Our strategic marketing planning process is the framework we use to create a high quality marketing plan, and subsequently allows us to devise the most effective and efficient non-digital and digital marketing strategies to achieve the goals set out in this plan. Visit www.abacusmarketing.co.uk to find out more, or email stephen@abacusmarketing.co.uk to arrange a call or meeting.

1. Abacus Integrated Marketing, 20 Eastbourne Terrace, Paddington, London W2 6LG
T: 020 3858 7836 E: info@abacusmarketing.co.uk W: www.abacusmarketing.co.uk
By Stephen Taylor-Brown
Managing Director & Head of Planning
Please email me at stephen@abacusmarketing.co.uk to find out more.
A BIG AGENCY EXPERIENCE...
...WITHOUT THE BIG AGENCY PRICE TAG.
STRATEGIC MARKETING
PLANNING PROCESS
A powerful investment in the future success of your business.

2. • Abacus is an integrated marketing agency serving clients in and around London.
• We provide a full service offering - from strategy to creative to execution.
• We deliver all marketing media activities - in both digital and non-digital spaces.
• We create brand awareness activities and lead generation campaigns.
• We work with blue chip clients, ambitious SMEs and funded start-ups.
• Our clients work in a wide variety of industry sectors.
• Our clients operate in B2B and B2C marketplaces, and complex sales channels.
• We deliver projects in the UK and EMEA and can do so globally too.
• We guarantee high quality work, professional service and excellent value.
ABACUS MARKETING
We are an integrated
marketing agency:
• Marketing Consultancy
• Market Research
• Corporate Branding
• Creative Services
• Websites Apps
• Digital Marketing
Our digital marketing
service includes:
• SEO
• Social Media Marketing
• Content Marketing
• Email Marketing
• Digital Advertising
• Marketing Automation
Our non-digital marketing
service includes:
• Advertising
• Direct Marketing
• PR
• Sales Promotion
• Event Marketing
• Telemarketing

3. • Our strategic marketing planning process is a framework we have evolved over
a number of years that enables us to establish the most efficient use of scarce
resources (i.e. people and money) to create the most effective marketing strategy to
achieve a client’s business objectives, in a defined period of time and for a specific
level of investment.
• The framework is always tailored to the specific requirements of individual clients,
regardless of the scale and scope of their brief, the size and complexity of their
organisation, the industry sector they work in, the geographical territories in which
they operate, and the type of customer marketplace in which they sell (B2B or B2C).
• The purpose of our strategic planning process is to take all the guesswork out of the
equation when it comes to marketing planning. We establish all the important criteria
we need to know to enable us to deliver powerful messages directed to the specific
needs of a client’s target market. We take a holistic view of their business to ensure
that all internal factors are considered too.
WHAT IS OUR STRATEGIC
MARKETING PLANNING
PROCESS?

4. • An organisation’s core brand proposition should always be derived from robust
insights. Insights are facts about customers, the marketplace, a business, its people,
and its products.
• As marketing experts, we help your brand to articulate its overall proposition, by
uncovering new ways of thinking that we leverage through marketing activities to
achieve your goals.
• Data drives insights, insights drive conclusions, and conclusions drive
recommendations. That’s why research is so important. It provides quality data to
generate meaningful insights.
• Our strategic marketing planning process provides a research-led approach
to insight generation. It enables us to develop credible conclusions and
robust recommendations.
• Fact-based insights do not negate the benefit of intuition-based induction, an
internal “gut feel” that connects the head with the heart. High quality induction is a
consequence of expertise, effort and experience.
A RESEARCH-LED APPROACH
TO INSIGHT GENERATION

