

an illustration of a circle in a shifting square to represent an okr playbook

5. Derive a strategic plan

The next step of the strategic planning process gets down to the nitty-gritty “how” — outlining a clear, practical plan for bridging the gap between now and the future.   

To do this, you’ll need to brainstorm short- and long-term approaches to achieving the goals you’ve set, answering a couple of key questions along the way. You must evaluate ideas based on factors like:  

  • Feasibility : How realistic and achievable is it?  
  • Impact : How conducive is it to goal attainment?  
  • Cost : Can we fund this approach, and is it worth the investment?  
  • Alignment : Does it support our mission, vision, and values?  

From your approaches, you can devise a detailed action plan, which covers things like:  

  • Timelines : When will we take each step, and what are the deadlines?  
  • Milestones : What key achievements will ensure consistent progress?  
  • Resource requirements : What’s needed to achieve each step?  
  • Responsibilities : Who's accountable in each step?  
  • Risks and challenges : What can affect our ability to execute our plan? How will we address these?  

With a detailed action plan like this, you can move from abstract goals to concrete steps, bringing you closer to achieving your strategic objectives.  

6. Write and communicate your strategic plan

Writing and communicating your strategic plan involves everyone, ensuring each team is on the same page. Here’s a clear, concise structure you can use to cover the most important strategic planning components:  

  • Executive summary : Highlights and priorities in your strategic overview   
  • Introduction : Background on your strategic plan  
  • Connection : How your strategic plan aligns with your organization’s mission, vision, and values  
  • Environmental scan : An overview of your SWOT analysis findings  
  • Strategic priorities and goals : Informed short and long-term organizational goals  
  • Strategic approach : An overview of your tactical plan   
  • Resource needs : How you'll deploy technology, funding, and employees  
  • Risk and challenges : How you’ll mitigate the unknowns if and when they arise  
  • Implementation plan : A step-by-step resource deployment plan for achieving your strategy  
  • Monitoring and evaluation : How you’ll keep your plan heading in the right direction  
  • Conclusion : A summary of the strategic plan and everything it entails  
  • What information or context do stakeholders need to understand the strategic plan?
  • How can we emphasize the connection between the strategic plan and the overall purpose and direction of the organization?
  • What initiatives or strategies will we implement to drive progress?
  • How will we mitigate or address risks?
  • What are the specific steps and actions we need to take to implement the strategic plan?
  • Any additional information or next steps we need to communicate?

7. Implement, monitor, and revise performance 

Finally, it’s time to implement your strategic plan, making sure it's up to date, creating a persistent, always-on strategy that doesn't lag behind. As you get the ball rolling, keep a close eye on your timelines, milestones, and performance targets, and whether these align with your internal and external environment.   

Internally, indicators like completions, issues, and delays provide visibility into your process. If any bottlenecks, inefficiencies, or misalignment arises, take corrective action promptly — adjust the plan, reallocate resources, or provide additional training to employees.  

Externally, you should monitor changes such as customer preferences, competitive pressures, economic shifts , and regulatory changes. These impact the success of your strategic action plan and may require tweaks along the way.   

Remember, implementing a strategic plan isn’t a one-time task — continual evaluation is essential for an always-on strategy. It involves extending beyond planning stages and contextualizing the strategy in real-time, allowing for swift adaptations to changing circumstances to ensure your plan remains relevant.

  • Are there any bottlenecks, inefficiencies, or misalignments we need to address?
  • Are we monitoring and analyzing external factors?
  • Are we prepared to make necessary tweaks or adaptations along the way?
  • Are we agile enough to promptly correct deviations from our strategic plan while maintaining an "always-on" strategy for continual adjustments?

You can use several frameworks to guide you through the strategic planning process. Some of the most influential ones include:

  • Balanced scorecard (BSC) : Takes an overarching approach to strategic planning, covering financial, customer, internal processes, and learning and growth, aligning short-term operational tasks with long-term strategic goals.
  • SWOT analysis : Highlights your business's internal strengths and weaknesses alongside external opportunities and threats to enable informed decisions about your strategic direction.
  • OKRs : Structures goals as a set of measurable objectives and key results. They cascade down from top-level organizational objectives to lower-level team goals, ensuring alignment across the entire organization. Get an in-depth look at OKRs here . 
  • Scenario planning : Involves envisioning and planning for various possible future scenarios, allowing you to prepare for a range of potential outcomes. It's particularly useful in volatile environments rife with uncertainties.
  • Porter's five forces : Evaluates the competitive forces within your industry — rivalry among existing competitors, bargaining power of buyers and suppliers, threat of new entrants, and threat of substitutes — to shape strategies that position the organization for success.

