Written by Kognitiv’s Strategy & Consulting Team
As we find ourselves well into the second quarter, some marketers are already starting to see their plans for 2024 come to fruition. However, at Kognitiv, we understand that many face a different reality. The marketing landscape constantly evolves due to technological changes, consumer behavior, and corporate pressures to increase profits, making it challenging to create a solid marketing plan. If you find yourself in this situation, you are not alone.
To help, we crafted this four-step approach to creating a success statement that will guide you as you define and execute against an effective marketing strategy:
- Set a marketing vision for the future that aligns with your company's overall vision
- Identify the assets and strengths you can leverage to achieve your goals
- Determine the constraints that may hinder your success
- Translate your vision into specific, measurable marketing objectives
Download our fillable Success Statement Template that includes examples and instructions for each section.
Step 1: Set a vision for the future.
Every marketing leader should have a concise vision that outlines the overarching, end-state goal for their marketing efforts. The aim of any team or function is to support the company’s end goal and direction, so consider how they connect to the company vision when crafting it. Everything should tie back to what customers expect from your brand in the first place.
With a vision, you are laying the foundation for your marketing effort’s primary goals - “Think Big,” and don’t focus on the “How.” Focus on why your end customer would want to have a relationship with your brand. And remember, a strong vision should have longevity. In our experience, marketers who change their vision frequently struggle with organizational alignment and securing marketing investment.
In our experience, marketers who change their vision frequently struggle with organizational alignment and securing marketing investment.
Step 2: Identify the assets that will help you get there.
List the positive facts that could be useful in helping you achieve your vision. No asset is too big or too small – write them all down. Whether you have strengths in market positioning, organizational competencies, technology investment, or existing customer loyalty – if it is positive, there is a possibility you can leverage it to help you achieve your goals.
Step 3: Identify the constraints you need to overcome.
Consider the relevant and adverse facts that could prevent you from achieving your vision. These could be internal limitations or restrictions of the organization (e.g., short-staffed, limited budget, etc.), but they can also be external, such as emerging issues that may require you to act. For most marketers, constraints identify what you must overcome and are the starting point for sizing the investments necessary to succeed.
Step 4: Set measurable objectives.
Based on your ideal end-state, it’s essential to create specific, measurable objectives that indicate success. Your marketing objectives may start as a theme (e.g., grow revenue), but the end output should have specific metrics (e.g., increase revenue by 5% through new customer activation). Once your measurable objectives are set, the key to achieving them is prioritization. A simple scoring of objectives ensures you focus on the marketing initiatives that will most likely achieve your top priorities.
Following the four steps above, you can create your success statement.
We recommend that marketers re-visit their success statements as often as quarterly. Use this framework to identify if assets or constraints have changed and if objectives need to be adjusted; and with every adjustment, ensure continued alignment with your stakeholders. With a strong success statement in place, the next step is to identify your plan to achieve it.
While developing a sound strategy requires an experienced marketer, at Kognitiv, we believe technology should help answer the question, “How am I going to do this?” Our solutions, Kognitiv Ignite and Kongitiv Amplify, use AI and ML to elevate marketing campaign planning, execution, and measurement. Set your objective and define your budget and timeline - our technology does the rest. With real-time insights feedback loop, you can adjust your priorities in-flight to ensure alignment with your marketing vision.
Need help getting started? Download our trusted template for creating an effective marketing success statement.
Ready to achieve your objectives from step 4 with certainty? Book a demo with one of our experts, and let AI do what it does best so you can jump-start achieving your success plan.
Our suite of AI-native customer intelligence and activation software can help you build deeper relationships with your customers and grow a loyal customer base.
- Track, predict, and optimize your customers’ lifecycles with Kognitiv Pulse. Learn more.
- Enable 1:1 personalization at scale with Kognitiv Ignite. Learn more.
- Launch and manage a successful loyalty program with Kognitiv Inspire. Learn more.
- Intelligently acquire and engage customers across paid channels with Kognitiv Amplify. Learn more.