Every success story starts with clear goals and a good plan. Things aren’t really different if we move the story to the topic of marketing. On the contrary – the abundance of available marketing channels and marketing strategies, as well as shifting trends in the global business arena make the presence of some sort of strategic marketing plan an absolute requirement rather than a novelty.

However, being important as they are, the documents like strategic marketing plans are seldom accepted with unanimous approval and often provoke a lot of debate. And while this multitude of perspectives often leads to more refined solutions, they also tend to dilute the core ideas of such plans.

This problem can be easily avoided by simply communicating the main guiding principles of such a plan in a more effective and clearer manner. Let us see how that can be accomplished.

Understand what is a digital marketing strategy 

Also, you will need to have a pretty good understanding of what this document is used for. This is the only way you will be able to effectively communicate the ideas presented in strategic plans and be able to implement these ideas in real life further down the road. Keeping that in mind, a marketing strategy is a document outlining specific goals achievable through various marketing channels, also outlining the plans for achieving said goals. These plans usually include the following components:

• Objectives – These objectives need to be clear, vivid, measurable, and attainable.
• Target audience – The breakdown of your intended buyer personas backed up by thorough market research.
• Brand message – The brand’s unique value proposition that will be communicated to the audience.
• Buyer’s journey – The road your clients need to pass down your sales funnel.
• Competitor’s analysis – Competitor’s analysis identifies what you can learn from your competitors and how to outperform them.
• Methods and channels – Most people see this as the main component of digital marketing strategy, but it should come only after all the previous mentions.

Leverage the documents like business case

This simple move will prove to have numerous benefits. First, and foremost, knowing how to create a business case and having this document in your plans will help you to create a much more detailed and comprehensive digital marketing strategy. Second, this broad set of in-depth business knowledge will also have an effect on your presentation skills, since you will be able to back up your claims and defend arguments with much greater confidence. Of course, these efforts should not be limited to business cases exclusively – you should take notice of business plans, business records, and similar mentions.

Understand your target audience

Essentially, strategic marketing plans, much like all other documents, are made with a specific purpose and for a specific audience. Keeping this purpose in mind throughout the conceptual phase down to the very presentation will make the final addressing and plan discussion far easier. So, before engaging in any other effort, learn why is strategic marketing plan being ordered in the first place and by whom. These considerations will help you to produce a document that will have much greater acceptance. When the time finally comes to present it, the audience will have a clearer understanding of its topics.

Grab attention from the get-go

Strategic marketing plan presentations tend to be very procedural and dry. That is why most of the audience members check out which causes them to misinterpret or completely miss vital chunks of information. This problem can be easily avoided if you make sure to grab the audience’s attention from the get-go. You can do that by starting with some hook or using attention-grabbing imagery, staggering numbers, quotations, or even engaging storytelling. Some people think of these strategies as cheap, but as long as they don’t dilute your core message you are free to use them as you see fit.

Focus your presentation on the benefits

Once again, we have to go back to the purpose of why strategic marketing plans are made in the first place – the present new marketing strategies that will allow businesses to attract more clients and attain tangible benefits. Well, it turns out that most marketing plan presentations delve too deep into the specifics of the covered marketing strategies without ever pointing out why these plans are important. Focusing your presentation and even plans, for that matter, on these benefits and working backward from these endpoints will give your efforts a much greater sense of purpose and make your pitch more effective.

Be specific in important areas

Last but not least, we would like to point out that, while leveraging various storytelling techniques to keep your audience interested, the point of your strategic marketing plan presentation is outlining tangible facts, preferably in a concise and streamlined manner. When you are outlining this data, excessive wordiness and sugarcoating should be strongly avoided since they make important points less noticeable and relevant. Dropping the act and moving to a more matter-of-factly style of narration will also help the audience discern the less relevant topic from the ones that require 100% attention.

We hope these couple of examples gave you a clearer idea about what a good strategic marketing plan should look like and how you can present it to the intended audience. Strategic marketing plans are incredibly valuable documents that can help one company drastically improve its outreach methods. But, in order for that to be possible, the ideas outlined in this document need to be presented in a clear and understandable manner. Use the tips we gave you and you will be on a good way to meeting these goals.