Imagine if your favorite football team had no playbook, and each player just did what they thought was best at that moment to win the game? They wouldn’t be bringing home any championships, that’s for sure. It’s like creating a blog or social media page. Just because everyone else is doing it doesn’t mean it will be best for your audience or business.
The best coaches know their competition, and they recognize the core strengths of their own team. Plays are chosen and run based on the strongest abilities of the team and a thorough analysis of that week’s rival. Though the offense, defense and special teams may have different responsibilities, they are all working together to achieve the same goal. Winning requires a solid strategy and teamwork. Implementing a results-generating marketing program commands a very similar recipe.
How to Create a Playbook for Marketing Success
Meet With Stakeholders
Gather the important people in your organization from upper management and decision-makers to the front-line staff interacting with the customers. Depending on your organization, you may include current customers, donors, board members and community stakeholders. These people will be able to share the different customer touchpoints and interactions, competition, what marketing efforts have worked in the past and what haven’t, and the goals of the organization for the future.
Do Additional Research
Fill in any gaps from your group discussion with research. Use different methods such as surveys and focus groups or use secondary research to further define and round out your strategy.
Develop the Strategy
With a clear idea of where the company stands and where it wants to go, you can now start creating the different plays for your playbook. Here are the different components you will need:
- An overarching goal and supporting objectives
- Clearly defined target audiences
- A SWOT analysis (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats)
- A competitive analysis
- A core story representing what the organization stands for and why people should value and support it
- A series of tactics that drive the focus of the entire strategy – based on your target audience, competition and goals, what are the best techniques and tools to achieve success?
- Measurements of success tied to individual tactics
- A detailed budget and timeline
Regroup the Team
Bring all the shareholders back together to review the plan, share feedback and give approvals. Once any edits have been made and the team approves, you can begin implementing the tactics in your strategic marketing plan.
Find a Partner To Do the Planning (and Execution) for You
At Marshall Communications, we create a custom “playbook” for our clients called The Marshall Plan®. It is an integrated communications plan that serves as a blueprint for marketing success tailored to specific goals, market strengths, target audiences and resources. After working with key stakeholders to customize the plan to the client’s needs, the organization can put the plan into action itself or work with our agency to implement the plan.
In football, all winning coaches have a great playbook. In marketing, you must have a well-thought-out strategic plan to maximize your success. So, the next time you are gathered around the TV with family and friends enjoying America’s favorite sport, think about what the marketing “playbook” for your company or organization should look like and what specific integrated marketing “plays” could serve your team best in reaching its overall goal.
