The success of a marketing campaign relies on a series of controllable and uncontrollable factors that will determine the end result. However, there is one particular element that most marketers overlook all the time. Strategic Planning.
Strategic Planning is an organization’s process of defining its strategy or direction, and making decisions on allocating its resources—including its capital and people—to pursue this strategy.
The SWOT analysis plays a big role in this process. Knowing what your business Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats are, will help you respond and be prepared for the outcome of your communications campaigns, changes in market, and competitor’s responses.
It is crucial to understand where you are now in the market and where you would like to be. If you are not new in the market, consumers’ brand perception is very important, too. Most of the time, conducting a focus group will help you prove that your marketing efforts are in the right direction and will help your ad agency understand the psychological aspect of your consumers at time of purchase. This is very valuable information to have, especially for the creative team of your agency.
A good example is a case study we conducted with a financial Institution. The VP of Marketing called us for help because she was disappointed in her Hispanic campaign response. She had been spending a substantial amount of money reaching out to this community through translations that were done by her Anglo agency. Once we started asking her to describe her typical Hispanic clientele, she didn’t know enough about them and didn’t know how often they were using her bank services. Also, there was no strategic plan created by the bank or her ad agency for their Hispanic outreach.
After we conducted a focus group, we discovered that Hispanic customers were not happy with the services the bank was offering. There were no personalized services for Hispanics and only 3% of their employees were bilingual. So they could get this market in the door, but once there, they couldn’t serve them.
It is vital to plan ahead and be prepared for the outcome. The success could be in your hands but it is up to you to use the right tools to make the most of it. You must know how to bring them in the doors and how to keep them there. Once you do, you will have a rapidly growing segment of very loyal consumers.
