Do you have a strategic marketing and communications plan?

Whether you are a non-profit or a for profit professional services organization, like a medical practice, or a company, you should have a strategic communications plan.?A communications strategy is designed to help you and your organisation communicate effectively and meet core organisational objectives. Instead of being reactive, having a plan is proactive and forces you to decide what you will say to whom and when and how you will say it.

In addition, having a plan puts all the different outreach and messaging tools into one place, creates priorities, helps to identify budget allocations and define benchmarks, timelines and metrics.

Here is a template for a strategic communications plan?that follows this 7 step outline:

Step One: Conduct a Situation Analysis A. Examine the External Environment B. Examine the Internal Environment C. Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats D. Analyze the SWOT

Step Two: Connect with Your Audience A. Audience Identification B. Audience Profile C. Select Priority Audiences

Step Three: Communications Objectives

Step Four: Tailor Messages A. Persuasive Messages B. Put a Human Face on the Work

Step Five: Develop Appropriate Strategies and Vehicles A. Evaluate Strategic Options B. Evaluate Existing Vehicles and Strategies C. Develop New Strategies and Vehicles

Step Six: Evaluate Your Efforts A. Strategy for Evaluation B. Develop Outcome Measures

Step Seven: Create a Timeline and Budget A. Develop a Calendar B. Communications Budget Sheet

Here is another template...and, another

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A go-to-market (GTM) strategy is a comprehensive action plan that outlines the approach and steps to attract and win new customers, enter new markets, increase market share, and achieve projected sales and marketing goals, revenue, and ROI. The last thing you want is for a new product to fail. There can be several reasons, but the usual culprits include weak or poorly executed product launches. You can avoid this if you have a well-thought-out, effective GTM strategy that creates a competitive advantage, can be smoothly implemented, then tracked and modified based on data analytics and customer input.

Common GTM mistakes are:

1. Not having a plan
2. Not launching your product at the right time

3. Relying on one-off connections via Linkedin

4. Not listening to customers

5. Not having the right sales and marketing people on the bus

6. Not using social media appropriately to create awareness and buzz about your product

7. Not having a budget

8. Failure to use the right analytics and measure results

9. Pivoting too late or not at all

10. Not testing your business ideas and exporing and exploiting your business model

Here is why your digital health startup will fail.

All this, of course, takes thought, planning and execution. Most you who are reading this won't do it. However, if you want the 5 minute university version, check this.

You are making a mistake if your digital marketing and communications efforts are not part of a bigger plan with many integrated, stratified, prioritized moving parts. Like the saying goes, half of advertising works, you just don't know which half. Whichever half it is, be sure you've got it covered.

Arlen Meyers, MD, MBA is the President and CEO of the Society of Physician Entrepreneurs on Twitter@SoPEOfficial and Co-editor of Digital Health Entrepreneurship