1. Understand your business
Evaluate where your company is today. This includes reviewing your key business information, mission statement, and core values. Do they still reflect your mindset?
Changing circumstances, leadership, or the market may require you to rethink the essence of your business from time to time. Take time for serious reflection to come up with something truly meaningful. You may also want to solicit input from your team, your advisory board of business owners, or your business owner.
Ask yourself: What is the most idealistic version of your bank email list business? What are your most ambitious goals? What is the biggest vision of what your company could be?
2. Analyze your strengths, weaknesses and threats
A SWOT analysis is a tool for critically evaluating your company’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. It can provide insight into where your company should focus its marketing efforts , give you a better understanding of your industry and customers, clue you in to your competitive advantages and alert you to potential threats to your growth.
Examples of the types of questions you might ask during the SWOT process include:
What do we do well?
What do our customers identify as our strengths?
What emerging trends can we capitalize on?
Who are our underrated competitors?
What are the most common complaints we receive?
Are there outdated technologies we use?
What external obstacles stand in the way of our progress?
What are our competitors doing differently?
PS: We will still talk about SWOT analysis in the next paragraphs!
3. Set goals and objectives
Analyze the specific objectives that will help you achieve your vision. This could include processes such as launching a new product, trying different marketing strategies , reallocating financial resources, or improving employee culture . Additionally, determine the specific initiatives needed to meet the overall goals.
After all, setting goals is only effective when you can actually achieve them, so you should also establish how you will measure success. Key performance indicators (KPIs) are the specific metrics you will track to determine progress toward your goals.
KPIs can include things like market share percentage, customer acquisition cost , and average support ticket resolution time .
4. Put the plan into action
Goals are future-focused, so now you need short-term action steps. Unlike goals, tasks should only take a few days or weeks to complete.
So break tasks down into the smallest possible steps and keep asking yourself, “What needs to happen before we take the next step?”
For example, a goal of "upgrading old equipment" could be broken down into individual tasks such as "research suppliers," "set up meetings with representatives at the next trade show," and "purchase equipment."
In this sense, it is worth assigning a responsible party to each task, establishing deadlines for completion and creating responsibilities.
Finally, set a schedule to review your strategic plan (at least once a quarter). Then, regularly monitor and review your plan to ensure you’re staying on track toward your goals. Also, ask yourself tough questions during these reviews to avoid your plan becoming outdated!