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Advisory Board Forum by Shandon Harbour DEVELOPING A STRATEGIC MARKETING PLAN FOR 2013 Shandon Harbour is President of San Diego-based SDA Security. sharbour@sdasecurity.com W ith Q4 2012 somehow already staring us in the face (where did this year go?), the New Year looms just over the horizon. It's time to get busy planning how to best leverage your communications eff orts to provide maximum value to the organization. What's the best way to maximize value out of your security brand next year? Transform the authentic "promise" of your company — who you are, what you stand for, why you're diff erent (and better) than competitors — into a realistic action plan. Offi cial name: the Strategic 12-Month Marketing Plan. Let's call it SMP for short. A compelling brand acts as the foundation of your ability to realize value from every customer through their experience with your company's branding, marketing and sales activities. T e key to maximizing the value of your eff orts is the develop- ment of a SMP. It's where the rubber hits the road. An eff ective (and realistic) SMP serves as the roadmap for turning brand strategy into actual bottom-line results that drive success: in- creased sales, market share and brand awareness. It transforms strategy into action, theory into reality, wishful thinking into systems sold and RMR climbing. T ink of your SMP as the instruction manual for building the customer brand experience. It defi nes the specifi c initiatives, activities and materials through which you will interact with A compelling brand acts as the foundation of your ability to realize value from every customer through their experience with your company's branding, marketing and sales activities. 10 / SECURITYSALES.COM / NOVEMBER 2013 your customers, prospects and the world at large to commu- nicate the authentic promise of your security brand. While it sounds like a tall order and can seem overwhelming, creating your SMP is pretty straightforward. T e key is segmentation. By dividing how you sell (sales process) and the tools you use to communicate in order to do so (brand touch points), you estab- lish the framework to create and execute an eff ective SMP. Sales Process — T e components of your sales process determine how you sell from initial contact through close of sale and beyond: • Contact (lead generation): How to fi nd potential customers and create interest in your brand • Convince (lead conversion): How to convert prospects into customers and "close the deal" • Close (customer care, retention and referral): How to keep customers happy and turn them into brand evangelists? Brand Touch Points — T e tools utilized to communicate throughout your sales process become the specifi c ways in which people experience your brand: • Web & digital: Company Web site(s), E-mail communica- tions, social media (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, blogs, etc.), online forums and advertising • Space & environments: Retail space, company offi ces, trade- show booth, special events, outdoor signage and graphics • Print communications: Sales materials, annual report, corpo- rate identity package, point-of-sale, direct mail • Broadcast: Film, video, television and radio T is structured approach makes creating your SMP much easier and less intimidating. Simply determine which brand touch points you will use to best accomplish your business objectives throughout the three phases of your sales process. In the larger corporate "big picture, " strategic branding enables creation of this eff ective marketing plan, which drives sales per- formance and the achievement of your key business objectives. While I've waited until the end to discuss it, budget is a critical parameter in determining the eff ectiveness of your SMP. Your budget defi nes the realistic scope of your marketing activities. An underfunded plan typically underperforms (you get what you pay for). Too large a budget often leads to wasted resources and lack of focus (the shotgun approach). T e old rule of thumb identifi ed 10% of gross revenue as the baseline for the marketing budget. Given today's tough economic times, that fi gure should be revised to a more realistic 4%-7% as a basic parameter for development of an eff ective SMP that achieves desired objectives without breaking the bank.