Common problems with strategic planning and how to overcome them

While strategic planning provides a roadmap for business success, it's not immune to challenges. Recognizing and addressing these is crucial for effective strategy implementation. Let's explore common issues encountered in strategic planning and strategies to overcome them.

Static nature

Traditional strategic planning models often follow a linear, annual, and inflexible process that doesn't accommodate quick changes in the business landscape. Strategies formulated this way may quickly become outdated in today's fast-paced environment.

To overcome the rigidity of traditional strategic planning, your organization should integrate continuous environmental scanning processes. This includes monitoring market changes, competitor actions, and technological advancements, ensuring real-time insights inform strategic decision-making. Additionally, adopting agile methodologies allows for iterative planning, breaking down strategies into smaller, manageable components reviewed and adjusted regularly, ensuring adaptability in today's fast-paced landscape.

Disconnect between strategic plan and execution

There's often a significant gap between the strategic objectives and their actual implementation, leading to misalignment, confusion, and inefficiency within the organization.

To bridge the gap, ensure accountability, alignment, and feedback-driven processes across the business. Linking team roles and responsibilities to lower-level objectives can fosters alignment and accountability, whereas aligning these with overarching strategic objectives ensure coherence in execution. To ensure goals are optimized on an ongoing basis, implement a feedback mechanism that continuously evaluates progress against goals, enabling regular adjustments based on market feedback and internal insights.

Lack of real-time insights

Traditional planning models rely on historical data and periodic reviews, which might not capture real-time changes or emerging trends accurately. This can result in misaligned strategies unsuitable for the current business landscape.

Leverage advanced analytics tools and AI-driven technologies. Invest in technologies that offer real-time tracking and reporting of key performance indicators, with dashboards and monitoring systems that provide up-to-date insights. These allow you to gather, process, and interpret real-time data for proactive decision-making that aligns with the current business landscape. 

Failure to close the feedback loop

The absence of a feedback loop between strategy formulation, execution, and evaluation can impact learning and improvement. Companies might therefore struggle to refine their strategies based on real-time performance insights.

Establish a structured feedback loop encompassing strategy formulation, execution, and evaluation stages. Encourage employees to actively contribute insights on strategy execution, fostering a culture of continuous improvement and adaptation.

Best practices during the strategic planning process

Navigating strategic planning goes beyond overcoming challenges. A successful strategic plan requires you to embrace a set of guiding best practices, helping you navigate the development and implementation of your strategic planning process.   

1. Keep the planning process flexible

With ever-changing business environments, a one-and-done approach to strategic planning is insufficient. Your strategic plan needs to be adaptable to ensure its relevancy and its ability to weather the effects of changing circumstances.  

2. Pull together a diverse group of stakeholders

By including voices from across the organization, you can account for varying thoughts, perspectives, and experiences at each step of the strategic planning process, ensuring cross-functional alignment .  

3. Document the process

Continuous documentation of the strategic management process is crucial in capturing and communicating the key elements of strategic planning. This keeps everyone on the same page and your strategic plan up-to-date and relevant.  

4. Make data-driven decisions

Root your decisions in evidence and facts rather than assumptions or opinions. This cultivates accurate insights, improves prioritization, and reduces biased (flawed) decisions.  

5. Align your company culture with the strategic plan 

Your strategic plan can only be successful if everyone is on board with it — company culture supports what you’re trying to achieve. Behaviors, rules, and attitudes optimize the execution of your strategic plan.  

6. Leverage AI 

Using AI in strategic planning supports the development of an always-on strategy — amplifying strategic agility, conducting comprehensive environmental scans, and expediting planning phases. It can streamline operations, facilitate data-driven decision-making, and provide transparent insights into progress to drive accountability, engagement, and alignment with the strategic plan.

