Why Plan?

The primary purpose of branding and marketing planning is to maximise the long-term health and profitability of the organisation.

Cohesive planning of this level will:

• maximise the long-term health and profitability of your business
• help you to clarify your business and marketing direction for the future, so you can move forward with confidence
• map out a clear path for achieving your marketing-related business goals
• provide mechanisms for measuring and monitoring business and staff performance
• provide a benchmark for assessing new ideas
• improve the consistency of your “brand promise” and branding in general
• help you to identify and understand your target segments, and enable you to target them more effectively
• maximise return on your marketing expenditure
• and the list goes on.

Working hand-in-hand with the business plan, marketing planning generates an accountability system. The performance of the business and individuals within the organisation can be measured against stipulated performance goals and objectives. If performance is not up to scratch, then the problems can be identified and rectified.

Strategies can be developed to address all issues identified during the initial stages of the process, rather than stabbing in the dark and hoping that something works. Developing an integrated marketing and branding plan ensures that all marketing and communications efforts are aligned with the overall business objectives. It also facilitates a consistent brand-building effort across all communication and customer contact.

It is important that an organisation presents a “united front” in all of its activities which the public are exposed to. A business which does not plan or map out its marketing activities is at risk of isolating all possibly interested parties, by presenting conflicting images.

To maximise results, customer groups need to be addressed differently. There is no point in adopting a generic marketing campaign while trying to target several market segments. Although these different segments need different marketing strategies, it is important that these marketing strategies are not in conflict with the strategies developed for other targeted market segments.

Developing and forming all segment strategies into one integrated program is critical to fostering a strong brand while communicating the necessary messages to, and addressing the specific needs of, all target market segments. This approach is used to maximise return on marketing spend through a balanced focus 
both the short and long-term results, rather than simply creating immediate but unsustainable sales spikes with no strategic focus on building a strong and lasting brand.

Without planning it is inevitable that goals and objectives will not be achieved by the organisation. The long term ramification of poor planning is increased costs. Without planning there is no measurement, and without measurement there is no way to evaluate your marketing campaigns performance or your organisation's progress in relation to marketing.

Visit our main website for more information on Integrated Branding and Marketing Plans, or contact us.