As we approach the holidays, marketers shift their
focus to their plans for the New Year.
Have you made a final review of next year’s marketing plan and budget?
Have you started your planning for next year?
Every organization has a different planning
process and objectives. At the end of
the day, your marketing plan execution is likely tasked with creating demand for
your products, building your brand, and driving earnings and new business
growth. A well-thought out plan will
help you achieve these results. To
assist in your year-end planning preparation, I am sharing a checklist of key
strategic planning steps that can help align and focus your team on achieving your
strategic goals. While you may have
already completed all or most of these steps, this list may prompt an
opportunity to enhance your current planning and preparation.
Understand your market and your competitive position in the market
_____ Define and assess your market, your competitors
and competitive position. Many companies
use a SWOT analysis for this step.
Another method is to use market data to prepare an assessment of recent market
performance versus competitors and market share trends among your target
customers.
_____ Define your primary and secondary
target customer. Know why they do and do
not buy from you. You cannot effectively
plan if you do not understand your customers.
If you do not know your target customers and their motivators, an
earlier priority in 2015 should be to conduct research on who they are, what
they value, and why they choose you or your competitor’s products or services.
Ensure you are focused on the right goals
____ Define what success looks like in the new
year. It is likely that different
members of your team have different objectives and a different idea of what a
successful new year should look like. Hold
a discussion with your leadership team to define what success should look like
for your organization by the end of next year.
_____ Define, align on and approve your SMART
goals. The term SMART for goal setting
has been used for many years. SMART
stands for specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and timely. It is often good to also consider goals that
are challenging and specifically grow your business. Build on the previously step to “define
success” and turn your definition into your SMART goals. When setting goals, make
both earnings and new business growth top priorities – you cannot grow your
business if your only focus for next year is on cost reduction.
Along with setting your goals with your
leadership team, take time to agree on the success metrics and measurement
system you will use to track progress to your goals.
Ensure your team is truly aligned to your goals – and with each
other
____ Stop to make sure your leadership team
is truly aligned to these goals. If your
leaders are not fully aligned on a single vision of success and the same goals
for the next year, the odds are they will spend more time on their own priorities
than working to achieve the organization’s goals.
Specifically discuss on how you
will respond to risk in growth initiatives.
New growth initiatives will seldom succeed if all are not aligned on risk
tolerance and how your team will respond to failure. Take time to talk to make sure everyone is
really on board – resolve concerns if they are not.
Ensure you are working on the right initiatives
____ Identify the strategies that will likely
be most effective to achieve your goals.
Select your top 3 strategic
initiatives. These initiatives should
tie to the achievement of a company strategic goal. Focus your strategies on leveraging the
purchase drivers of your customers. Develop
strategies for your goals that drive both existing business and new business
growth. Abandon strategies that have not
been productive in prior years.
Identify what you will NOT do
next year. If an initiative does not
sell more, cut costs and/or tie to a strategic goal, you are likely wasting
your time putting it on your to-do list.
This could be the year to stop working on legacy initiatives. Don’t repeat an initiative just because it is
something you have always done.
Ensure you have the right resources to win – and invest them in
the right place
_____ Ensure you have enough of the right
people and funding to do the job. Every
team wants more resources. Every team
believes they could be more effective with more people and funding. Realistically assess your resources. Plan your year to succeed with the resources
you have vs. creating a plan that will overtax your team all year. Do fewer things better.
_____ Put the right people in the right
jobs. If you want to achieve new
results, sometimes that means changing who is leading key initiatives. It can be especially important to put the
right team leaders in place leading new growth initiatives. Align the skills, experience and
relationships with the jobs to be done, and then empower your team to lead and
achieve.
_____ When possible, budget to task and not
to a number. Identify what your
strategic initiatives will cost in order to succeed. If budget cuts are needed, trim entire initiatives
rather than trimming quality and effectiveness of each to keep everything on
the project list.
_____ Build your budget using three
categories: strategic initiatives, New
venture initiatives, tactical initiatives.
Strategic initiatives are top priority initiatives that grow your existing business and
enable you to achieve your strategic goals.
This is a strategic investment in the near-term health, growth and
competitiveness of your organization.
These investments should not be cut except in extreme circumstances.
New venture initiatives are investments in entering new markets, launching new products or testing new marketing approaches. These are the strategic initiatives that drive long-term growth of your organization. It is important to always include funding for testing and development in this area to promote long-term growth opportunities. These should not be cut if possible, but could be delayed in timing if there is a strong need to reduce spending.
Tactical initiatives are programs or events that have only short term volume impact. Every budget likely includes some of these. Often, these can be cut or reduced in cost and not have a material impact in achieving your organization’s goals. This should be the first place to cut costs if spending must be reduced when budgeting or during a mid-year spending cut.
If you
allocate your budget across these three categories, you are more likely to
focus your resources on the most strategic programs and initiatives and limit
investment in areas that have little impact.
_____ Develop budget milestone review process
for continued funding of new venture initiatives. Make success criteria and timing for
milestones are realistic to support new business growth. Review progress at key milestones and do not add
significant new investment if key success criteria cannot be met.
Hopefully, your organization is already
implementing most of these planning steps.
If not, consider adding new steps to your process. If needed, an outside advisor can help you boost
the effectiveness and impact of your planning process. With thoughtful planning and great execution,
you will have a very prosperous new year.
This blog was originally posted by GrowthSpring Group on the MENG Blog website.
David Lund is the founder and president of GrowthSpring Group – a
unique a strategic growth and marketing innovation firm that works with clients
to accelerate success by helping them identify and launch new market growth
initiatives. www.GrowthSpringGroup.com
