Strategic Planning

What’s Your Objective?

When shooting rapids in a canoe, if you say “I don’t know” the river will decide for you. In marketing if you don’t know what to do, the river of consumerism will drop your brand right over the falls.

You and your team need to have a clear and detailed plan of where you’re going and how you expect to get there. And equally important, that plan needs to be actively managed.

You Can’t Manage What You Don’t Measure

Is your advertising effective? How do you know? Is your communication cutting-edge? How can you tell? Is your marketing on target? Who says?

It doesn’t matter what parameters you use, but you’ve got to agree on a baseline and goal for measurement and comparison.

Whatever metric you use, give yourself at least a year to track the results. Seasonality will always be a factor in sales.

Besides giving yourself a measuring tool; tracking gives everyone who works for you an objective basis on which they can measure their own growth and success.

Pick your standards. Pick your measurements. Set your standards as high as your dare – then live up to them. If you live up to your standards, it will change not just your business, but your life.

Live and Die by the 80/20 Rule

It’s likely that most of your business comes from a loyal, relatively small, core audience. If you study the sales, viewer-ship, attendance or similar form of measurement valid for your business, you’ll see that nearly 80 percent (or at least two-thirds) of your business comes from approximately 20 percent of your customers. It’s a maxim of marketing that endures.

Satisfied customers. Repeat buyers, Heavy viewers, Frequent fliers. Every industry has a term for their core group, but knowing you’ve got a core of heavier users is just the first step. Who are they and how do you communicate with them? How do they differ from the rest of your audience? What are
their purchasing habits and how are you tracking their tastes?