Determining the Direction of your Marketing Plan

Now that you have:

• Realized your plan and understood the purpose of a marketing plan…
• Understood the Current Market Situation…
• Segmented the Market and Identified your Potential Customers…

We can now look at determining the direction of your marketing plan. When you think about direction simply think, where do I want this marketing plan to take my business?  In order to answer that question, think about the answers to the following questions: What are my organizational objectives—short-term performance targets? What are my organizational goals—long-term performance targets?

Without set goals and objectives, you will not know whether your marketing efforts are successful. Using set objectives and goals as the basis of your marketing strategies and programs, will not only lead to a successful marketing campaign,  it will also result in an increased brand and product awareness which could lead to an increase in sales and profits.  So before we move forward with the details of actually determining the direction of you marketing plan, take a look at this checklist to see if your objectives (short-term performance targets) line up to allow you to achieve your organizational goals (long-term performance targets.):

• Are the objectives specific and time defined?
• Can progress toward the objectives be measured periodically with metrics?
• Are the objectives realistic?
• Are the objectives consistent with the organization’s mission, goals, priorities and strategic direction?
• Are the objectives consistent with the organization’s resources, strengths and capabilities?
• Are the objectives appropriate, given the environmental opportunities and threats?
• Do the objectives conflict with other objectives?