Since it’s August, the month when marketers start planning and budgeting for the following year, we thought we’d share our most beloved Marketing Strategy framework with you.
Having started WIZ Advisors in 2017 after a 20-year career in corporate strategy and marketing, I had a ton of templates and frameworks I’d built to drive success for the companies and clients I’d supported. This Marketing Strategy framework below was one I kept using and updating throughout my career until it became a tried-and-true, one page document of every necessary component of a detailed Marketing Strategy. I continue to use this framework to create Powerpoint skeletons for my clients every year which we then go on to fill in together.
Some years, we may only use pieces of the framework because we aren’t starting from scratch – and many of the insights we’ve developed are still relevant. But if we’ve launched new products or entered new markets – or if new competitors entered ours – it became important to revisit each section of the strategy to determine if/where updates needed to be made and gaps existed.
In the Marketing Strategy framework above, there are three key things to understand. 1) The arrows highlighted in teal green will change – things like sales goals, revenue goals, marketing initiatives, and budget. You will need to focus on updating those every year. 2) The arrows highlighted in blue may not need to change. However, as discussed above, if your products, markets or competitors have changed at all, these should reexamined and revised to incorporate the new situation. 3) And finally, the questions below each arrow are provided as a place to start for you and your team to think through what should be included in each section.
Happy almost end of summer and hope this marketing framework helps you in your marketing and strategic planning going forward.