The Value of Creating & Updating a Strategic Plan

As we closed out 2015 and looked forward to 2016, we took some time to assess the year behind and plan ahead.  One step in looking forward was to create a new strategic marketing plan. Yes, we’re a marketing firm, and yes even we need a plan to keep us moving forward.

The reasons to create a plan – and update it regularly – are simple:

1. Clearly define your goals. A strategic marketing plan gives you the opportunity to clearly state and visualize your goals. Doing this on a six-month or yearly basis lets you ask: are our goals still on track, did we meet them, do they need to change?
2. Refine your audiences. Look closely at your audiences. Are they still on target, have they changed, are there new ways to reach them?  You may think you know your audience, but there’s never a bad time make sure you really understand your audiences and identify new ways to reach them.
3. Update your tasks. Look at what you’ve done over the past year and ask yourself:
   • What has worked and what hasn’t?
   • Can we be doing more of what worked?
   • Are there new tools we can use?

Once you have a plan in place, create a calendar. We do this often for our clients and we do it for ourselves –a calendar keeps you on task and more importantly, looks at every audience, every task, and the overall business objectives to strategically support and implement all these moving pieces.