Planning, simplified

By: Amy Lewis

Posted on 11/26/2011 - 9:47am | From the Communications Blog

Planning. It instills either excitement or dread into business executives about this time of year. I’m a concrete-sequential person, so I enjoy dissecting strengths and weaknesses, defining objectives, and bringing clarity to marketing ideas and how they align with business objectives. In the end, I have a directive for moving ahead and a road map with the route.

For some, the planning process is overwhelming and often ends in frustration and half-hearted plans that fall by the wayside about as quickly as a New Year’s resolution.

If you fall into that category, I suggest you either hire someone to do your marketing planning and implementation, or make your marketing planning more manageable. Assuming your company and your brand are at least somewhat established, I suggest two basic steps to set your course for 2012:

1. Define your objectives
2. Apply your marketing tactics in a Gantt-style marketing calendar

Most marketing plans include an assessment of your brand positioning, the market, your target customers and influencers, and an outline of tactics and evaluation metrics. Much of this doesn’t vary from year-to-year. Others are inherently known. Quite simply, you need to define what you’re working towards and how you’re going to get there.

Defining Your Objectives

Most businesses can define what it is they hope to accomplish in 2012. Grow sales by 20 percent. Generate $1 million in sales in a new market. Increase business from existing clients by 10 percent. What will your company work towards in 2012? Simply articulating those measureable goals will build focus around them.

Gantt-style marketing calendar

Every industry and every company have certain times of a year around which they celebrate, gather or market their wares. Industry trade shows. A change in seasons. Annual awards. These trigger events are opportune times for you to communicate with your customers, suppliers, friends and the public. But what about the months in between? Do you know when those quiet periods occur for your business?

A Gantt-style marketing calendar gives you a year-long view of your outreach activities.  You can easily see dates for your email newsletters, the months your advertising runs and the weeks devoted to industry trade shows. Your website, direct sales force and collateral materials are constants underpinnings of your annual marketing. The calendar can also help you plan an integrated, focused campaign around a specific event or time of year.

Don’t let the planning process overwhelm you to the point of stagnation. A simple plan is better than no plan at all.