INDUSTRIAL MARKETING PLANNING

​

"Tactics before strategy is the noise before defeat", said Sun Tzu the great Chinese military strategist, writer, and philosopher. Or put in terms your doctor would understand, a diagnosis without an examination is called malpractice. If you don't have a marketing plan...why not? Are you engaging in marketing tactics, without a clear, and explainable understanding of what each tactic will or won't do for your company?

 

As a responsible, full-service marketing agency, we either want to write the marketing plan, help write the plan, or at a bare minimum, read the plan. If there isn't one written down, how do you really know how to get where it is you want to go? Is your marketing budget being spent most efficiently? If your marketing plan is not much more than number with a dollar sign in front of it, we need to talk. (Exaggeration is intentional to make the point!)

 

We specialize in two types of plans - strategic market plans, and marketing communications plans. 

 

Strategic Market Plans

A strategic market plan covers positioning, distribution, service, competition, pricing, prospects and customers, and at a high level, marketing communications. Through a series of facilitated meetings with a cross-functional team from your company, we create a powerful strategic market plan that delves into your company's strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT); your customers and prospects; the markets you serve or can serve; your distribution - how you get products to market; the competition; your products and services, along with pricing; your sales and marketing organization; your competitors; and your marketing communications plan. Armed with this deep understanding of your company, we put together a powerful action plan that becomes a roadmap to success. We can also facilitate execution of the action plan, coordinating and tracking team member's and staff responsibilities.

 

Marketing Communications Plans

A marketing communication plan forms the foundation (although a fluid one) for your marketing strategy and tactics over a given period of time - usually 12 months. In it, we map out what it is you're selling and why someone would want to buy it; who buys it; how you get it to market; how your competitors are selling against you; the obstacles and opportunities that lie ahead; what your internal objectives are; and then a plan for how to accomplish those objectives. When done properly, this becomes an indispensable, living, breathing document that becomes your communications GPS. As situations evolve, so too does the plan. A marketing communications plan typically takes eight to twelve weeks to complete.