The strategic planning process in a nutshell

Careful strategy mapping is crucial for any organization looking to achieve its long-term goals while staying true to its mission, vision, and values. The seven steps in the strategic planning process outlined in this article provide a solid framework your organization can follow — from clarifying your organization’s purpose and developing a strategic plan, to implementing, monitoring, and revising performance. These steps will help your company meet goal measurements and create an always-on strategy that's rooted in the present. 

It’s important to remember that strategic planning is not a one-time event. To stay effective and relevant, you must continuously monitor and adapt your strategy in response to changing circumstances. This ongoing process of improvement keeps your organization competitive and demonstrates your commitment to achieving your goals.  

  Quantive is your bridge between strategy and execution. Founded on the objectives and key results (OKR) methodology, our Strategy Execution solution is where businesses plan successful strategy, focus and align teams to it, and stay on the leading edge of progress.  

As your company looks to achieve the best possible results, you need a modern approach to run your business and change your business. The Modern Operating Model brings strategy, teams, and data together to help make decisions faster, optimize operations, and drive better business outcomes.  

Whether you’re a large enterprise facing competitive disruption or a small business leading the innovative charge, Quantive helps get you where you want to go.  

Ready to achieve the best possible? Start your free trial today. 

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Strategic Marketing Process: A Full Step-by-Step Guide

Marketing Plan Template

Free Marketing Plan Template

Ayush Jalan

  • December 18, 2023

how to create a Strategic Marketing Process

A strategic marketing process makes all the difference in customer retention. It directs how effectively you communicate with your customers and keep them engaged in your business. A well-researched and tactically built marketing process can turn your targeted leads into loyal customers.

Having a marketing process in place helps you set measurable goals , minimize risks, track your progress, and revise and revisit whenever needed. Skipping this step can drastically affect your customer relations and interactions.

Doing so can lead to poor sales and affect customer retention. No matter if you’re just starting to draft your business plan or you’re an established business, it’s never too late to take a step back and work on your strategic marketing planning.

What is a Strategic Marketing Process?

A strategic marketing process is a systematic collection of all the goals and tactics you use to ace your particular niche. It ensures that everyone involved in the company is clear about the purpose and goals of the organization.

It also helps you define your metrics of success and guides you to build successful marketing campaigns. In other words, a strategic marketing process is a road map of your objectives and goals with specific milestones set and clear guidelines to achieve them.

How to Create a Strategic Marketing Process

A strategic marketing process is nothing but a series of planned steps that can help you navigate while marketing your business. This is similar to creating your business plan, it begins with stating your objectives and defining goals.

Furthermore, it involves analyzing your market, identifying your customers’ requirements, and developing a set of marketing tactics that work for your target market. There are five major steps involved in a strategic marketing process:

Table of Contents

  • State the mission of your company
  • Analyze your market
  • Devise a marketing plan
  • Customize a marketing mix
  • Implement, improvise, and iterate

1. State the Mission of Your Company

Before we begin developing a marketing process, it is essential to identify and define the mission statement of your company. It explains the purpose of your business and how it helps your target customers. Here, you also mention your company’s value proportions, goals, and objectives.

steps in strategic planning in marketing

Want to Generate a Mission Statement for your Business?

Craft a strong and purposeful mission statement in minutes with our easy-to-use Free AI Mission Statement Generator .

Value proportion

Value proportion states why someone should buy your product and defines the value it adds to them if they do. A mission statement will touch upon the benefits the customers get from your business. Here, you elaborate it even further.

In a nutshell, value proportion says why you should be chosen over your competition. This becomes a central idea around which you build your marketing process.

Objectives and goals

After defining value proportion, you list down your company’s objectives and goals. Objectives include your tasks and the techniques you are using to complete them effectively. Here, you also mention the goals you aim to achieve through the objectives.

2. Analyse Your Market

Market analysis

The next step after defining goals and objectives is to analyze your market . This analysis will give you a clear view of the market and help you understand your strengths, weaknesses, and assist you in developing counteractive measures.

Study your industry

Before you start writing your strategic marketing process, you need to first understand the marketplace completely. This is essential to recognize the untapped areas of your industry and take advantage of them.

Further, understand the industry trends, growth projections, and the magnitude of your industry. This will also help you understand the competition you will be facing and the advantages you have over them.

