3 Reasons Why You Should Track Your Strategic Planning Process

Strategic marketing planning is a complicated yet necessary part of every business. Without a solid strategic marketing plan and strategy, you run the risk of increasing the costs of your marketing spending and losing sight of your objectives.

Unfortunately, many businesses operate without a clear strategic plan outlining their marketing tactics’ direction and objectives. In a surprising report, OnStrategy found that 86% of business owners and marketing managers spend no more than one hour (or less) per month discussing their marketing strategies.

Considering that many businesses fail due to a lack of direction, it’s crucial you avoid making mistakes by paying attention to your strategic planning process. Whether you’re a business owner or a marketer, here’s why you should monitor your strategic planning process. Let’s get started!

1. Identify influences.

When you monitor your strategic planning process, you are able to identify any external and internal forces that can influence your customers, your brand, and the marketplace. This includes micro-influences such as your customers themselves and customers, and macro-influences like social, political, and economic issues. These influences influence your customer’s demands for your products and services. Having a concise strategic planning process provides you with sufficient insights that can help shape your overall marketing plan.

2. Delivers value propositions.

A value proposition is a promise that a company makes to its customers. It serves as a summary of why your customers should purchase your products or services over your competitors. It plays a huge role in the buying process of your customers. Your strategic planning process will help you develop an effective value proposition that exceeds your customer’s perceptions of your brand and its offerings, especially with online experiences.

3. Prioritizes your marketing goals.

Through your strategic planning process, you’ll be able to determine your objectives and tactics that can help you achieve your goals. How? Well, during the process, you’ll need to consider what goals are most important (lead generation, acquisition, etc.), your competition, and methods of tracking performance. And when you keep these tactics in mind, you will be able to reach your long-term marketing goals much faster than without a strategic plan in place.

I know this all sounds like a lot, but your strategic planning process should be one of the first things you think about when you want to launch your marketing efforts. In fact, this process doesn’t need to be anything too complex.

For many business owners and marketers, their strategic planning process involves 4 major steps: determining an industry and market position, creating an effective strategy, developing a marketing plan, and maintaining marketing efforts

Just make sure you implement a careful approach to give yourself enough time to learn about your industry, establish your market position, and learn about your customers!