Yikes! Already talking about 2019 marketing plan? In August? August is not too soon to be thinking about your 2019 goals, budgets, campaigns, and content updates.
Putting together a plan—a good, thorough, beneficial plan—requires thought, collaboration, research, organization, and more thought and collaboration. Don’t skimp on preparation. Prepare! Then begin creating the tangible deliverable, the plan.
Here’s how to get started.
- Set expectations
Why are you developing a marketing plan? What will change or not? What will you accomplish?
Start by asking yourself these questions and being sure you are solid on the answers. Then, have that same discussion with your executive/management lead. If you and the firm decision makers are not in alignment on key aspects of the plan and its implementation, circle back and resolve those differences before moving forward.
- Confirm firm buy-in, commitment
This step goes hand in hand with setting expectations. If the firm’s decision makers and leaders, official or otherwise, do not invest in or commit to the plan, they won’t respect and won’t support the plan.
This requirement cuts across the entire planning process. Keep it in mind from this preparation stage through planning through execution through regular reviews and status checks.
- Build an effective planning team
Start by setting out the team commission. Write a commission covering the team’s mission, members, time frame to meet, success measures, and conclusion. Get executive/management lead to review and agree. Sign it!
When identifying team members, remember that this group is expressly for developing a marketing plan. It is not necessarily the same as a standing marketing committee, editorial board, or staff resources to help implement the plan. Team members must agree to the team commission.
How many team members to include will vary according to the scope of your plan (length of time, size of markets covered) and resources (people, money, time) available and willing to commit. Your firm’s marketing planning team may be as small as one (you) or as big as…..too many. There is no hard number. Again, consider what you need to accomplish and the available resources.
One team member should be recognized as the marketing lead. This person serves as the marketing expert and resource, and will be vital to making the plan work. Specifically, the planning team marketing lead is a designated marketing resource. This role is not for professional or support staff who have no experience or ongoing responsibility to the marketing function.
Identify someone to facilitate the process. The facilitator sets the agenda for the work sessions, confirms that questions are researched and addressed, and that the final plan is documented and moves on to implementation. This can be any staff member who has the experience and skill to support this delicate task. This is an excellent responsibility to outsource, bringing in an objective guide to keep the discussions on track and moving forward.
- Gather and review supporting materials; assess your marketing status
To develop an effective plan, you need to assess what you know and what you don’t, what you’ve accomplished and what you haven’t. You need to establish priorities. Gather and review any existing items to help evaluate your marketing maturity and determine what you need to accomplish. Make the materials and information you collect available to all team members for review. There is a wide range of what might be available to you. Common documents to collect include:
- Previous marketing and business plans
- Mission, vision, and value statements
- Stated goals and objectives
- Industry research, economic reports
- Brand documentation
- Proposal reviews, evaluations, and debriefs
If you have previously established an ongoing process for developing marketing plans, you will have much of this information readily available. If you have not completed this process recently or are starting from scratch, you will need to do some ground work.
As you gather information, keep a list of what you’re missing. If the missing items are critical to the planning process, determine how to resolve the gaps. For Sequitur Marketing clients, this step is covered in the Marketing Inventory.
- Build process to support the plan’s long-term success
You carefully define your planning project and select an ace planning team. Now, how to get a plan in place that reflects your investment and hard work? That’s another big topic, for sure! Here is an at-a-glance version of the planning process I follow.
- Review the firm’s business history, progress, and current status. Identify and resolve information gaps.
- Identify specific goals to meet, objectives to accomplish, and metrics to document success.
- Develop the calendar of marketing activities including deadlines, project owners, and resources needed. Develop individual campaign and project plans as needed.
- Obtain appropriate executive/management review and approval for the plan.
- Make it work! Be sure to build in regular reviews, reporting, and fine tuning.
Planning to plan? At its best, your marketing plan will contribute to all aspects of the firm’s success. Why not invest a little in starting out in the right direction?