Define your market

After analyzing your industry, you should research and define your market . Also,  Identify your ideal customer and specify their values, needs, expectations, and lifestyle. Post-research, it is ideal to test your observations with your target customers.

This helps you adjust and refine your offerings. Go one step ahead and research your competition . Understand their value proportions, and how they have an edge over you, and formulate strategies that can engage your customers better than they do.

SWOT analysis

Here, you will undertake a SWOT analysis of your business including your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. Detect the opportunities and threats in your industry and specify how you will exploit and tackle the same respectively.

Explain the advantages you possess and discuss if you can use them to balance out your weaknesses. Eventually, explore the threats your business has and develop a fool-proof strategy to stifle failure.

3. Devise a Marketing Plan

Devise A Marketing Plan

With everything you have gathered in the above two steps, now you need to plan how to market your product or services to your target customers. Create detailed customer profiles and specify their needs, this will help you effectively provide value through your product.

Goals and metrics

Before you begin developing a marketing plan, it is beneficial to specify your goals. Setting relevant and time-based goals is the beginning of the path to success. Setting the wrong goals is inviting business failure even before you begin.

To ensure sticking to your goals, create a blueprint including the steps and initiatives you can take to achieve them. This will include your marketing techniques, product branding, etc.

Identifying and using relevant metrics is as important as setting goals. Goals are futile unless they can be measured and used to derive actionable interpretations. Hence, it is vital to use metrics that are apt for your business. The commonly used metrics are sales, profit, product performance, etc.

Create a budget

The next thing after specifying goals is creating a budget that works for you. Budget is one of the most powerful tools businesses have, it helps you predict and control your cash flow .

Here, you allocate resources to propel your marketing planning process. Predict costs and assign resources to various tasks like advertisements, branding, social media marketing, and more.

4. Customize a Marketing Mix

Now that you are done developing a marketing plan, let’s move on to creating a marketing mix . This is a commonly used marketing strategy tool, which involves four main tactics called the 4Ps.

These will guide you in marketing your product.

Here, you mention the features, dimensions, material, durability, and other details of your product. The purpose here is to communicate what exactly is the item that you are selling to the customer.

In this part of your marketing process, you mention the price of your product. The pricing depends on a lot of factors. Ideally, it’s a balance between your budget and the perceived value of your product in the eyes of the customer.

The right price is one that is low enough that there will be demand for your product and high enough that it can earn you good profits. This will require intense demand forecasting, market research, and consistent customer feedback.

Here, you define and list out the promotional channels through which you want to market your product. Think about how and when you will promote your product or services. These can include TV ads, social media marketing, Pay-per-click ads, billboards, etc.

After marketing your product, now comes the actual selling part. Now, you decide how you will sell your product to your customers. Depending on your customer preference and your prospects of profit, you decide if you want to sell online or offline, or even both. State the distributive channels and supply chains you’re associated with.

5. Implement, Improvise, and Iterate

So far, you have stated your mission statement, done your market analysis, devised a marketing plan, and customized your marketing mix. Now, it’s time to put it all together and launch your strategic marketing process.

Finalize the when and how of your launch. This is the step where you need to start taking notes of what’s working for you and what’s not so that you can go back and make changes.

A strategic marketing process is dynamic and can be revised multiple times, whenever required. This helps you reposition yourself and adapt to the ever-changing business environment.

Strategize Your Marketing Process

Developing a marketing process can be overwhelming, but the right amount of research gets the job done. Your business’s success is proportional to the value you add to your customers.

A strategic marketing process helps you communicate the same with them. No matter if you’re a start-up or an established business, it can help you reach your desired milestones.

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About the Author

steps in strategic planning in marketing

Ayush is a writer with an academic background in business and marketing. Being a tech-enthusiast, he likes to keep a sharp eye on the latest tech gadgets and innovations. When he's not working, you can find him writing poetry, gaming, playing the ukulele, catching up with friends, and indulging in creative philosophies.

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10 Steps to Developing a Strategic Marketing Plan

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  • Reading time: 5 mins
  • Marketing Strategy

The success of your business depends on your marketing plan. This plan establishes your marketing strategy, and depending on the needs of your business, this plan will change over time. We’ve created a brief guide to get you started on a strategic marketing plan or to update an existing one.

