Marketing and strategic communication are a crucial part of building a customer base and increasing brand awareness. By aligning your communication and marketing efforts with your strategic business goals, you can ensure that your time and money are spent in the most effective ways. A targeted marketing and communication plan can increase profits and grow your business.
Goals
A marketing and communication plan is designed to support the goals of your organization as set out in the strategic plan. Each marketing effort is designed to support a specific business goal. If your company is planning to go after a new market sector, for example, the marketing and communication efforts might focus on building awareness or creating interest among potential customers. A marketing plan promotes the company to the people who are most likely to become customers.
Targeted Planning
Strategic communication and marketing are done with careful attention to the target audience. Based on market research into the ideal customer, marketing and communication efforts are designed to reach customers at the right stage in the purchasing process, when they are receptive to marketing messages. Depending on the customer behavior, this might be as specific as sending out an email at the right time of day or as general as placing posters on bulletin boards in places the customer is likely to shop.
Brand Management
An important part of a marketing and communication plan is brand management, which happens at all levels. Your plan should inform communication across the board, from the way employees describe the company to the colors of the website. A marketing and strategic communication plan should either establish a new brand identity or work to refine and support the existing identity.
Methods
A marketing and communication plan lays out the top-level promotional strategies and the methods that will be used to achieve each strategy. For example, if one marketing strategy is to increase audience awareness about a new product, individual efforts might include a social media campaign, a brochure and a cold-calling program. The methods of a marketing plan should be designed to fit within the time line of short- and long-term goals.
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