Marketing planning, pain or pivotal?

Probably more than any other indicator, the processes used to create, document, and execute marketing plans are a measure of the maturity and competitiveness of an organization.

As a marketing company, we’re often employed to create a variety of marketing plans. Our own journey of discovery through the maze of planning techniques, planning theory, and presentation styles has resulted in a somewhat Zen approach: Simple planning processes focused on clear objectives, that result in simple plans limited to a specific use, speed plan creation, improve planning quality and remove planning pain.

A short article can’t attempt to explore the subject of marketing planning in any depth. Nor, because of the variety of organizational cultures and approaches to planning, can we hope to advocate a specific plan structure or planning process that works for everybody. All we can hope to do here is touch on some best practices, gleaned from our own experiences. Hopefully we can relieve the pain of planning in a harassed marketing environment and help you produce better plans – and, the point of it all, better results.

Realistic

An early lesson learned in any organization is that objective-setting, planning, and execution are three separate activities. “Market domination” – a favorite objective among start-ups – is mathematically only possible for one company. Scale back grand objectives and massive planning efforts so that the plan is practical given current market conditions and product realities, and execution can be completed successfully within the time period with the resources available. Match the plan to your organization’s ability to execute, based on your past record. There is no point in hoping to do better next time unless your plan includes activities to improve how you go about executing it or the organization’s capability has changed significantly. Companies fail because of their inability to execute fully and execute on time.

Your ability to execute can be augmented by outsourcing if you don’t have the expertise or resources in-house, but core competency is harder to obtain. A good starting point is to know your core competencies. From our experience, most companies don’t. Use an activity mapping technique(1) to see how your core competencies support your corporate and marketing objectives, and to identify gaps. Again, this is an exercise that requires a good dose of realism.

It may be marketing, but it isn’t magic. The laws of reality and logic still apply. One manager we knew always looked closely for the “magic” in marketing and product development plans. “Ah!” he’d say, pointing at the plan, “How do you get from here to here? This must be where magic happens.” Avoid magic in your plans, do your homework to ensure that A+B really will result in C. The pain of failed execution is far worse than the pain you’ll experience in reining-in big plans to become real plans.