Here are 10 steps to developing a strategic marketing plan:

1. Set goals and objectives. Before you create a marketing plan, you must have a purpose for it. This purpose is based on the long-term goals that guide all of your efforts. Once these long-term goals are established, break them down into specific objectives. Your objectives should be measurable over a period of time. For example, your goal may be to establish a social media marketing strategy. Meanwhile, an objective related to this goal could be to gain 100 followers on social media during the first month on the platform.

2. Analyze your situation. A Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats (SWOT) analysis can give you a snapshot of the situations you face as you market your business. Your strengths are what make your business unique, while your weaknesses are what you can improve on. The economy, your competitors, technology, and other external factors contribute to your opportunities and threats. By analyzing your situation this way, you can improve your marketing strategies, while overcoming challenges that may or may not be in your control. Create customer personas to help figure out who your ideal customers. This will help with your analysis.

3. Map your messages. Your messaging is part of your marketing strategy and your brand. To create a message map, start by writing an XYZ statement or boilerplate that contains basic information about your business. Then, center other messaging related to your products, clients, and services around the XYZ statement. These messages can then be incorporated into your mission statement, press releases, and other marketing materials.

4. Live out your mission. Your business has a set of values that guides it. Creating a mission statement outlines these values and ensures that the people who interact with your business are aware of them. Just be sure that this message reflects your brand honestly so you can actively demonstrate the values outlined in the mission statement through your interactions with clients. This statement and how it is carried out can make or break your clients’ trust.

Pulse takes pride in being your local, friendly marketing team, which is why it is our tagline. We demonstrate those values by being involved in our community.

5. Outline your tactics. A successful marketing strategy is made up of many different tactics, including both online and offline options. Your goals, target audience, and industry factor into this decision. For example, if your target audience is young, focusing on social media is more beneficial as this is primarily where this group consumes content. If your industry is product-based (for example, if you design jewelry), then using a more visual platform would better showcase your products. To be most effective, you have to choose which methods are right for your business. Once you’ve selected your tactics, list them in your marketing plan and determine how they’ll help you reach your goals.

6. Make a timeline. Your time is precious, especially when it comes to your marketing strategies. Based on the goals and objectives you’ve set for your business, create a timeline that will determine what will be completed and when. Remember to allow extra time for unexpected events that may delay some of your goals.

Using project management software can help you to create a timeline. At Pulse, we use Wrike , a program that enables us to schedule projects on a timeline.

7. Mind your budget. Creating a budget for your marketing strategies can inform your efforts by determining what you can and can’t afford. Choosing the most cost-effective options for your business ensures the success of your overall marketing plan. This doesn’t have to limit your options. Paid advertising on social media and search engines allows you to choose the amount you can afford to pay, making them accessible to even the smallest of budgets.

8. Divide and conquer. Once you’ve created a timeline for the creation and distribution of your marketing materials, assign these tasks to members of your staff. If your business is small and doesn’t have the staff required to carry out your plan, you may need to consider hiring another person or a marketing agency. Ultimately, your staff’s size and qualifications will determine this for you.

9. Measure up. Measuring the effectiveness of your marketing strategies will inform your current plan and your future efforts. Your website, social media, and other marketing materials are sources of this information. To help you track this , there are many free online analytics tools available. Just be sure to only track data relevant to your business so these measurements are effective.

10. Stay current. Your marketing goals and needs will change over time. Ideally, you should revisit your marketing plan once a year and make adjustments as necessary. You should write your marketing plan with this growth in mind so you can measure it. In the meantime, follow industry news and trends that you can add to your own strategies.

Establishing a marketing plan keeps your business goals organized and focused, saving valuable time and money. Even if you already have a marketing plan, you can still reap these benefits by keeping it up-to-date.

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8 Key Steps to Strategic Planning for Marketing

Many moons ago, you may have been able to start a business without much strategic planning for marketing. 

Maybe decades upon decades ago, you could have come up with a business model. You got some investors and you shared some basic information about your new business plan with your friends and family. You found some prime real estate on which to build your brick and mortar shop. What next? 

You opened your doors. 

But life as a business owner isn’t like that anymore. We are not so certain it ever was, but we don’t have a time machine to go back and experience those olden days with our own two eyes. 

What we do have is the knowledge of how important strategic planning for marketing is. 

