A strategic marketing plan, or SMP for short, is a solid investment in your business that will save time in the long run, make your marketing program efficient and effective, and give everyone peace of mind that the work being done aligns with the overall business goals.
Creating an SMP takes time, energy, and resources—but the payoff is worth it. If you are wondering what you’ll get for your investment, read on to find out.
What is a Strategic Marketing Plan?
Before we get into the benefits of investing in an SMP, it’s crucial to understand what one is and what it includes.
Our SMP is a high-level guide that illustrates how we weave marketing tactics together to meet our clients’ short-term and long-term goals. The SMP builds on the business’s assets to illustrate each step of reaching the business’s stated goals.
What you’ll get for your investment in a Strategic Marketing Plan
By devoting attention to your marketing strategy and investing in an SMP, here are the insights you’ll receive.
A marketing roadmap
Our clients think of this guiding strategy as a marketing roadmap for staying on track, brushing aside distractions, and measuring progress towards our goals. Generally between 8-15 pages, the SMP is a brief—but detailed—read that C-suite, management, employees, and contractors return to again and again to focus and clarify that their efforts are aligned to support the businesses goals.
Solid business touchpoints
Our SMP gives an extensive look into your business and includes:
- An Executive Summary to highlight your business’s strengths, opportunities, and goals at a glance
- A Business Summary that concisely outlines your business’s mission, team, and products or services, to serve as the foundation for developing and focusing marketing efforts
- Marketing Goals & Metrics to identify marketing tactics with the highest ROI and determine how progress will be measured
- The Visual Marketing Roadmap to give a visual representation of all the pieces that contribute to moving customers along a journey from awareness to brand loyalty
- A high-level overview of the business’s target customers to hone selection of marketing channels, identify their motivations, and avoid wasting resources on customers who aren’t a good fit
- A Market Strategy Statement that connects how the recommended marketing tactics support your goals at every stage of the client journey
- A Budget Breakdown that estimates the marketing investment needed to successfully execute your first-stage and later-stage marketing plans
- Top Three Recommended Marketing Channels for your business to meet and market to your target audience and achieve your specific marketing goals
Want to learn from real examples? This marketing case study shows how a strategic marketing plan helped our client identify their goals and choose where to invest.
Why invest in a Strategic Marketing Plan?
By investing in a strategic marketing plan, you can expect to receive a clear picture of your specific brand goals, as well as a roadmap with the necessary steps to follow. Developing an SMP not only helps you, but also any of your future clients and business partners by giving them a definitive set of marketing approaches and leaving no room for confusion or mixed messaging. Creating a plan saves both time and energy in the long run, so you can spend more time focusing on what you love most—your business.
In addition to helping you stay organized, an SMP highlights which marketing tactics are most effective for your business. By focusing on the most important useful tactics, you are able to attract more specific and promising prospects rather than wasting time on the wrong leads.
Start creating a plan
Our SMP is a powerful tool to get your business closer to your goals. Done well, it will get your team and marketing partner in alignment, getting you closer to your dreams every day.
Want to chat about how a strategic marketing plan can elevate your business? Schedule a no-cost, no-obligation Zoom call to discuss how we can help make it happen.
Key Takeaways
- By investing in a strategic marketing plan, you can expect to receive a clear picture of your specific brand goals, as well as a roadmap with the necessary steps to follow.
- An SMP helps you and any of your future clients or business partners by giving them a definitive set of marketing approaches and leaving no room for confusion or mixed messaging.
- By highlighting your most effective marketing tactics, an SMP can help you attract more promising prospects instead of wasting time on the wrong leads.