5. • Many of the answers we need are already known by you and your customers –
our job is to determine the right questions to ask to get the best possible responses.
• We use workshops, interviews and questionnaires to ensure a full spectrum of
opinion within the internal environment. Internal stakeholders could include suppliers,
associates and partners - as well as staff, of course.
• We consult market sector reports to understand your marketplace. We visit
competitor’s customer-facing portals (such as their websites and stores) and use
mystery shopping techniques to analyse their sales pipeline processes. We read
comparison reports from independent experts to see how potential customers are
influenced when undertaking pre-purchase research.
• We speak to your customers (lapsed, current and prospect) and analyse online
feedback, and look at organisations with similar challenges in different industries
and geographies to see what lessons we can learn from them.
TYPES OF RESEARCH WE
TYPICALLY UNDERTAKE

6. • We establish complete clarity regarding the scope and scale of your brief.
• We develop a comprehensive understanding of your overall business proposition.
• We conduct an in-depth review of your customers.
• We analyse the features and benefits of your products and services.
• We deliver a technical and manual review of your competitors.
• We specify the needs and wants of your stakeholders.
• We examine your CRM systems and sales pipeline processes.
• We ask for the views of your directors, managers, staff, associates, suppliers
and partners.
• We identify the sales collateral and marketing materials you need.
• We provide a comprehensive definition of your corporate strategic brand proposition.
• We create your message proposition at company, customer and product levels.
• We determine the most effective lead generation and brand awareness activities for
your business.
• We set SMART goals, media budgets and timing plans for all your marketing activities.
THE KEY STEPS IN
THE PROCESS

7. • What are the key challenges you
are facing?
• What are the core objectives you
wish to achieve?
• Who are your main competitors?
• How is the health of your
marketplace?
• Where do you want to be in the next
one, three and five years?
• What features make your products
desirable?
• What would customers say about
your company?
• Do you have a customer service
standards charter?
• How would you describe your
company sales culture?
• Do you have a formal brand proposition
in place?
• Who are your most important
stakeholders?
• What CRM systems and sales pipeline
processes do you have in place?
• What lead generation/brand activities
have you invested in previously?
• How effective were these activities?
• Are there any legislative or cultural
issues we need to know about?
• What do you see as the core obstacles
to the success of marketing?
• What do you think are the right
marketing solutions for your business?
• What else do we need to know that we
have not asked?
THE BRIEF –
WHAT WE NEED TO KNOW

8. • Some organisations do not have an up-to-date business plan in place, so the
primary objective of this stage in the process is to define your overall business
proposition if this is the case.
• This session is normally held at a neutral offsite location, such as a meeting room at
our offices, and is attended by up to six key members of your team.
• The primary areas we wish to look at in this session are your customers, products
and competitors, but it is also useful for us to understand the internal operation of
your organisation too.
BUSINESS PROPOSITION

9. • Customer segments are often defined according to horizontal and vertical markets
– the products and services they buy (horizontal) and the industry sectors in which
they operate (vertical).
• Customer demographics help us to understand your target market in more detail, by
drilling down into specific details - age, sex, job title, address, salary etc. – anything
that is relevant to your business.
• Customer personas improve our understand of their purchasing behaviour, by
defining the different types of personalities and characters of your audience.
• We also like to speak to your customers directly – current, lapsed and desired
– to find out what they think. Focus groups, one-to-one discussions and online
questionnaires reveal many useful insights.
CUSTOMER ANALYSIS

10. • We need to establish the key features and benefits for each of the products and
services your company sells, to better understand how they meet your customers’
rational needs and emotional drivers.
• We need to know sales figures and gross profit percentages for each of your
products and services so that we can establish which are the most important drivers
of turnover and margin.
• We need to know about any products and services you are developing - and any
existing ones that you are likely to discontinue.
PRODUCTS AND SERVICES

11. • One of the best ways to gain useful information is by gaining intelligence on your
competitors’ marketing activities. By using technical tools, we can identify the
keywords they target, the traffic these keywords generate, the digital media they
use, their creative messaging, and the follower profile on their social platforms.
• We can also find out many useful insights about competitors through a manual
discovery process, which might include reviewing their website in detail,
downloading their brochures, following their social media pages, signing up for
their newsletters, using their web chatbots, emailing their sales team, calling their
customer services, visiting their stores etc.
• This process enables us to map out your competitor landscape, and helps us to
define your positioning within the overall marketplace – such as by comparing
service, quality, market share, price, perceived value etc.. The aim of this activity
is to establish clear ground in which you can operate in support of any unique
selling propositions.
COMPETITOR ANALYSIS

