The #1 reason for the marketing function to fail is “You Don’t have a plan”. Here are some of the signs that you don’t have a plan
Nothing is documented
Plans are borrowed
Marketing activities keep changing
Everything is a last-minute
The result – “BAD MARKETING”
What is the fix?
Develop your own plan. The business, sales, and marketing objectives and goals are to be data and insights-driven (external and internal).
Plan out for a year and review each quarter
Use the step by step strategic process
“Failing to plan is planning to fail”. I strongly believe if you spend a good amount of time to creating the right plan, it is half the job done right. Remaining is all about focused execution and optimization.
Emerging company CEOs/Founders/CMO’s assess the business objectives to develop the optimal strategy and facilitate a best-in-class marketing planning process that aligns with how the company plans to grow and optimize resources to scale for rapid growth.
I have put together an eight-step process and plan to align with company growth plans based on my experiences working with emerging companies. I would suggest you do the following before embarking on the strategic marketing planning exercise - Assess and document the current state, perform the SWOT analysis, gain insights into markets, regions, competitors.
1. Business objectives - These objectives tell the purpose, story and they are the driving force for the company. These factors help the business running.
2. Business goals - These are quantifiable goals based on what the company wants to achieve in the new fiscal year. These are derived from the company business objectives and given to marketing as part of the annual planning process – reflecting current targets.
3. Sales Goals – An annual sales plan will provide the inputs on overall sales quota – overall and by practice/product/service/salesperson/region, how much of it is going to be coming from upsell/cross-sell in existing customers base and how much of it is contributed by the net new business. The Net new quota will form a vital input for deriving the marketing goal in terms of the number of leads to be generated.
4. Marketing Objectives would tell the story of how the quantifiable business goals will be achieved in the coming year. They provide high-level direction into what marketing will be doing.
5. Marketing Goals are the quantifiable and provide in greater detail on what marketing will be doing. The marketing goals define critical metrics for marketing performance that link back to the business goals. (Marketing goals to be categorized into immediate/short term, medium-term and long term).
6. Marketing Strategy the consistent approach marketing would take to achieve the marketing goals and establishes how things will be done.
7. Execution plan – This element specifies how the strategy will be executed. It should provide the direction for the key actions, reflect the current environment, resources required.
8. Measures - The measurement criterion, definitions, key performance indicators (KPIs) that directly support the achievement of the key actions.
Risks and Dependencies: One should identify the dependencies across stakeholders, Capture mission-critical risks to running the business metrics at each stage of this planning framework.
Marketing Budget – There are 2 ways to derive the marketing budget for emerging companies. One, you take the industry benchmark of 8-12% of the company’s revenue with a 1:5 as quantitative ROI or derive from the marketing goals and what needs be done to achieve those goals (categories of the budget – People, Processes, partnerships, Tools/Technology, Website and digital, campaigns, research and surveys, Events, advertisements, etc.,)
Here are some tips on Do’s and Don’ts that you should consider during this planning exercise
1. Do Accurately measure the company's baseline and progress toward the target state
2. Do Reconcile conflicting views
3. Do Build strong buy-in
4. Do Focus resources and attention
5. Do Communicate explicitly
6. Do Allow for real-time course corrections
7. Do Capture the essence of the strategy
8. Do Describe the organization’s desired end state
9. Do Set goals to determine when the end state will be reached
1. Don’t Push ahead without consensus and stakeholder buy-in
2. Don’t Create confusion around the basis of strategy
3. Don’t Create doubt around what constitutes a strategy
4. Don’t Create overly detailed metrics related to day-to-day performance
5. Don’t Target scenarios too distant from the current state
Contact Kalyan today to
Request a sample marketing plan for an emerging company
Perform an audit on the current state, identify gaps, suggest improvements in an existing plan
create a marketing plan that is short and to the point and sustain the marketing organization on a steady course throughout the year.