Know-How Exchange : Strategy

Hello,

The essentials of a good marketing strategy are to accurately identify your unique value proposition and how you will communicate it and track the effectiveness of your activities. Marketing strategy and tactics also must align with the company's overall strategic goals and vision.

Key data that inform the marketing plan include:
1. Situation analysis (description of your firm's products, competitive position in the industry, industry or regulatory trends that impact your firm, SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) analysis)

2. Key strategic objectives (your company's stated goals/timeframe). For example, if your executive management has determined that your company is looking for x% of growth from displacing competitive market share, the marketing plan should address this goal specifically with a strategy and tactics.

3. Marketing Strategy (defines the marketing-related goals for the corporate strategic objectives and identifies specific programs/tactics to execute on those goals)

4. Measurement (metrics for determining the success of each of the marketing initiatives, or, in other words, how will you measure the ROI of your marketing expenditure?)

5. Resources (what you require in terms of people and budget to execute the strategy)

In your case, I'm unsure what you mean by management not getting you the information you need.

If this refers to hiring outside resources for information, perhaps a tack would be to involve management early on in a series of "executive insight" interviews to mine the knowledge that exists within the company with regard to markets, positioning, growth factors and strategic direction.

You could develop a discussion guide and schedule brief interviews (30 min) with the key stakeholders in the company (executive management, including CEO, CFO, CIO, Sales, Customer Support, Product Development, etc.). The questions would focus on what they see as the key growth opportunities/competitive threats for the business, what they feel has worked successfully (or not) in terms of marketing strategy. Take notes and create a summary of key findings - you'll have a very well-rounded knowledge of the landscape within your business. You will likely identify areas in which you, as a marketing person, need additional resources to gather primary or secondary information to flesh out the questions or desired directions. If you can present the key findings from the set of interviews to your management team, that can help them better understand where additional resources may be needed to inform/execute on a marketing plan.

Another potential source of information is the American Marketing Association. Membership is less than $300/year, and they have excellent resources for studying up on planning. Members also can participate in numerous webinars on marketing-related topics, including strategic planning.

Good luck.