Strategic Planning Framework

How to plan strategic e-mail marketing campaigns.

Here is an overview of the DBGi Pi Framework that forms the core of our email services.

Visit the pages via the left navigation for introductions to each elements of the Pi Framework.

Business Objectives

Identifying and clarifying what we collectively (together with our clients) are aiming to achieve. For example, increase sales, increase number of e-mail addresses, improve customer retention, decrease cost of communication etc.
Prioritising what would be good to achieve first. It may all be possible but not all of the actions will have the same effect, so a clear understanding of what to do first and a method for determining priorities is critical.
Developing action plans to make sure the desired actions actually happen in the agreed sequence. Identifying what needs to be done is the first step but getting it done is where most programs fall down, so developing a clear action plan with roles, responsibilities and performance milestones is crucial. The saying: “If we do nothing differently today, then tomorrow will look exactly like today” used to be very relevant. Today, however, the competition is probably doing something if you are not, so if businesses do not take the right actions, they run the risk of losing market share.

ROI Benchmarking

Setting target performance benchmarks to ensure return on investments (time and money) are met, based on both past performance and a realistic view of what the business can achieve moving forward.

Tactical Briefing

From the overall business and marketing objectives, tactical communication plans will be developed and these will operate on much shorter timescales and at a level of granularity not covered by global business goals. These activities also require planning and a structured approach to deliver value and are very tightly integrated with the preparation and measurement functions outlined in this document.

Targeted communications planning
Defining and testing hypotheses in a low cost test and learn environment
Tracking the performance of these various actions to monitor success

Tom Peters’ famous maxim of Fire, Ready, Aim! says it all.

Of course it is possible to Fire and not do the required planning, and often this does by instinct deliver acceptable results. However, marketing by instinct and luck is probably not sustainable and it makes sense to entrench a planning philosophy at the core of all marketing activities. The presence of a plan greatly increases the probability of a successful outcome.

Determine up front what you want to achieve, select the metrics that you can influence to accomplish these objectives, put in place actions to achieve them and then track the performance to see how you are doing against your objectives. Plan, do, review, do, review, do, plan, do…... It works!