But what is strategic planning in marketing? How do you do it to ensure your own business grows to never-before-seen levels? Is there some sort of strategic planning in marketing pdf you can open and find all the answers you need to the questions you have? 

Well, it’s not a magic solution. It takes time and work to grow your business for ultimate success. But we put in some of that work for you, and we’re here to help. 

What is the Purpose of Strategic Planning in Marketing?

You have a product, or a service that you want to sell. Maybe you have already planned out the logistics of your day-to-day operations. You might have a team that you know will excel at selling what you have to offer. 

Sure, by telling your friends and family about your business, you are partaking in word-of-mouth marketing (WOMM). That’s a start. But it isn’t the middle, and it certainly isn’t the end. 

Ask yourself this: Who cares? 

We are seriously asking. 

You have something to sell. And maybe an idea of who you want to sell it to. Why should they care? 

If you do not have any sort of strategic planning for marketing, your target market will not have any reason to believe you can help them with your products or services. They will not know who you are at all. That leads to lost money and unclear timeframes. 

You should use strategic planning for sales and marketing. When you make your business plan, you set up your plans. Let your strategic planning for marketing serve as your roadmap to checking off all your goals on your holistic business plan. 

What Should be Included in a Strategic Marketing Plan?

So what do you put in your marketing plan as you start your strategic planning in marketing? 

  • Mission and vision. (Here, include things like to whom you will be selling and what you will be selling to them.)
  • Business objectives. (You can consult your holistic business plan for this one.)
  • Marketing objectives. (What are your goals and objectives for your marketing strategy?)
  • Buyer personas. (Who are your ideal buyers? Your ideal buyer persona documents should include a lot of detail and information.)
  • Positioning statement. (A description of your product, target market and how your product will fill a need in your market.)
  • Value proposition. (Or, the promise of value you make to your customers, and how you will consistently deliver that value.)

8 Steps to Developing Strategic Planning for Marketing

It can be tough to know where to start with strategic planning for marketing, but you are not alone. And we have your beginner’s guide right here. 

If you have some baseline knowledge about it, you might be under the impression that there are only five steps. 

What are the five steps in the strategic planning process? 

We took it a step further and broke it down for you into eight specific steps . 

So without further ado… 

Set Goals and Objectives and Make it Happen

Look, goals without objectives turn into purposeless plans. And you cannot go very far without purpose. 

So what’s yours? Do you have multiple ones? How specific are they? 

Build your strategic planning for marketing atop a foundation of goals and objectives. And make them specific in the meantime. 

First, take a look at your long-term business goals. Get in the spirit of college recruiters and the like who ask you things like “Where do you see yourself in five years?” 

And really see yourself there . Manifest that. 

Then, come up with the objectives that will allow you to achieve those goals. 

Develop Your SWOT Analysis

A strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT) analysis is your next step. 

SWOT will help you to identify any challenges and opportunities you are up against when you are ready to take part in strategic planning for marketing your business. 

Anything that gives your company a unique advantage qualifies as a strength. Your weaknesses are any areas that you can improve on. These two categories serve as internal factors, while opportunities and threats are external factors. 

Best practice here would be to reference your ideal buyer personas before starting your SWOT analysis. 

Outline Your Strategy and Tactics

Your marketing strategy is more holistic. Your tactics give you online and offline ways to address your strategy. In other words, your tactics are the focal points of your strategy and how you can optimize it. 

Which platforms will you use to market your business, its products and its services? 

Again, reference your buyer personas. How old are they? Are they young? If so, check out different social media platforms like Instagram, Facebook and Twitter for your marketing campaigns. 

What are their interests and hobbies? If you are selling craft products, consider going to in-person events, like trade shows, to market your brand. 

List your marketing tactics, consult with your team and find room for your tactics in your marketing plan. 

Create a Timeline

Time is money. Money matters. Time matters. Do you have a timeline with your strategic planning for marketing to reinforce those ideas? 

At this point, you have a list of your goals and objectives. 

The most important next step is to come up with a timeline, or calendar of some sort, that shows you when you have to complete everything for each goal and objective. 

Time-blocking is key here, so prioritize that to see how reasonable your timeline is. And be sure to set aside time for anything unexpected that might pop up. 

Create a Budget Plan

We just mentioned that “money matters.” How will you make yours matter? 

