Behind every successful business is a well-thought-out and well-prepared plan. Most importantly, a strong strategic marketing plan. It's what keeps everyone in your company on the same page and on track to meeting your marketing expectations. Marketers who develop strategic plans are more successful and see greater ROI from their marketing efforts.
Top marketers are organized, set goals, document their strategy, and proactively plan projects and campaigns. Statistics even show the ones who are most organized are 397% more likely to report success, goal-setters are 376% more likely to report success, those who document their strategy are 313% more likely to report success, and marketers who proactively plan projects are 356% more likely to report success.
With that in mind, let's get into ways you can start developing a successful marketing strategy with better planning and research.
Before you can develop a strong strategic marketing plan that is right for your business, you must first understand the state of your company. To do this, you need to conduct a SWOT analysis to reveal your company's internal strengths and weaknesses and external opportunities and threats. This will help you determine your competitive position and advantages, potential in the industry, risk, competition, performance, and more.
SWOT analysis breakdown:
There's also the increasing importance for more personalization in every interaction with your customers — a strategy that involves in-depth knowledge of your target audience. More than 70% of consumers feel frustrated when a shopping experience is impersonal. For example when brands send irrelevant emails or when website content is not personalized.
Not just any goals will get your company where it needs to be in its marketing plan. Only SMART goals come highly recommended for having a track record of bringing success to the table.
This is because SMART goals are:
You’ll want to use these best practices to analyze your strategy:
A budget is important for ensuring your marketing team doesn't unexpectedly (sometimes even unintentionally) spend too much on one or more strategies. After all, if no one has a strict amount to abide by, it can become all too easy to overspend. On the other side, you’ll also want to make sure that you have enough of a budget to move the needle.
Likewise, establishing a marketing budget will allow you and your team to stay on target with what your company can afford to pay towards marketing efforts. Marketing executives have devoted an average of 7-10% of their company's revenues towards marketing budgets in the past couple of years but have devoted as much as 13.2% in the last year.
You should also consider working with a media partner to develop a customized marketing strategy. Their expertise can help improve your plan with ideas that have already been tested and proven to work in your industry and market.