Strategic marketing planning consists of an integrated action plan with the aim of achieving the company’s marketing objectives, such as increasing market share, acquiring new customers, consolidating the brand image, and launching products, among others.
With this in mind, we have created content here that will clarify what a strategic marketing plan is and how important it is.
Furthermore, continue reading and also check out the following lines for a complete and uncomplicated step-by-step guide on how to prepare this type of planning for your company:
- Build your buyer persona ;
- Analyze your company’s internal and external environments ;
- Establish your Marketing Mix ;
- Define your goals ;
- Create an action plan ;
- Establish a schedule ;
- Set the budget ;
- Determine the mechanism for monitoring planning execution.
What is strategic marketing planning?
Strategic marketing planning can be defined as a document that will structure all the actions that a company will need to put into practice to promote its brand and solutions, communicate a message to its target audience, and attract new sales opportunities.
This plan contains all the strategies to be adopted by the company and how this should be done, as well as those responsible.
Strategic planning works as a guide for the marketing team and shows what results employees should seek.
How important is it to have a strategic marketing plan?
Having a good strategic marketing plan is extremely valuable for a company.
Through this document, it is possible to optimize the company’s efforts and resources aimed at promoting the brand and relationships with customers.
When strategic actions are well structured in planning, it becomes easier to achieve ambitious objectives and obtain a more satisfactory return on investments made by the marketing area.
Furthermore, strategic planning will guide the marketing team’s actions and ensure that the message reaches whoever it needs to reach – at the right time and in the right way.
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Step by step: how to carry out strategic marketing planning?
Now that you know what strategic marketing planning is and how important it is, see below a step-by-step guide to developing one for your business model.
Step 1 – Build your buyer persona
The buyer persona is a fictional representation of what you consider to be your company’s ideal customer profile. This is who you will target your speech and marketing efforts to.
And to put this representation on paper, it is very important to answer questions such as:
- What are your challenges?
- What are your main interests?
- What is your role within the company and what is your decision-making power or influence?
- How do you get information or look for recommendations?
- What are your values?
It is worth remembering that your company may have more than one buyer persona, according to its product lines or decision-making and influencing audience profiles.
Step 2 – Analyze your company’s internal and external environments
The second step in preparing your strategic marketing plan consists of carrying out an in-depth analysis of the internal and external environments of your business, identifying strengths and weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.
It is from this moment that you will have a little more clarity about which strategies work best for your company, what their strengths and weaknesses are, and what results your marketing team is capable of achieving.
Step 3 – Establish your Marketing Mix
The Marketing Mix, also known as the 4 Ps of Marketing, refers to 4 fundamental aspects that must be considered in your planning.
- Product: commercialized solution ;
- Price: the amount charged for the solution ;
- Place: places where your solution will be sold;
- Promotion: strategies and channels used to promote your solutions.
Step 4 – Define your goals
Define what results you intend to achieve with your marketing strategies. Be reasonable and avoid setting impossible or very easy goals.
At this time, it is worth remembering the SMART goals, which correspond to the acronym:
- S (specific): specific ;
- M (measurable): measurable ;
- A (attainable): attainable ;
- R (relevant) : relevant ;
- T (time-based): temporal.
Therefore, it is not enough to define objectives, they need to be very specific, measurable, feasible to achieve, relevant to the business, and with a time limit to be achieved.
Step 5 – Create an action plan
With the marketing objectives well defined, prepare the action plan to assign responsibilities. Establish in it what must be done, when, and how.
Step 6 – Establish a schedule
Your marketing plan must also contain a schedule with deadlines for implementing the strategies. For this, having project management tools will be essential!
Step 7 – Set the budget
It is important to also include the budget allocated for each stage and strategy of the marketing plan. In other words,
- how much money are you willing to invest in marketing?
- how much do you expect to get in return?
Step 8 – Determine the mechanism to monitor planning execution
Finally, it is necessary to determine how the strategies planned in your planning and marketing will be monitored. Through key performance indicators (KPIs). For example, it will be possible to evaluate the effectiveness of your actions and make the necessary adjustments to enhance your results.
A practical and objective way to monitor the performance of your strategic marketing plan is with the help of a control panel, with all the KPIs you need to monitor.