You need a budgeting plan. 

There is no use in starting on a new marketing strategy if you do not have the money for it in your budget. But you might not even have a budget yet to know if there is or is not the appropriate amount of money. So start there. 

Certain tactics and strategies cost far more than others. But things like PPC advertising have room in almost any budget. Lay everything out so you can get a real-time look at what will work for your business. 

Assign Specific Roles

You cannot tackle everything on your own. You need support. But you also need support from the right people; those who have the ability and expertise to help at all. 

What are your team members’ roles and responsibilities? Who fits the ticket for the tasks you need to assign to lighten your workload? 

You might not have enough manpower to complete all those tasks. If that feels like it might happen to you, consider hiring a marketing consultant or putting out a hiring campaign. 

Use Data Analytics Tools

You have to measure the success of your marketing campaigns to know if they are paying off. 

This means you need data analytics tools. Use these to see where you should adjust your marketing efforts, or if you are able to expand your outreach anywhere. 

You should be diving deep into your website, your pages, your blog posts, your social media accounts. If you track data from relevant areas of your business, you will find yourself with a deeper understanding of your strengths and weaknesses. 

Update Your Marketing Plan

Everything changes, right? As in, all the time. Change does not stop. 

So you should never find yourself with the same approach to strategic planning for marketing that you had five years ago. That will get you nowhere. 

Analyze marketplace trends, check in with your audience and update your plan accordingly. 

Any changes to your business or industry, no matter how small, can have a big impact on your marketing plan. So review your strategic planning for marketing as often as you need to, and update it when you deem it necessary. 

Here at Business Marketing Engine , we know all about strategic planning for marketing. It’s what we do. 

But we also go beyond that knowledge to actually deliver the results you need to plan, build and grow your business. 

So what do you do? What are your goals? And most importantly of all, how can we help you to achieve those goals? 

You can click here to head to our blog and read more about the latest in industry news, trends and business marketing hacks. Also check out our podcast . 

And to achieve your company’s goals, click here to contact Business Marketing Engine today.

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COMMENTS

  1. 8 Steps to Create a Complete Marketing Strategy in 2023

    The process involves research, goal-setting, and positioning. A completed marketing strategy typically includes brand objectives, target audience personas, marketing channels, key performance indicators, and more. A marketing strategy will: Align your team to specific goals. Help you tie your efforts to business objectives.

  2. 7 Steps To a Strategic Marketing Plan

    Here are 7 steps you can take to create a strategic marketing plan: 1. Find your starting place To ensure all team members share a common view of the company, its products and its future prospects, start with a basic question exercise: What does our company exist to do?

  3. Strategic Marketing Plan in 10 Steps: A Comprehensive Guide

    Learn how to create a winning strategic marketing plan with our 10-step guide. From goal setting to implementation, master the process for success. ... The importance of strategic marketing planning. Aside from playing a pivotal role in shaping an organization's success, profitability, and long-term sustainability, some of the key benefits of ...

  4. Here's How the Marketing Process Works

    Here are the steps to a successful strategic marketing process. Mission Situation Analysis Marketing Strategy/Planning Marketing Mix Implementation and Control Strategic marketing planning involves setting goals and objectives, analyzing internal and external business factors, product planning, implementation, and tracking your progress.

  5. What is strategic planning? A 5-step guide

    A 5-step guide Julia Martins January 23rd, 2024 11 min read Jump to section Summary Strategic planning is a process through which business leaders map out their vision for their organization's growth and how they're going to get there.

  6. How to Create a Strategic Marketing Plan in 6 Steps

    1 Situation analysis. This is the first step of your strategic marketing plan, where you assess your current position and performance in the market. You need to conduct a SWOT analysis, which ...

  7. 7 Steps to a strategic marketing plan

    Step 1: Align your marketing goals with overall company objectives First and foremost, planning is all about creating a practical plan and pursuing a clear marketing goal. But, in order to do that, you first need to have a clear understanding of the company's overall goals.

  8. 2.2 The Role of Marketing in the Strategic Planning Process

    First, marketers assist the strategic planning team in executing a marketing philosophy throughout the strategic planning process. Second, marketers assist the organization in gathering and analyzing information necessary to examine the current situation (the first step in a gap analysis). Third, marketers are responsible for the identification ...

