Strategic Plan

Strategic Plan Template: What To Include In Yours

A strategic plan is a roadmap to grow your business. This article details the 13 sections to include in your strategic plan so you identify and achieve your goals.

Section 1: Executive Summary

The Executive Summary of your strategic plan should be completed last, and this section merely summarizes each of the other sections of your plan.

The Executive Summary is important since it will help other key constituents, such as employees, advisors, and investors, quickly understand and support your plan.

Section 2: Elevator Pitch

An elevator pitch is a brief description of your business. Your elevator pitch is included in your strategic plan since it’s key to your business’ success, and often times should be updated annually. Here’s why it’s important: if your employees can’t clearly and concisely articulate your business to others, you inevitably miss out on tons of sales and other opportunities.

Section 3: Company Mission Statement

Your company mission statement explains what your business is trying to achieve. While it may seem unimportant, it’s not. You see, for internal decision-making, your mission statement guides employees to make the right decisions; decisions that are in line with helping the company achieve its mission. For external parties, such as investors, partners, and customers, your mission can inspire them to take the actions you want.

Section 4: SWOT

The reason to include a SWOT analysis (analysis of your Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) in your Strategic Plan is to help you determine the best opportunities to pursue to achieve your growth goals. It also helps you identify which strengths you must develop in the near future to improve your company.

Section 5: Goals

Setting and achieving goals is the hallmark of successful companies and is a critical element of your strategic plan.

They key is to first identify your 5 year or long-term goals. Next, identify your one-year goals; that is, what you must achieve in the next year for it to be successful and to put your company on the right trajectory to achieving your 5 year goals.

Then work backwards two more times to determine your goals for the next quarter and the next month. Ideally you update you strategic plan monthly to modify this section.

Section 6: Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)

Great businesses understand their metrics and KPIs. By tracking your KPIs, you know exactly how your business is performing and can adjust as needed.

For example, a basic KPI such as Total Sales is critical for understanding if the company is performing well. “Underlying” KPIs are equally as important. For example, if sales are affected by 1) number of visitors to your website, 2) number of visitors who complete a contact form, 3) number of proposals you issue to these leads, and 4) the proposal closing ratio, then each of these KPIs should be tracked. Then, if for instance, the number of visitors to your website decreased, you would know and fix this immediately, rather then waiting until sales plummet later.

So, it’s critical to identify the KPIs you will track in your business and list them in this section of your strategic plan.

Section 7: Target Customers

In this section of your strategic plan, you will identify the wants and needs of each of your target customer groups. This is important in focusing your marketing efforts and getting a higher return on investment on your advertising expenditures. This is because the more you can “speak” directly to your target customer wants and needs in your marketing, the better you will attract them.

Section 8: Industry Analysis

Your industry analysis doesn’t have to be a comprehensive report on what’s going on in your market. However, you should conduct an analysis to ensure the market size is growing (if not, you might want to diversify), and to help identify new opportunities for growth.

Section 9: Competitive Analysis & Advantage

Similarly to your industry analysis, your competitive analysis doesn’t have to be a thorough report listing every detail about every competitor. Rather, in addition to defining who your key competitors are, you should list their strengths & weaknesses.

Most importantly, use this analysis to determine your current competitive advantages and ways to develop additional advantages.

Section 10: Marketing Plan

In addition to your strategic plan, I recommend you develop a comprehensive marketing plan describing how you will attract prospects, convert them to paying customers and maximize your lifetime customer value.

Include a summary of your marketing plan in your strategic plan.

Section 11: Team

The team section of your strategic plan ensures you have the human resources to execute on the opportunities you’ve identified and to achieve the goals you established in section 5 of your plan.

Here you should list your current team members and identify the types of people you need to hire in the next year to achieve your goals.

Section 12: Operations Plan

Your operations plan helps you transform your goals and opportunities into reality. In this section of your plan, you will identify each of the individual projects that comprise your larger goals and how these projects will be completed. Finally, you’ll map out each of your initiatives, ideally in a Gantt chart, so you know when each project will start and who will lead them.

Section 13: Financial Projections

The final section of your strategic plan is your financial projections. Your financial projections help in multiple ways. First, you can use a financial model to assess the potential results for each opportunity you consider pursuing.

Also, once you determine the opportunities you will pursue, your financial projections will map out the goals. For example, you’ll know exactly how many new customers you must attract in the next month, and at what price point, to achieve next month’s goal.

You should develop your complete strategic plan each year, and then update it monthly as actual results come in and you gain more clarity and intelligence. While you will rarely achieve the precise goals established in your strategic plan, scores of research show that you’ll come much closer to them versus if you didn’t plan at all. So, develop your strategic plan today, and achieve the goals you desire.

Marketing Plan

Marketing Plan Template: Exactly What to Include

To grow your business, you need a marketing plan. The right marketing plan identifies everything from 1) who your target customers are to 2) how you will reach them, to 3) how you will retain your customers so they repeatedly buy from you.

Done properly, your marketing plan will be the roadmap you follow to get unlimited customers and dramatically improve the success of your organization.

Section 1: Executive Summary

Complete your Executive Summary last, and, as the name implies, this section merely summarizes each of the other sections of your marketing plan.

Your Executive Summary will be helpful in giving yourself and other constituents (e.g., employees, advisors, etc.) an overview of your plan.

