You’ve done your work, spent the time, and cranked out a great strategic marketing plan, well done. Pat yourself on the back and take a deep breath, because only half the work is done. Implementation can be just as daunting as putting together the strategic marketing plan itself. Without successful implementation the best plan becomes useless. This short article will outline 5 key steps to successfully implementing a strategic marketing plan.
First Things First
Let’s clearly get a hold of what implementation entails. In a most technical sense it involves managing change.

When it’s 4th and goal with no time on the clock, I want to know what my strengths are, what will work, and who I can depend on. That type of information gives me the power to call a great play and lead my team to victory. In business terms this means knowing where your company stands in relationship to competitors, capabilities, and customer perceptions. If you do not know all of these things you may call a bad business play. Like calling a run play in the red zone when you have the prolific combination of Peyton Manning and Marvin Harrison on the field. Go figure, we lost 3 yards, game over. Next time we will call the right play by knowing our position, our strength, our bread and butter.

One of the biggest headaches in marketing is caused by not knowing; Get some relief

Sundays Super Bowl was packed full of entertainment, excitement, and wouldn’t you know it Marketing and Sales lessons.

Effective marketing and salesmanship are a lot like a running a political campaign …

The first thing I ask a client is to describe their marketing and sales programs. Most times the answer shows the company is either heavily marketing oriented without a sales balance, or heavily sales oriented without a marketing balance. This is stunning, because when you focus on one (i.e. marketing or sales) without the other, the cup is always half empty. Let’s fill up the cup and see how Marketing supports sales, and sales supports marketing.
Marketing
Finding an agreeable definition of Marketing is not an easy thing. We all have our