12. • There are a number of different stakeholders who are likely to have a direct or
indirect impact on your business, and we need to identify them all to ensure we
create the necessary platforms to communicate with them on an ongoing basis.
• These stakeholders include suspects, prospects and customers (target market),
shareholders, management and employees (internal team), associates, partners and
suppliers (external team), and the general public, media journalists and regulatory
bodies (external influences).
• Once we have identified the different stakeholder groups relevant to your business,
we can then map out their communication requirements, how they interact with
each other, and which are the most important relationships for your business.
STAKEHOLDER MAPPING

13. • Once we have completed the stakeholder mapping process, it is a relatively simple
task to identify the sales collateral and marketing materials we need to create to
communicate with them as efficiently and effectively as possible.
• Typical examples of the type of materials we might need to produce include a
website, social media, brochures, posters, leaflets, videos (filmed and animated),
presentations, newsletters, annual reports, emails, exhibition stands, signage,
uniforms and stationery.
• It’s not just what we need to deliver, but when we need to deliver it by. It’s therefore
important to create a timing plan that identifies all the important milestones in the
process, and whether each element is a one-off or repeated event.
MARKETING COMMUNICATIONS

14. • The purpose of a sales pipeline is to manage prospect data, track lead generation
activities, maximise conversion, increase lifetime value and encourage loyalty -
through automatic and manual processes.
• A sales pipeline needs to include a CRM system and marketing automation
software, and it should ideally interact with your accounting system to track
sales performance.
• Many of the most effective sales pipelines primarily use email campaigns to minimise
churn, increase sales value, upsell to more profitable lines, request reviews, reward
referrals and recognise loyalty.
SALES PIPELINE

15. • We believe that anyone internally within your business who has a stake or an
interest in your success has an important role to play in this process. That’s not
just shareholders, directors, managers and staff - but associates, partners and
suppliers too.
• Our internal audit is likely to include a combination of one-on-one interviews,
group discussions and anonymous questionnaires. This ensures everyone in your
company is involved in the process, and this means they are more likely to support
the outcome.
• From these activities, we are able to learn a great deal about the sales culture within
your organisation, how your employees feel about your company, what they see as
its strengths and weaknesses, and what they would like to change.
INTERNAL AUDIT

16. • Your brand has external and internal elements. We refer to the external element
(that everyone sees) as the creative brand proposition, and the internal element
(that everyone experiences) as the strategic brand proposition. Your creative brand
proposition brings your strategic brand proposition to life.
• The strategic brand proposition defines the principles and standards of your
business. It reflects the morals and ethics of your belief system. It creates a
corporate personality and a definitive character. It provides a platform for your
internal culture, attitude and mindset.
• We explain your strategic brand proposition by talking about it in terms of the overall
vision of your company, the core values by which you conduct business, your
views about the marketplace in which you operate, the virtues of your people and
processes, and the vows you deliver to all your stakeholders.
• A brand proposition is not designed to create people robots, but rather to provide
a robust framework in which individual talent can flourish. It encourages the
recruitment of like-minded people.
• We can then create a meaningful mission statement which clearly explains your
future ambitions.
STRATEGIC BRAND
PROPOSITION

17. • Although messaging typically refers back to the brand positioning of your
organisation and the features and benefits of your products and services, it only
has impact if it does so in a way that is relevant to the needs and wants of your
target market.
• A message proposition needs to speak to suspects, prospects and customers at
every stage in your sales pipeline process, to maximise conversion and minimise
churn ‘before-the-sale’, and to increase customer lifetime value and word of mouth
marketing ‘after-the-sale’.
• The message proposition needs to empathise with your customers’ pain points in
order to rationalise their decision-making process. All of the decisions we make in life
are based on both emotional and rational factors, the former being more important
than we might care to admit.
• Your message proposition needs to be based on a robust understanding of your
customers’ segments, demographics and psychographics. Only by having complete
clarity on the hierarchies, profiles and personas of your customers can we map out
an effective messaging platform.
HOLISTIC MESSAGE
PROPOSITION

