Imagine that you are going to take a long car journey. Many things need to be defined, such as what you are going to take, whether you are going to pack more clothes for the heat or for the cold. Even more important is defining the route, considering the traffic, the safest and the most dangerous paths. You need to calculate how much you will spend on tolls and fuel. In short, before you actually hit the road, you need to plan ahead.
To start and run a business is the same thing. The trip can be successful or unsuccessful. Without strategic planning, with a lot of luck, you may get lost and arrive at even better destinations, but certainly spending more than expected. In business, therefore, having a strategic plan is always the safest option.
Do not know where to start? Just read these 6 steps and everything will become clearer in your mind.
1 – Purpose
It is crucial that you have short-, medium- and long-term goals. But, as we are thinking from a strategic point of view, define now what you want from your company for the long term. Where are you and where do you want to go?
Examples of objectives are: generate qualified leads/contacts, increase productivity, be a reference on the subject, reduce customer acquisition costs, among others. A precaution to be taken is not to set vague goals, such as increasing sales, for example. Think about how much you want to increase, in what time frame, and how you will reach that goal.
We are talking here about SMART goals, an acronym that defines the characteristics of ideal goals in terms of strategy.
Specific
Measurable
Achievable
Relevant
Time
Calm down, let's explain what it all means:
Specific: Be direct with your goals. As we said above, if the goal is to increase sales, define whether the increase should be 30, 40 or 50%.
Measurable: it must be possible to measure the indicators of achieving the goal. Something important for organizing the strategic plan and for identifying whether the actions taken are bringing the expected results.
Achievable: Set realistic goals. Don’t set, for example, to triple the company's revenues in two months. This can generate frustration for the entire team. The important thing is to grow in your time, in an organized and controlled way.
Relevant: the goals need to make sense to the company and to all departments, bringing positive results.
Time: it is necessary to set a deadline for the goals to be achieved, so that it is taken seriously by everyone at company.
It is also essential at this stage of planning to define the company's identity, its purpose and its position in the market. In other words, what are its mission, vision and values, strategic elements of a company that allow measuring its results.
Mission: refers to the company's reason for existing, being more related to products and/or services.
Vision: it is a long-term goal, the goal to be achieved by the company in a certain period of time.
Values: it is how the company behaves in the market, the principles that guide its actions, which should even influence the conduct of employees (e.g., integrity, respect for the customer, close service etc.).
2. Audience
It's critical to understand your audience's behavior. This way, you will reach them in a natural way, making your message more assertive and your products and/or services more attractive.
As much as your target audience is made up of different people, even with different expectations, they have some things in common. These are the characteristics that you will use to build your persona, the generalization of your audience.
But, before building this profile, it is necessary to do a lot of research on behavior, desires, needs, even how much your audience is willing to pay for your services. This way, you will be able to establish your communication directed to a real person, which greatly increases the chances of success in reaching your goals.
However, don't forget that your audience is much more than the consumer. It is formed by all the people who are, directly or indirectly, influenced by the company, that is, the so-called stakeholders. This group includes its employees – after all, they are an important part of the company, and the image they have about it will be transmitted to the market –, suppliers, partners, etc. You need to communicate in different ways with all these audiences.
3. Set goals
Since you've already defined your goals, you need to set goals to reach them. Because you're hardly going to generate leads, increase sales or be a reference in a topic overnight. Until then, short-term goals must be achieved.
Set deadlines for goals. For example, the goal is to increase sales, so one of the goals might be to improve the company's marketing communication. To narrow it further, you can consider improving engagement on social media in any given month. And, of course, use the metrics you have to measure results.
4. Benchmarketing/SWOT
This is the stage where you will study the market, see what customers and competition are doing. You will explore your best and work to improve your difficulties.
The word SWOT (or FOFA, in Brazil) is an acronym for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats, which refers to an analysis considering your company and the market in which it operates.
See below for a little more about each of the terms.
Strengths: internally, your company has an advantage over competitors (e.g., better cost/benefit ratio, more time on the market, good relationship with the public).
Weaknesses: also from an internal point of view, it is what your company has disadvantages compared to competitors (e.g., few resources, high costs, inability to produce in quantity).
Opportunities: these are aspects of the external market scenario that can strengthen your brand (e.g., weakening your competitor, an issue at hand that has a relationship with your company).
Threats: these are external aspects that disadvantage your company (e.g., financial crisis, change in customer preferences, greater number of competitors).
The purpose of this analysis is to make your strengths even stronger, try to reduce your weaknesses and devise strategies to defend against external threats. When combined with benchmarking, SWOT becomes an even more interesting strategy.
In benchmarking, you will research the performance of companies that are benchmarks in your industry and compare their results with yours. This is important for you to know what the other person is best at and also for you to develop a unique position in the market. What are these companies' communication strategies, how often do they communicate with the public? How many products have you launched in the last year? You don't need to copy other brands' positioning, but it's important to be knowledgeable about what they're doing.
5 – Action plan
At this stage, once you've defined your objectives and goals, it's time to think about what means will you use to achieve them and how. If you already know your audience well, as mentioned above, it's much easier. Knowing what your needs are, you can link them to solutions.
Another important point is to understand where this audience can be found. Whether he's on social media, in stores, in front of the television. It is necessary to define which are the most assertive communication channels
Also be sure to review the company's internal processes. What needs to change in the day-to-day work in order for the goals to be achieved? Communicate to all employees so that everyone is committed to the organization's goals and growth.
Here also comes the importance of good business management, which includes, among many actions, distributing tasks, placing key people in leadership positions, motivating the team, organizing the flow of processes. It is important that everyone is clear about where the company is and where it needs to go.
6 – Monitor
Never fail to review the company's performance, always paying attention to the objectives stipulated above. In addition to performing daily and weekly analyses, monitor the progress of strategic planning on a monthly basis, generating data and reports that allow everyone to have a broader view.
Also organize meetings with all the departments, to check how is doing in each branch of the company. This step is also important to understand if the team is on the right path. If errors are occurring, you can quickly change direction or adjust your action plan.
Take into account your company's universe
Following this step by step will surely ensure that the organization grows in a more satisfactory, controlled way and achieving many expected results. However, each company has its team, its characteristics and particularities. Do not forget to consider the specific aspects of your company when making a strategic plan that will lead to success.
Good luck!