  9. What Is Strategic Marketing?

    1. Planning Phase The first stage of strategic marketing is the planning phase. It's the most critical step, as it is the basis of your efforts. You'll want to identify your business purpose, needs, and the goals and objectives you want to accomplish, as the entire process will help you achieve them.

  10. The Definitive Guide to Strategic Marketing Planning

    The first step for strategic marketing planning is to outline your mission statement. We describe in the section below what a mission statement is and how to write it to effectively describe your business objectives. What is a Mission Statement? The mission statement is a short description of your long-term plans.

  11. How to Create a Strategic Marketing Process: 5 Steps for Success

    The strategic marketing planning process follows 6 key components: Know where you are. Know your audience. Know where you want to go. Pick your channels and tactics. Develop your budget and your revised tactics. Measure and adjust your strategy periodically.

  12. What is Strategic Marketing Planning?

    Step 1: Liaise with other departments While marketing does proactively drive demand and new business, they need to do so in the framework of supporting the larger business objectives. That's why when it comes to the planning process, start by looking at other departments.

  13. The Strategic Marketing Process: A Complete Guide

    1. Planning Phase The planning phase is the most important as it analyzes internal strengths and weaknesses, external competition, changes in technology, industry culture shifts and provides an overall picture of the state of the organization.

  14. What Is a Marketing Plan? And How to Create One

    Launching a new product or service Carrying out campaigns through different marketing channels, including social media, email marketing, print media, TV, or offline events Implementing paid advertising Measuring marketing efforts over specific periods of time, such as every quarter, six months, or year

  15. The Strategic Planning Process in 4 Steps

    Step 1: Determine Organizational Readiness Set up your plan for success - questions to ask: Are the conditions and criteria for successful planning in place at the current time? Can certain pitfalls be avoided? Is this the appropriate time for your organization to initiate a planning process? Yes or no? If no, where do you go from here?

  16. Nine Steps to a Strategic Marketing Plan

    The elements of a plan. There are nine major steps required to develop a well-crafted, strategic marketing plan: set your marketing goals, conduct a marketing audit, conduct market research ...

  17. Easy Step-by-Step Guide to the Marketing Planning Process

    The marketing planning process typically involves several key steps, which are as follows: Set clear objectives Start by defining specific and measurable marketing objectives. These objectives should align with the broader business goals and provide a clear direction for your marketing efforts. Action Plan for Goal Setting Know your Market

  18. Strategic Planning Process: 7 Crucial Steps to Success

    Where are you now? Where do you want to be? How will you get there? 7 key elements of strategic planning The following strategic planning components work together to create cohesive strategic plans for your business goals. Let's take a close look at each of these: Vision: What your organization wants to achieve in the future, the long-term goal

  19. 5 Steps to Create a Strategic Marketing Process

    State the mission of your company. Analyze your market. Devise a marketing plan. Customize a marketing mix. Implement, improvise, and iterate. 1. State the Mission of Your Company. Before we begin developing a marketing process, it is essential to identify and define the mission statement of your company.

  20. Strategic Marketing Planning

    ABSTRACT. This book provides a uniquely practical approach to strategic marketing planning. Combining a comprehensive overview of theory with practice, each chapter takes the reader step by step through the strategic marketing process. Beginning with situation analysis, it moves on to marketing strategy (targeting and brand positioning) and ...

  21. 10 Steps to Developing a Strategic Marketing Plan

    Here are 10 steps to developing a strategic marketing plan: 1. Set goals and objectives. Before you create a marketing plan, you must have a purpose for it. This purpose is based on the long-term goals that guide all of your efforts. Once these long-term goals are established, break them down into specific objectives.

  22. 8 Key Steps to Strategic Planning for Marketing

    A strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT) analysis is your next step. SWOT will help you to identify any challenges and opportunities you are up against when you are ready to take part in strategic planning for marketing your business. Anything that gives your company a unique advantage qualifies as a strength.

  23. 6 Steps of the Marketing Process (And Why They Matter)

    Monitor and adjust the marketing plan as necessary. Related: Ultimate Guide to Strategic Planning. 6 marketing process steps. The marketing process is a step-by-step guideline for an organization's marketing efforts. Here are the six steps of the marketing process: 1. Clarify the mission, vision and objectives