Critical Areas In Your Marketing Planning
When commencing the process of building an annual marketing plan, there are key areas that you should consider. They include positioning, objectives, tactics, execution and strategy
Positioning
Positioning is establishing the market area your services or products occupy as well the benefits of its market. The process of determining position typically results to formulating a positioning statement. To contribute sufficiently to the marketing plan, you should take your time to investigate your buyer personas, various consumer challenges, potential customer benefits, and the uniqueness of your services and products.
Objective
With your products or services offering space defined, then define the company objectives with deliberate thoughts that can produce lofty goals and objectives. You should always aim a bit higher when setting your goals. Aim a goal that you know that it is hard for you to achieve so that you achieve something close to that.
Strategy
From there, think in general terms about how your company will attain its objectives. The strategy is an evolution. It is not something usually decided in hours. Therefore, taking ample time to brainstorm some various strategic directions will aid in the creation of suitable marketing plan. Whichever strategy you chose to achieve your objective, it will certainly affect your budget and the tactics to execute the program. What should be the size of your budget? That is ultimately determined by your objectives but a typical marketing budget can range anywhere from 3% to 10% of overall revenue.
Planning
The detail of your tactics and the planning will be very critical in the marketing communication and activity plan. When developing the marketing plan for this year, consider the best directions that can fit your business. You should avoid being open to all possibilities and being unrealistic. So, how will you determine what offers the best return for the marketing expenses? Liaising with a seasoned marketing professional can help stretch the budget as well as invest in activities that generate positive and measurable results.
Execution
It’s in the Execution part of your marketing plan for the upcoming year where the most awesomely laid plans can hit a brick wall. Although Execution is the last step in this important process, it is very critical. Applying the right, tools, processes and people to carry out the marketing activities will help you achieve your objectives. You should always know that formulating a marketing plan and implementing it are two entirely different things. You need the strategies but without the right people, your plan is just a narrative.
