To determine your company’s marketing strategy, you must know three things: your mission, vision and core values. Perhaps you already have those on paper somewhere, perhaps this is unknown territory. In both cases it is worth digging into this (one more time).
How will writing a marketing strategy contribute to the success of your enterprise? By putting your mission, vision and core values into words, you create focus and guidance for your organization’s employees—but also all the products, services and marketing tools you develop for the outside world. Without this, it is difficult to gauge what the right direction or call is. So let us consider these important elements one by one.
The mission describes your organization’s raison d’être from the perspective of your own values and identity. The underlying question here is “what do we stand for?”
A mission is the foundation for a company and something that tends to develop on its own throughout the years, often linked to its founder. This person started with a dream to achieve something in the world. “Give everyone access to the internet” for instance, or “end slavery in the cocoa industry”. It could be anything. When the mission is clear and clearly communicated, it will eventually be embraced by the whole company.
Are these pretty words only? No. A mission serves as a deeper motivation for people to contribute to an enterprise. With a clearly defined mission, a company can weather the roughest storm and keep every employee on board. They are words that keep you standing in tough situations.
Keep in mind: a mission is an enduring thing, it doesn’t change yearly.
To clarify the difference between mission and vision: where the former asks you the question “what are our values?”, the latter asks “what are our goals?”
This pulls your company’s dream of the future into the real world. What, specifically, will be your contribution to society? In contrast to the timeless mission, a vision is written for a particular period only. You evaluate and adjust it when necessary. Times and market realities change; so you had better check frequently if what you do is still in line with what you are trying to achieve.
Finally, that brings us to…
If the mission is your “why” and the vision your “what”, then your core values are best described as your “how”. This usually takes the form of a list of points or terms that reflect what your company deems important in treating customers.
For an insurance company it can be crucial to be “available 24/7”, as an incident requires immediate action. A housing corporation might have “solution-oriented” and “social responsibility”, or a bank “transparency” and “financial stability”. Each enterprise places its own accent.
The mission is crystal clear. The vision is right there. The core values are determined. Now all that needs to happen is for this dream of the future to come true. To ensure all the earlier work wasn’t done in vain, it is necessary to think about the strategy you will employ.
“Plans are nothing, planning is everything,” general and president Dwight D. Eisenhower said. By formulating clear actions and developing a plan for this, you increase the chances the strategy will actually work. But how to put this to paper?
Did you manage to do all of the above? Bravo, that was quite a task. The foundation of your marketing plan is now there, but there are still other steps to follow.
It might be you’re not fully satisfied yet, perhaps your mission and vision still lack clarity or depth. In that case, we at Vuurwerk can help you out. We are experts in developing marketing plans and pinpointing a company’s core values. Contact us here!
You have probably already seen them on our homepage: the ten components that should not be missing in a modern marketing plan. What does it yield? More visitors to your site, more quote requests, and more newsletter subscriptions.
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