Marketing’s function today is to intentionally and effectively engage all of the people essential to a company’s success.
In addition to helping companies acquire new clients, it can help attract and retain the current clients, employees, strategic partners, investors, bankers, professional service providers, and others who enable a company to achieve its purpose.
In this way, marketing helps to attract investment, improve recurring or returning revenue, and create engaged workplaces – just to name a few initiatives that speak to the appeal of sustainable success.
To help companies achieve these meaningful business outcomes, it’s more important than ever that marketing strategies are aligned to business goals.
This requires planning, and as marketing’s role has expanded, so should our approach to planning.
It can and should include as many stakeholder voices as possible, because they are, after all, essential to the company’s success. It should consider the company as a whole and its impact on others.
It can and should be inspiring, especially for those tasked with implementing the plan, and that’s important to business leaders who value partnership over patriarchy.
The good news is that there is a proven strategic framework that can help you uncover possibilities that could be overlooked in traditional planning frameworks. It’s called the SOAR Strategy, developed by Dr. Jacqueline M. Stavros and Dr. Gina Hinrichs.
The SOAR framework begins by asking, “What are we doing right?” and focuses on Strengths, Opportunities, Aspirations, and Results. I’ve shared more information about this exciting approach to planning along with an example of how to align a marketing goal with a business goal using SOAR in my eBook which you can view here: http://bit.ly/2icbOBz
I hope it inspires you to make new marketing moves. Enjoy!
Photo by Maarten van den Heuvel on Unsplash
About Me, Kelly Stewart: Through Attractivate I’m able to help business leaders focus on B2B marketing strategies that will help them reach their organizational goals. As an On-demand Marketing Director I provide the trusted guidance they need, when they need it, and make every effort to help them build on what’s working as the first step toward greater success. I’m also a Speaker, Champion for Positive Businesses and Practical Optimist. I live in Bucks County, PA with my fun and wonderful husband and our four dogs of all sizes.