Section 2: Target Customers

This section describes the customers you are targeting. It defines their demographic profile (e.g., age, gender), psychographic profile (e.g., their interests) and their precise wants and needs as they relate to the products and/or services you offer.

Being able to more clearly identify your target customers will help you both pinpoint your advertising (and get a higher return on investment) and better “speak the language” of prospective customers.

Section 3: Unique Selling Proposition (USP)

Having a strong unique selling proposition (USP) is of critical importance as it distinguishes your company from competitors.

The hallmark of several great companies is their USP. For example, FedEx’s USP of “When it absolutely, positively has to be there overnight” is well-known and resonates strongly with customers who desire reliability and quick delivery.

Section 4: Pricing & Positioning Strategy

Your pricing and positioning strategy must be aligned. For example, if you want your company to be known as the premier brand in your industry, having too low a price might dissuade customers from purchasing.

In this section of your marketing plan, detail the positioning you desire and how your pricing will support it.

Section 5: Distribution Plan

Your distribution plan details how customers will buy from you. For example, will customers purchase directly from you on your website? Will they buy from distributors or other retailers? And so on.

Think through different ways in which you might be able to reach customers and document them in this section of your marketing plan.

Section 6: Your Offers

Offers are special deals you put together to secure more new customers and drive past customers back to you.

Offers may include free trials, money-back guarantees, packages (e.g., combining different products and/or services) and discount offers. While your business doesn’t necessarily require offers, using them will generally cause your customer base to grow more rapidly.

Section 7: Marketing Materials

Your marketing materials are the collateral you use to promote your business to current and prospective customers. Among others, they include your website, print brochures, business cards, and catalogs.

Identify which marketing materials you have completed and which you need created or re-done in this section of your plan.

Section 8: Promotions Strategy

The promotions section is one of the most important sections of your marketing plan and details how you will reach new customers.

There are numerous promotional tactics, such as television ads, trade show marketing, press releases, online advertising, and event marketing.

In this section of your marketing plan, consider each of these alternatives and decide which ones will most effectively allow you to reach your target customers.

Section 9: Online Marketing Strategy

Like it or not, most customers go online these days to find and/or review new products and/or services to purchase. As such, having the right online marketing strategy can help you secure new customers and gain competitive advantage.

The four key components to your online marketing strategy are as follows:

1. Keyword Strategy: identify what keywords you would like to optimize your website for.
2. Search Engine Optimization Strategy: document updates you will make to your website so it shows up more prominently for your top keywords.
3. Paid Online Advertising Strategy: write down the online advertising programs will you use to reach target customers.
4. Social Media Strategy: document how you will use social media websites to attract customers.

Section 10: Conversion Strategy

Conversion strategies refer to the techniques you employ to turn prospective customers into paying customers.

For example, improving your sales scripts can boost conversions. Likewise increasing your social proof (e.g., showing testimonials of past clients who were satisfied with your company) will nearly always boost conversions and sales.

In this section of your plan, document which conversion-boosting strategies you will use.

Section 11: Joint Ventures & Partnerships

Joint ventures and partnerships are agreements you forge with other organizations to help reach new customers or better monetize existing customers. For example, if you sold replacement guitar strings, it could be quite lucrative to partner with a guitar manufacturer who had a list of thousands of customers to whom it sold guitars (and who probably need replacement strings in the future).

Think about what customers buy before, during and/or after they buy from your company. Many of the companies who sell these products and/or services could be good partners. Document such companies in this section of your marketing plan and then reach out to try to secure them.

Section 12: Referral Strategy

A strong customer referral program could revolutionize your success. For example, if every one of your customers referred one new customer, your customer base would constantly grow.

However, rarely will you get such growth unless you have a formalized referral strategy. For example, you need to determine when you will ask customers for referrals, what if anything you will give them as a reward, etc. Think through the best referral strategy for your organization and document it.

Section 13: Strategy for Increasing Transaction Prices

While your primary goal when conversing with prospective customers is often to secure the sale, it is also important to pay attention to the transaction price.

The transaction price, or amount customers pay when they buy from you, can dictate your success. For example, if your average customer transaction is $100 but your competitor’s average customer transaction is $150, they will generate more revenues, and probably profits, per customer. As a result, they will be able to outspend you on advertising, and continue to gain market share at your expense.

In this section of your plan, think about ways to increase your transaction prices such as by increasing prices, creating product or service bundles/packages, and so on.

Section 14: Retention Strategy

Too many organizations spend too much time and energy trying to secure new customers versus investing in getting existing customers to buy more often.

By using retention strategies such as a monthly newsletter or customer loyalty program, you can increase revenues and profits by getting customers to purchase from you more frequently over time.

Identify and document ways you can better retain customers here.

Section 15: Financial Projections

The final part of your marketing plan is to create financial projections. In your projections, include all the information documented in your marketing plan.

For example, include the promotional expenses you expect to incur and what your expected results will be in terms of new customers, sales and profits. Likewise include your expected results from your new retention strategy. And so on.

While your financial projections will never be 100% accurate, use them to identify which promotional expenses and other strategies should give you the highest return on investment. Also, by completing your financial projections, you will set goals (e.g., your goals for your referral program) for which your company should strive.

Completing each of the 15 sections of your marketing plan is real work. But, once your marketing plan is complete, it will be worth it, as your sales and profits should soar.