Have you started to go the SOSTAC route?
The SOSTAC marketing model, created by PR Smith created in 1990, is a popular and widely used model for marketing and business planning. Whether you’re creating an overall marketing or digital marketing strategy or improving individual channel tactics like SEO or email marketing, this is the tool to use.
Situation Analysis— where are we now?
A situation analysis is an overview of your business. It helps you determine where your business stands at the moment so that you can draft your strategy for the future.
Objectives — where do we want to be?
The second step in drawing up a marketing plan is to be very clear about your long-term objectives such as the vision and mission of your marketing strategy as well as short-term objectives. Make sure your goals are SMART when creating them.
Strategy — how do we get there?
The strategy is the big picture of how you plan to achieve the objectives you have set. It also happens to be one of the more difficult parts of the SOSTAC marketing plan.
Tactics — how exactly do we get there?
This section outlines details of strategy such as the methods you use to achieve your objectives.
Action — what is our plan?
You determine who does what. You need to assess whether you have the human resources internally or whether you need to hire new staff with the required skills set. You must determine whether you need the help of any external agencies or consultants.
Control — did we get there?
Monitoring progress is also an important step. You must put in place systems that help you assess progress periodically — daily, weekly, monthly, or quarterly. This will ensure that at the end of the project time period, you don’t suddenly find out that things haven’t gone as planned.
To summarise everything, digital marketing is the new norm going forward and we need to use this to our best ability. The SOSTAC is a very simple and easy-to-use model and implements in any SME business. The list of benefits is endless and if you have not implemented this model yet, you better start ASAP.
