It’s All About The Plan

What I’m about to say isn’t revolutionary … it isn’t really even that complicated.  Rather, it is simple common sense.   Unfortunately, to quote my mother-in-law, common sense is sometimes not all that common.  So here is it:

To be successful with Marketing you need to plan.  You need to have thought about where your business is at the moment, what you want to achieve with your marketing and how you want to do it.  Plus, you need to put in place some measures so that you know how successful your efforts are.  In homage to “the 7Ps of Marketing” I call the following statement ”the 7Ps of Great Results”:

Proper Planning & Preparation Prevents P*** Poor Performance.

I should stress at this point that when I talk about “planning” I am not talking about crafting a 20 page document once a year which you then follow religiously regardless of how market conditions change.  Instead, I am talking about the thought process behind that document – the fact that you will hopefully have asked yourself some searching questions along the lines of:

• What business are you in?
• What are the external factors affecting your marketplace?
• Is there a niche which no-one else has spotted that you could be exploiting?
• What are your competitors doing?  Do you know what their plans are?
• What do consumers think of the products/services which you sell?  Is this the same as what you want them to think?
• How do your customers hear about your products? Is your marketing spend effective?
• What are your main strengths as a company?  What are your weaknesses?

The list is endless but, by asking these types of questions you can then start to formulate strategies which go someway to fulfilling the objectives you initially set.  A good discipline is to answer questions on each of the 7Ps of the Marketing Mix (Product, Price, Place, Promotion, People, Process and Physical Evidence).  Once you have done this you should have a rounded view of your company and marketplace, as well as gained some insight into the external environment you operate in.    Only by undergoing this process can your marketing become pro-active and be the business driver which it should be.

Once you have your plan you need to keep revisiting it to make sure it is still current.  It is no good filing it away in the “jobs completed” section and never looking at it again – market conditions may change and your plan needs to be flexible enough to adapt. 

Finally, don’t get too hung up on the facts and fall foul of “analysis paralysis”.  Remember, an imperfect plan today is much better than a perfect plan tomorrow.

Good luck and happy planning!

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