Strategy

Where do we want to be? What are the numbers we need to achieve? But beyond that, what do we want customers to think of us? How much do we think this should all cost? How long will it take?

How (exactly) do we get there? What methods are we going to use? Email marketing? Advertising? What about the website? What data do we have on customers? Do we need more? What tools and techniques are we going to buy into?

Has it worked? Have you hit the sales targets? What responses have you achieved to campaigns? How many people are visiting the website? What are people saying about you? Have you worked within budget?

Who does what? What has to happen each day? Who has the right skills? Do you need to hire, or just reallocate? When do they do it, and how long should it take them? Do you need external support? If so, what kind?

SOSTAC® stands for:

• Situation – where are we now?
• Objectives – where do we want to be?
• Strategy – how do we get there?
• Tactics – how exactly do we get there?
• Action – what is our plan?
• Control – did we get there?

Where are we now? How are we doing? What do customers think of us? And what do we know about them? What are our strengths, weaknesses etc? What resources do we have?

The SOSTAC® planning model, which walks through the process of creating and executing a marketing plan, encourages data from the control stage of previous marketing plans to be fed back into future situational analysis.