Pulling together a strategic marketing plan for an organization and executing on it can be a real competitive advantage. If your organization hasn’t pulled together a strategic marketing plan, the good news is that it doesn’t have to require a huge amount of time or resources to provide a positive impact. In fact, some real basic strategic planning can be done in a fairly short amount of time. I’ve been involved in some very short (2 to 3 hour) planning sessions for organizations that hadn’t used any formal process in the past. These short sessions provided concrete feedback and direction that the organizations were able to apply to their business or strategy immediately.

In fact, the Maine Marketing Association’s (MMA) leadership got together last week for a 2 hour strategic planning breakfast. While the MMA leadership meets frequently throughout the year, it’s really only through our annual strategic planning sessions that the leadership gets to take a step back to review where the organization has been and to chart where we’d like to see it headed.

The basic structure we used for the MMA’s strategic planning session can be used by any type of business or organization. The agenda for that meeting included a review of the organization’s mission statement (which was designed during last year’s planning session), a review of key accomplishments over the past year, a SWOT analysis (review of Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) and goal setting for the upcoming year. As we designed the goals, we began to attach preliminary timeframes for accomplishing them based on need and available resources. With timeframes attached to goals, we’re able to track our strategic execution throughout the year.

If your business or organization hasn’t conducted any type of strategic market planning, the process itself of pulling one together will likely provide positive results and new thinking. There are many simple frameworks and/or strategic market planning experts out there to help if you’re not sure where to begin. There are also more comprehensive frameworks if you've already done this type of planning in the past and are looking to do more (see an example Marketing Plan Template if interested in other components). Finally, feel free to contact us at the Maine Marketing Association if you have questions on how to get started.

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