“If you form a strategy without research, your brand will barely float and at the speed industries move at today brands sink fast” – Ryan Holmes
Sales and marketing campaigns and activities are integral to modern commerce. In fact, these activities epitomize the core rationale of undertaking commercial activities on any scale. The gurus of trade and commerce recommend entrepreneurs frame a cogent marketing plan to identify target markets; understand how a product (or service) meets the requirements of clients and customers; identify the competition in a certain business; and delineate competitors’ strengths and weaknesses. In essence, a marketing strategy embodies the approach and sustained efforts of a marketing team to achieve its goals. A critical part of the strategy is to design tactics that will allow the team to achieve business goals, while keeping marketing priorities in mind and remaining aligned to core business objectives. Flowcharts represent a modern paradigm that allows business operators to deploy marketing strategy planning in competitive landscapes.
Business objectives can find expression in quantifiable targets that a company may wish to achieve inside a set timescale. Flowcharts can help business operators position said targets as part of marketing strategy planning activities. Such an illustration must evolve to depict various mechanisms that spur marketing actions in different geographies. For instance, a retail business operation may benefit from a flowchart that depicts key aspects of marketing strategy planning in various phases. These could include efforts to double the quanta of sales to bulk customers in the following calendar quarters, target key customers with new offers designed to increase sales, and court new clients with an enhanced range of products and services. These expressions of marketing strategy planning can be refined when managers of the business operation peruse the flowchart at close quarters. We note such an illustration can explore different dimensions in visual space per the requirements of the sponsor business.
Buckets that connote action and corporate resolve can populate a flowchart designed to spur marketing strategy planning campaigns. Such an illustration can emerge as a straightforward diagram that depicts a range of actions. Consumer analysis, market analysis, an analysis of the competition, a review of distribution channels, developing a marketing mix, and evaluating the economics of these actions can distinguish the flow of information inside this flowchart. Each stage can bring forth a set of sub-stages that describe the outcomes of analyses and evaluation appended to a desired timescale. When activated, these lines of content can guide the design of marketing strategy for a commercial organization. Corporate stewards can view the diagram as a roadmap that underlies marketing strategy planning activities.
In the digital domain, marketing operatives can embark on marketing strategy planning by surveying a host of digital tactics and accoutrements that distinguish the modern electronic commerce. A flowchart designed for this expedition can emerge as a schema that resembles a marine biological specimen, the octopus. Marketing and strategy planning represent the central mission embedded in this diagram; a host of stages feed into the center. These stages can describe various tactics such as social media, local search marketing, digital link building, video marketing, landing page conversions, search analytics, search engine optimization, customer relationship management modules, etc. Such instances of marketing strategy planning can help the digital enterprise create the proverbial splash in competitive markets and establish a beachhead in digital commerce. When sketched inside an electronic display, the various aspects of the flowchart help reinforce the outlines of an outstanding marketing strategy.
Reverse strategies can help digital entrepreneurs plan the outlines of an effective marketing strategy. In essence, such a technique hinges on the use of extant business data and information to drive marketing strategy planning initiatives. For instance, an e-commerce operator can design a blank flowchart and subsequently populate the empty spaces with information. Such data can stem from a review of product orders already in place with the operator, an assessment of followers and fans on social media handles, information from email addresses culled from the World Wide Web, information sourced from outcomes of previous marketing campaigns, etc. We note such a flowchart, when complete, can emerge as a veritable treasure trove of valuable ideas that can breathe new life into marketing strategy planning activities. In addition, the illustration can assist the average enterprise to lift its game in the digital marketing sweepstakes.
Revision is key to the long-term success of marketing strategy planning initiatives. This assertion stems from the fact changing business realities can (and should) impact the design and content of these initiatives. Pursuant to this, a flowchart diagram could variously depict the impact following, for instance, the rise of a powerful new commercial competitor, a sudden change in consumer tastes or requirements, the implementation of new legislation that impacts business decisions and operations, etc. Therefore, business operators must design blank spaces into their flowcharts that depict ongoing marketing strategy planning designs and activities. Detailed sub-stages could be implemented to examine the appropriate reactions that must follow the scenarios depicted earlier in this paragraph. We note the utility of such a flowchart extends to sensitizing business operators to the importance of responding to changing situations in the interests of re-defining stances built into an existing marketing strategy.
Messaging represents a central aspect of marketing strategy planning in modern times. Therefore, flowcharts designed for the purpose should depict messaging prominently in the interests of driving greater clarity. The components of such messaging should include the unique value proposition of a product or service, the ‘big idea‘ or hook or theme that attracts commercial audiences, the relevance of a certain call to action, the emotional and rational benefits of a product or service, etc. The emerging diagram spotlights certain aspects of a long-term marketing strategy, and has the potential to boost sales and profits, while elevating the levels of consumer preference for a brand. We note this form of marketing strategy planning could be populated with different messages; however, messages should form only a segment of the master illustration. The intelligent entrepreneur can derive synergies between the elements of messaging and other segments of the marketing strategy as part of the journey towards business success.
Innovation in design can unlock fresh meaning when businesses design flowcharts to further the cause of marketing strategy planning initiatives. The positioning of information in a semi-hemispherical illustration can help businesses derive new insights from a schematic diagram. The planning aspect could emerge in a sequence of successive stages that variously depict innovative new marketing strategies, growth in customer acquisition, retention of market share, harvesting maximum output from marketing spends, and re-investing a portion of profit in defining new strategies. These stages can populate various slices of said semi-hemispherical illustration, thereby establishing novelty in flowchart design. Various metrics, when appended to said slices, can help business operators to measure the outcomes of such efforts.
We have examined the planning aspects of a marketing strategy through the agency of flowchart diagrams. Live inputs from a variety of stakeholders such as team members, managers, supervisors, vendors, business analysts, and external consultants can help such strategy to gain relevance in multiple contexts. Feedback from market operations could inform and underlie such planning as part of efforts to tune strategy with market realities. On their part, designers can offer various forms of input to elevate the design quality of the schematic documents, thereby gaining deeper traction in the minds of readers and reviewers.