18. • By completing the strategic marketing planning process, we are able to identify the
most effective and efficient mix of lead generation activities to increase sales of your
products and services, and also to establish the best possible weighting of budget
between each different type of activity.
• Lead generation activities typically fall into either digital or non-digital types of media.
They can be classified in terms of short-term tactics, medium-term campaigns, and
long-term strategies. We take a holistic approach, as digital and non-digital media
activities rely on each other for optimal results.
• Typical examples of digital marketing include digital advertising (search engines,
display networks and social media), search engine optimisation (SEO), social media,
email marketing, and content. For each activity, we will define an effective strategy to
deliver the best results for your business.
• Typical examples of non-digital marketing include advertising, direct marketing,
sales promotion and live events (exhibitions and conferences). Although the digital
landscape has evolved enormously in recent years, offline marketing still remains an
important medium for many companies to consider.
LEAD GENERATION ACTIVITIES

19. • Brand awareness activities can be thought of as either non-direct or passive lead
generation activities. People like to buy from brands they trust. That’s not just true for
global corporates, the same principle applies for every business.
• The value of investing in brand awareness activities is that the value of your brand
represents the difference between the book value of your business and its market-
driven valuation (called “goodwill”). Brand awareness also drives sales in the
medium-term through engagement and promotion.
• Brand awareness activities include social media, media relations, press releases,
advertorials and launch parties. The strategic marketing planning process allows us
to deliver effective strategies for all of all your brand awareness activities.
BRAND AWARENESS ACTIVITIES

20. • SMART goals are Specific (simple and sensible), Measurable (meaningful and
motivating), Achievable (agreed and attainable), Relevant (realistic and results-based)
and Time-bound (time-based and time-sensitive). They relate to the effectiveness of
your marketing activities, rather than to the key business objectives that you have
specified in your brief.
• Marketing budgets are determined by a number of factors – such as the size of your
turnover, the competitiveness and maturity of the industry you operate in, the goals
you wish to achieve, the level of funding available to you, and the timespan within
which you want to achieve your goals. We will provide an outline budget for all your
marketing activities during this process.
• A production schedule is a useful tool to have in place for tracking progress and
highlighting important milestones along the way. Typical delivery timescales are 1-3
months to compete the strategic marketing planning process, and 2-6 months
to deliver sales collateral and marketing materials, depending upon the scale and
scope of what is needed.
GOALS, BUDGETS
AND TIMESCALES

21. • An investment in our strategic marketing planning process is a robust and credible
way to ensure that all your marketing activities are as effective and efficient as
possible in supporting your company’s sales efforts and business plans.
• There are three factors to consider when creating a successful marketing plan
– which is the right direction to go in, how effortlessly you can travel in the right
direction, and how much resource you can invest in your journey at any given time.
• Although our process is designed to create high quality marketing plans for smaller
companies with ambitious goals that they are willing to fund through marketing
activities, it also provides a reliable template for creating powerful marketing
campaigns for blue chip corporates to sell specific products and services.
• Please contact our Managing Director, Stephen Taylor-Brown, who is also our
Head of Planning, at stephen@abacusmarketing.co.uk to find out more about
how our strategic marketing planning process can help you to achieve all your
business goals.
SUMMARY

22. EFFECTIVE TEAMWORK
DEMANDS...
...MUTUAL RESPECT
AND ADMIRATION
ADDRESS:
Abacus Marketing
20 Eastbourne Terrace
Paddington
London W2 6LG
TELEPHONE:
020 3858 7836
EMAIL:
info@abacusmarketing.co.uk
RAIL/TUBE:
Our office is located at 20 Eastbourne
Terrace, a few minutes walk from
Paddington Station – just opposite the
Crossrail entrance (when it opens).
PARKING:
There is an APCOA car park available
close by.
CONTACT