Q: Our organization is a member of LERN. II have been sent here to Hanoi, Vietnam by my University to help a rural College with its marketing strategies. Can you please provide me with a couple of documents that outline a model for strategic marketing planning (or strategic planning or both) to help me as a reference to help the College? I have read articles in the LERN publication, and any help you can provide in this regard will be of tremendous help. I was just asked to attend a meeting with the College's President to provide some guidance on the matter on Friday!
A: The template that LERN developed for strategic planning is shown below. I have also attached some articles about succession planning and best practices that should be helpful. Please let me know if you need additional information about staffing, marketing, etc. – we do have articles for these areas. Thanks for your request and for thinking of LERN.
http://media.lern.org/webinars/LERN-Best-Practices.doc
Strategic Planning Components
1) Organization Narrative
a. A high-level description of your organization. History. What you do? Important components of who you are.
2) Mission Statement
a. Why you exist.
3) Values Statements
a. A statement about your relationship with customers, a statement about what you expect from staff, and a statement about your organization as a business.
4) Unique Selling Proposition
a. The characteristics of your organization causing new people/clients to participant and past participants/clients to repeat.
5) Environmental Scanning
a. What is going on in your “community”/the territory you serve?
6) SWOT Analysis
a. What are your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats?
7) Key Data
i. Finances
b. Your financial performance the last three years.
i. Benchmarks
c. The benchmarks you track and your performance the last three years.
i. Market Segments
d. Your seven primary market segments.
8) Competition
a. Analysis of your top 3-5 competitors.
9) Major Initiatives
a. What major initiatives (will generate $100,000+ by year 3) are you working on? NOTE: LERN’s 8-Step Needs Assessment Model is designed to help with this process.
10) Areas to Address
i. Finances/Budgeting
ii. Needs Assessment
iii. Program Development
iv. Pricing
v. Marketing/Promotion
vi. Operations
vii. Customer Support
viii. Staffing/Staff Development
ix. Communication Systems
x. Evaluation
b. What actions need to be taken in each of the areas (and other appropriate areas) to improve performance?
11) Strategic Plan Actions
a. The long range action steps you will be taking.
12) Strategic Plan Timeline
The long-range action step timeline you will be following.