An apparent, however good piece of recommendation: What typically looks as if an apparent situation could also be clouded with issues. Off the coast of North Carolina, proper close to the state line with South Carolina, there’s a little barrier island known as Sundown Seashore. The one manner on and off the island for greater than 50 years was over a one–lane, floating pontoon swing bridge. That little bridge opened on the hour for boat site visitors and on demand for business vessels.
Whereas charming and nostalgic, it additionally created some issues, particularly with hurricane season. And, sometimes, somebody might not have seen it was open (or they thought they might bounce it) and go for a swim of their automotive. In 2011, after a lot debate and a major funding, a brand-new two-lane fly-over bridge was constructed. The brand new bridge supplied stunning broad sweeping views and trendy engineering meant it was secure and all the time open. (It additionally introduced extra individuals to the little island, however that may be a completely different story.)
When you may have line of sight, a powerful infrastructure, and a steady stream of data, you create an atmosphere of transparency and collaboration (or a ravishing bridge). This is strictly what you need to have in terms of your advertising technique and planning efforts. You need a two-lane fly-over bridge that connects your long-term technique together with your annual plan, and you need it to be embedded in the best way the enterprise operates. Similar to you need the island to be all the time open to the mainland (and secure).
There’s a motive we discuss long-term advertising technique and annual advertising planning collectively. A method with no plan is a imaginative and prescient with out motion, and a plan with no technique is only a set of techniques. Once more, appears apparent, however we regularly overlook these factors and both by no means write down the long-term advertising technique or preserve creating the identical advertising plans time and again, anticipating a distinct consequence. The truth is that we should do each in live performance with each other, and so they have to be related if we need to expertise development.
A few reminders of why the two-lane bridge is best:
- A advertising technique will outline measurable annual plan targets. It helps you keep accountable and on observe to realize your long-term imaginative and prescient.
- A advertising technique will information the prioritization of investments to optimize sources in that given yr.
- Creating that linkage from advertising technique to planning will present an elevated concentrate on excessiveest precedence actions to ship essentially the most worth from advertising.
If you need to keep away from going for an unintentional swim off a one–lane bridge, be part of me at this yr’s B2B Summit North America. In my session, “Advertising Technique and Planning: It’s All About The ‘And,’” I’ll describe the continuum of technique and planning in higher element and supply some nice examples that illustrate the relevance of adopting this method. Hope to see you there.
