1 Minute Marketing: Strategic Planning
When looking into how to market and sell your brand, you will find many tactics. Professionals in the marketing field have come up with the key strategies for everything from social media to email blast success. While all of this is very important when preparing to take your brand to the next level, especially moving online, you will run into a lot of trouble if you try to put forth these guaranteed tactics before preparing your own strategic marketing plan.
So what is a strategic marketing plan and why is it so important? Your strategic marketing plan is a personal, individualized plan with the steps you will take to reach your marketing objectives. By creating this plan for your brand, you can make sure you are staying on track and reaching your goals while the days, weeks and months go by- however, it should not be confused with an editorial calendar.
There are four key topics to go over to make sure your plan has everything it needs to be implemented properly. First, you should assess your current situation. Include the resources you have available, opportunities and threats, your competition and any critical issues that need to be addressed.
Second, your plan should discuss your marketing strategy. Be sure to include the companies mission and vision for the future. Also include your target audience, objectives and unique factors about your brand that can be included and introduced when marketing. This is the area of the plan you can refer back to when you are wondering if you are achieving your goals or if you should reevaluate your plan.
The next part of the strategic marketing plan is crafting your marketing plan. This is where the plan begins to come to life. To craft your plan, consider upcoming promotions (try to think a year ahead), the message you want to convey and what channels you want to convey your message to. All of these factors will really bring your plan to life by determining where and to whom you will market to.
Finally, to wrap up your marketing plan, determine what your controls, benchmarks and measurement process will be. This can include things like your budget that determine and cause limitations on your marketing. You should also determine what outcomes will determine your success and overall performance.
Now that you can put together the perfect strategic marketing plan for your company, you can use all of those success tactics and guaranteed results tips and tricks to market your content online. Just be sure to look back and reflect on your plan every so often to make sure you are still headed in the right direction.