Strategic Marketing is the Basis for the Best Planning.

Have you ever planned an event, personal or professional, and only a handful of people showed up? If so, it may have had something do with your strategic marketing plan – or rather, lack there of. More often than not, people require quite a bit of advance lead time to commit to a special event, business meeting or even something as simple as a coffee.  We all have busy schedules and with this in mind, postponing your strategic marketing plans can be extremely damaging.

Here are some tips to help ensure you aren’t making costly strategic marketing mistakes.

1) GIVE YOURSELF ENOUGH LEAD TIME! When planning an event or marketing campaign for your business, be sure to give yourself more time than you expect to need, especially if you’re using a third party agency. While experienced third party agencies can turn around an event quickly—in usually two weeks and sometimes even in a few days, don’t bet your whole promotion on it! While it can get done, you may not get the awareness or results you were hoping for.

The best strategic marketing ideas are developed with enough time to create something spectacular and different from what’s been done before. You’ll notice that giving your third party partners as much lead time as possible will make your life a lot easier and in fact, a lot more exciting.

2) PROMOTE YOUR EVENT. No matter how great an idea is, it is nothing without it’s execution and truly, people to participate. If you’re planning a corporate event, you may have a good guest list of people more or less (ahem, obligated) to attend. You still need to keep them in the loop and get them excited. If the event is public however, and there is money riding on the event, promote, promote and oh ya, did we mention you should promote it? There are so many avenues these days ranging from social media to paid platforms in radio, tv, newspaper etc. If the success of your event is riding on attendance, no amount of promotion is enough and in fact should constitute a very large part of your budget

3) GET HELP. How and where you ask? Well, in a perfect world, creative ideas are single-handedly developed. But in reality,  “two heads are better than one” and  the right pairing can be a huge catalyst for success. Whether you have an existing third party agency partnership or not, one thing never changes – your endless options. Your team can be as successful as you let it be. By taking action early, you can work in tandem to create an experiential goldmine of great ideas.

What do you Need to Achieve Strategic Marketing Success?

So how much time do you need? How much money? And, where can you find help?

There really is no specific timeline because every special event, business conference or charity fundraiser is different from another… all have varying expectations and objectives. Planning cycles can stretch as long as a year to as little as a month or a few weeks, depending on the level of detail, cost and logistics.  It’s obvious not every strategic marketing plan comes with ample lead time, but the sooner you identify your needs, the sooner you can lay your plans, promote your event and find the help you need to ensure it’s a raving success.

If you fail to plan, you plan to fail – don’t let this happen to you!

If you’re interested in working with a third party agency for your strategic marketing plans, please contact us directly for a free no-obligation quote. We would love to assist you on your upcoming campaign, festival, charity event, promotional stunt or market research program. Call us now at 647-286-9392 or email us by clicking here.