What is a Strategic Planning Process?
A strategic planning process is a tool that a company can use in order to determine the direction of its marketing efforts, assessing the current situation, and making projections for the future. It provides a way of establishing its values, vision and mission, while correlating long-term goals with the most effective ways of reaching them. A well-executed strategic plan is a key factor in successful marketing, enabling a company to respond to opportunities and challenges as they arise. Marketing consultant, Jessica Wells, encourages the process with the following exhortation: “Your strategic marketing process provides the roadmap necessary to cultivate valuable connections with customers and cement your brand in the perfect niche in your marketplace. Don’t waste another moment foundering with undefined and indecisive marketing initiatives—go forth and conquer your industry.” (https://www.brafton.com).
In general, the goals of a marketing strategic plan are to generate and increase a company’s sales and to enlarge its consumer base. This might include coming up with decisions about the types of marketing a company wishes to engage in, and what methods to utilize in those areas. Such a plan often employs marketing technologies, software and various platforms designed to execute and track progress. Since the most effective strategic planning requires the group effort of a company, it can offer excellent team-building benefits, encouraging members to contribute in order to achieve company goals. This experience of cooperation then translates into an enhanced sense of accountability and, ultimately, into greater productivity. Once a strategic planning process has been implemented, a company will have a clearer idea of where it’s going and of how to get there in the most efficient way.
Steps in Strategic Planning
Quoting the Center for Simplified Strategic Planning, entrepreneur, Anastasia Belyh, observes, “Any strategic planning process involves digesting information and some fairly difficult analysis. Good strategic planning should be simplified, not simplistic.” She goes on to say that “it should also answer the questions: what are we selling, to whom, and how do we beat the competition?” (https://www.cleverism.com). In order to simplify the process, it is useful to break it down into three phases: the planning phase, the implementation phase, and the evaluation phase. The planning phase includes setting specific goals, as well as studying a company’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats by conducting a SWOT analysis. In the implementation phase, plans begin to be put into action, focusing on considerations such as setting budgets, acquiring resources, developing schedules and other marketing details. The final phase is the one in which the plan is monitored and evaluated, making sure that the results of the process have remained consistent with the company’s original goals.
By concentrating on these aspects, a company can better establish a sense of brand identity, as well as its own unique philosophy, expressed throughout the entire gamut of its marketing tactics. An outstanding example of successful strategic planning can be found in the Apple brand. Going back several decades, a key element in Apple’s strategy continues to be the establishment of its explicitly stated three-point philosophy: one, empathy, expressing an authentic understanding of its customers; two, focus, stressing the elimination of any superfluous factors; and three, impute, representing its products in a consistently creative and professional manner. (https://juliapizzolato.com). By identifying, clearly presenting, and following through on these points for over forty years, Apple has demonstrated the very real benefits strategic planning has to offer.
Monitoring the Process
In the words of marketing consultant, Carter McNamara, “Too many strategic plans end up collecting dust on a shelf. Monitoring and evaluating the planning activities and status of implementation of the plan is—for many organization—as important as identifying strategic issues and goals.” (https://managementhelp.org). To complete any strategic planning process, a company must put into place some form of monitoring procedure. The type of system chosen, and the frequency of its use, depends on the needs of the company. Possible options range from weekly department meetings to quarterly company-wide reviews, and can employ tracking tools, such as Hootsite, for social media monitoring, Google Analytics, for following lead sources, and Bridgespan, for tracking strategic priorities, to name just a few.
Whatever techniques a company chooses to employ, there are certain key considerations to keep in mind. First of all, once a plan has been put into place, it must be effectively communicated, keeping to a regular schedule of determining goals, and checking on their implementation. This includes a clear delineation of the roles of employees, determining who is responsible for tracking which part of the plan. In the event of a marketing plan falling short of its expectations, a reevaluation of objectives might be indicated to determine the reasons for discrepancies between a plan and its actual results. Monitoring strategies require continual follow-up in order to be successful; when it comes to tracking the efficacy of any plan, it is never a case of “one and done.” A strategic marketing plan needs to retain its form as a fluid entity. Otherwise, without constant update and review, it faces the danger of becoming stagnant.
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OTIS KOPP
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