In this episode of Actionable Marketing In Minutes we talk about strategies & assessments, and how they can help you be successful!
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Problem:
Have you ever had an idea and, while it sounded great in your head, it fell to pieces during execution? I’m sure at some point in our lives that has happened to all of us. If not in your professional career, then surly in your personal life. So, what happened to that “great idea”? If I had to guess I would say it was a victim of poor planning.
Solution:
To bring your ideas to life and to get your business to where it needs to be, you need goals, strategies, and tactics. Start by asking yourself, what are our business and marketing goals? A goal is your primary outcome. What do you hope to achieve? The goal should be measurable. By starting with the goal, you can work forward building marketing campaigns that will help you ultimately reach that goal. With a strong and attainable goal in place you can then start building a strategy.
Strategies are the WHAT of the plan. What are you going to do to get to where you need to be? What are the programs you are going to put in place? Solid strategies do more than support the goals. They give direction and can help to minimize resistance by directly supporting the organizations goals.
A good strategy is focused and has key performance indicators that show whether it is successful or not. We recommend that you always look back to see if your outcomes match up with your goals.
Your marketing strategy should be a fully-integrated solution that addresses every need for your business.
Ok, so we’ve talked a lot about strategies, but what about assessments. Well, assessments are the bookends. You need to start your strategy work with an assessment of your current situation. This includes your competitors, your customers and your target market. Assessing your current market situation helps you go into your strategy work with your eyes wide open. As you work through your goals and tactics you should be considering how you are going to assess their success upon completion. Some might call these Key Performance Indicators. And while KPIs are part of the assessment it’s not the whole picture. Just like you needed to assess your competitors, customers, and target market at the start of your strategy work, you should also assess them upon completion of your marketing programs to see how your efforts changed the landscape.
Benefits
Benjamin Franklin once said “by failing to prepare you are preparing to fail”. So, that great idea in your mind will fail to execute beautifully if you do not prepare for its launch.
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Join us for an upcoming episode where we talk about the importance of ongoing marketing.
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