Refining the Marketing Plan to Achieve a Firm’s Goals

By Consulting Specifying Engineer Staff September 22, 2006

Change is inevitable, so it’s important to have a flexible strategic marketing plan that can be adjusted when new opportunities occur. Otherwise, threats to the firm’s success can arise. Anne Scarlett, principal with ZweigWhite and director of the firm’s marketing consulting group, shares three steps on how to conduct an effective strategic marketing assessment:

Analyze marketing data. Compile a summary report describing the state and performance of the firm, target markets, and the overall business economy. Determine which marketing and business development activities were carried out well and which fell short. Pinpoint which unplanned marketing activities cropped up that took the original marketing plan off course.

Facilitate an assessment meeting. Conduct a management meeting that will provide a realistic assessment of the firm’s marketing efforts against the strategic plan. Speak frankly about results relating to new commissions, repeat business, the number of proposal opportunities, how to shorten the sales cycle and increasing name recognition.

Refine the marketing plan. Based on the feedback from the assessment meeting and marketing research, the marketing team can then suggest refinements to the marketing plan to achieve the current and future strategic business goals of the firm.