In our never ending quest to make marketing simpler and more effective, Orbit has developed what we call the NextStep Strategy to make it easier for you to get your marketing efforts on the move. We have been including this action-based plan in our Genius Simple Branding Map™ process so you can understand how your brand brings your marketing system to life.
Often times, complex, strategic marketing plans sit on the shelf and collect dust. This is not because the concepts are without value. They are often just not “actionable”. In the same way, writing a novel is not actionable. Writing an outline for a novel or writing an opening sentence is actionable. It is simply a matter of breaking down a large, forbidding project into smaller, do-able chunks.
So once you have completed your Branding Map™ process, the question arises; What’s next? How do you convert a brand into a lasting, vital, multi-channel marketing system for your company?
Your NextStep Strategy is a plan designed strictly to be acted upon. It is stripped of all extraneous material and contains only required actions and products. If you have ever been exposed to a corporation’s strategic marketing plan, you know that they consist of heavily documented evidence for adopting a particular strategy. The goal of the plan is often consensus.
The objective of the NextStep Strategy™ is action. It takes a lot of careful thought on the front end. What are you keeping and what do you need to develop for your marketing system. What initiatives need to happen? Can we break them down into do-able tasks? Can some of the tasks be done concurrently? Who will do these tasks? Can we prioritize the whole list? And finally, can we set it to a reasonable budget and timeline?
The NextStep Strategy™ essentially becomes a workable to-do list to be checked off as tasks are completed.
So if you find yourself grounded, trying to implement a marketing strategy, break it down into an action-based checklist that is prioritized according to time considerations, relative task importance, and proper sequence. Add a budget and timeline and the resulting NextStep Strategy will ignite your business into the air.
Brand well and prosper.
Cyndi