The Planning Process: Where Do Marketing Plans Fit?

For the past few weeks, we’ve been talking about Marketing Plans and how to develop an approach to your work that is proactive, not reactive, and aligns with company goals and leadership objectives.

Now we’re stepping back to show you how Marketing Plans fit into the overall planning cycle within a company. No matter how big or small, each company has business goals and objectives to meet sales targets and remain profitable. One of our jobs as marketers is to determine how our marketing projects can help achieve company goals outlined during the planning cycle – including sales plans, business plans and strategic plans.

In the graphic above, there are four stages of planning:

• Strategic Planning drives all other planning processes within a company and includes overall company goals on a 3-5 year cycle. This stage is led by company owners and focuses on overall objectives, goals and other indicators for profitability and company growth.
• Business Plans are the next step in the planning process and are typically created every 3 years for each business unit within a company. This level of planning is led by the Business Development (BD)/Sales Manager with additional involvement from technical and BD staff with owner buy-in during final review/approval. Business Plans include an overall vision, objectives, market overview, financial information, company resources and key actions to meet objectives.
• Sales Plans are completed each year and are driven by BD/Sales staff. Typically, technical staff are also involved and ownership will review/approve when complete. Sales Plans are focused on specific services or markets and include a SWOT analysis, target clients, services, geography, positioning, sales goals and staff responsible for meeting those goals.
• Marketing/Communications Plan are also completed every year, and this process is led by a Marketing Manager/Director in collaboration with marketing staff as well as technical staff. Marketing Plans can be broad to focus on all services within a company or more focused to a single service, depending on the diversity of a company’s service line. Marketing Plans include competitor research, a marketing audit, key messages, objectives, strategies, and tactics, all on a prioritized timeline for completion (typically 12-18 months).

Each company may not participate in each level of planning – it all depends on size and staff resources. Once a company develops a plan, it’s important that each action be assigned to a staff person responsible for guiding that task to completion by a specified date. To keep a plan on track, progress meetings should can be scheduled at regular intervals (monthly, quarterly, etc.) for key stakeholders to discuss progress, accomplishments, and future direction.

Need help with your planning process? Let us help you develop a Marketing Plan that fits into your overall planning cycle.