The key word in that headline is ‘Implementing’. A plan is of little value unless it is implemented,  the lessons from the success and failures of that implementation incorporated into the next iteration.

This is not another post about the 55 things to do to have a great marketing plan, this is about the things most forget that are about the organisational and strategic elements that will hinder any successful implementation.

Marketing planning should be a continuous, iterative, and a ‘live’ thing, not a once a year pain in the arse, necessary as a part of the corporate budget process.

To build a plan that serves the purpose of managing the implementation of strategy is a challenging and iterative process of identifying options, and making difficult choices across a host of domains.

Contrary to folk lore, it is a highly data intensive process, with a lot of experience, instinct and skill required that enables connections to be made between pieces of data that may not at first glance  have any real relationship. It is not the ‘smoke and mirrors’ some like to think, it is a tough, demanding but ultimately extremely rewarding process when done well.

You need a strategy

A marketing program operates as a part of an overall strategy, without which it is destined to be an expensive indulgence. Marketing is a key  part of the  delivery mechanism for the strategy. Strategy is all about making the always difficult long term choices, the sort that shape businesses over time, which need to be reflected in the resource allocation and activity decisions which enable implementation.

The importance of context

No enterprise exists in a vacuum. There are a range of factors that exert influence, but over which the individual enterprise has little if any control. The best they can do is accommodate the context into the planning processes, always being aware that factors over which they have no control can change with little or no notice, so retaining the agility to adjust in real time is a profoundly important capability. These factors range from the regulatory regimes, competitive activity, availability of critical capabilities, to long term trends  impacting on the economies in which you compete.

The importance of process

Process is simply the way things get done, from start to finish, in effect it is the plan for  the plan, the framework upon which the plan is built. A marketing plan is a part of a larger business planning process, Strategic, Capital, Operational, Financial, all have a cause and effect role in overall business planning, and a sensible, achievable marketing program cannot be written in isolation from the other functional planning activities, and that of the overall enterprise. There is a natural flow to all these plans, of both timing and necessary cause and effect impacts. For example, there is no point in a marketing plan setting out to launch a product that requires capital to be spent in the factory unless the item is also included in the capital and operational plans. Equally, there is no point spending capital in the absence of a marketing plan to leverage the benefits of the expenditure.

Iteration, experimentation and learning

We are dealing largely with what might work in the future, and courses with credibility in ‘future- telling’ are few and far between. Therefore it pays to have as many options open as possible. This is  not to say we should allow a scatter gun approach to prevail, we should remain focused, but within the parameters of a robust well thought out and understood set of strategic  priorities. It is a balancing act, one that is hard to get right, indeed, we only can judge our efforts accurately with the benefit of hindsight. Management of your ‘experimental portfolio’ should be a key task of the senior marketing person, the one who has the power to allocate the resources and hold them accountable, and certainly not left to the junior just to record activities.

Be specific about what you learnt, which forces clarity, and how you know, which forces objectivity in the place of fluffy subjectivity.  An intensive After Action Review process should be a core part of any marketing implementation.

Critical thinking

Marketing has always suffered from the tendency to be seen as fluffy, unscientific, and subject to leaping from an inadequately defined problem to a convenient solution. It has lacked credibility in the boardroom, where the big decisions are made. Often in the past that has been a fair characterisation, but there is no longer an excuse.

Most board discussions are based on objective data of one sort or another, which usually means it comes from the past. By contrast, marketing is about the future. It relies on assumption, speculation, and ‘mental models‘ as drivers, so carries less credibility than purely objective data.  We now have tools that can deliver some reliability in the cause and effect chains we seek to influence, so long as the hard intellectual graft is done.

If you are to have resources allocated to marketing over the long term that it usually requires to be effective, rather than tied to a changing annual budget cycle, with some artificial calculation tied to sales forecasts, you need credibility. This is where the critical thinking becomes (sorry) Critical! Use of marketing jargon, buzzwords, clichés and opinion may go well in a razzamatazz sales meeting, but where it really counts, at the point where long term resource commitments are made, they are counter-productive. Data and critical analysis is what counts.

In a past corporate life, leading a large marketing function, I insisted on sales forecasts for an initiative of any sort that was going to consume a significant chunk of a marketing budget to be done from several perspectives, and using differing sets of assumptions. The assumptions and perspectives were the subject of the interrogations, rather than just looking at a convenient  extrapolation. While we never got a forecast right, the outcomes were generally in the realms of  reasonable error, we did better the next time, and most importantly, we had the confidence of the board.

Compass Vs Roadmap

Dwight Eisenhower said ‘In preparing for battle, I have always found plans to be useless, but planning is indispensable’.  This is simply a variation on the adage that no plan survives the first contact with the enemy, but adds that the planning is essential. When applied to marketing planning, the same rules apply. To be effective they must drill down to and articulate the drivers and measures of success, provide a framework within which the activity needs to happen, but without dictating the details of the activity. Those facing the situation need to be able to respond to it within the frameworks of the overall strategy and objectives, in real time.

It is the achievement of the objective that is important, not necessarily the means by which it is achieved.

Activities are not outcomes

Too often activities completed are used as performance measures. It may be good to know that an agreed activity has been completed, but of way more importance is the understanding of what happened as a result of the activity.

The better KPI is the behaviour that is the driver of outcomes, rather than some assumption that an activity will deliver an outcome, or some simplistic extrapolation of the past. Results are the outcome of activities that are implemented after consideration of those things both in and out of your control, and will never be as forecast.

Cross Functional

Organisations build a structure to suit their internal processes, it makes the scaling of activity easier. However, customers do not care about your structure, they care about the level of service, quality, timeliness, and all the rest of the factors that add value to them, all of which are all cross functional concerns. Why would you not organise yourself in a manner that reflects what it is that customers are looking for?

Ensuring there is engagement of all functional areas in the development of the marketing plan is essential. They will all play a vital role in the delivery of the plan, and the CMO never has the functional responsibility for them all, so they must be led.

Clear Accountability 

Unambiguous accountability tends to focus the mind on the outcomes, which generally leads to better performance. Accountability also however comes with the requirement that the resources are made available to get the job done, properly, which is code for being accountable for the outcomes. The power to allocate resources is a key part of real accountability, rather than just its sibling, ‘responsibility’ which implies completing a specified activity.

In recent times, we have moved from individual accountability to team accountability, which has significantly complicated the management and leadership game, while offering the potential for huge gains in outcome. Holding an individual accountable can be done with just ‘management’, but effectively holding a team accountable for an outcome requires true leadership.

Plans should tell stories

Any plan, to be effective, must tell a story about the journey, the anticipated problems, alternatives considered, and the value of the outcome.

Marketing and importantly, brand building, are all about the stories we tell ourselves, and others, that illustrate how something has given us ‘value’ in some way.  Without a simple, illustrative story, all the rest just boils down to price on the day. All the great marketing we see tells a story of some sort that evokes a positive emotion towards the product. Apple tells a story, as did Meadow Lea (they stopped 20 years ago, but the effect lingers) Nike, Coca Cola, so tell yours in the plan.

My kids first dog, ‘Tamba’ was a great friend to them all. She/it played with them for as long as they wanted, protected them, and gave unconditional love, seeking nothing more than a pat behind the ears and a bit of ‘doggy-love’.  One day Tamba was a bit subdued, obviously with some version of doggy flu. Off to the vet who gave us some pills to administer, along with instructions. At home I shoved the pill to the back of Tamba’s throat, and held  her mouth shut for a while. As I let go, to her obvious relief, thinking the pill would be swallowed, up it came, back into my hand, a mess of dissolved pill and dog saliva. My neighbour, a ‘dog whisperer’ recommended I hide the pill in a spoonful of Vegemite on a square of toast, and offer it to Tamba. Whoof… gone! No pill.

I am constantly reminded of this story as I talk to clients, and watch marketing activity designed to generate a response. It is all facts, data, dry boring old stuff that has no emotion. It is like trying to get Tamba to take the pill, impossible until it was wrapped in something she loved.

Even the best plan does not implement itself

Planning is only the first step, one that without implementation is pointless. As my old dad used to say, 1/10 for the plan son, the other 9 points are reserved for implementation.