How SOSTAC? can boost your marketing performance

SOSTAC? is a proven framework for marketing planning that can help you create and execute a data-driven strategy for your company. In this article, I will explain what SOSTAC? is, how it can benefit your marketing activities, and how to apply it in practice.

What is SOSTAC??

SOSTAC? is an acronym that stands for:

• Situation: where are we now?
• Objectives: where do we want to be?
• Strategy: how do we get there?
• Tactics: how exactly do we get there?
• Action: what is our plan?
• Control: did we get there?

SOSTAC? was developed by PR Smith in the 1990s and has been voted the third most popular model in the CIM poll on marketing models. It is simple, easy to remember, and covers all the main issues that you need in a marketing plan or business plan.

What are the benefits of using SOSTAC??

Using SOSTAC? can help you:

• Analyze your current situation and identify your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT analysis).
• Set SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and time-bound) objectives that align with your vision and mission.
• Define your strategy based on your target market, value proposition, positioning, and differentiation.
• Choose the best tactics to implement your strategy across the marketing mix (product, price, place, promotion).
• Create an action plan that assigns tasks, responsibilities, resources, and deadlines.
• Monitor and measure your performance using key performance indicators (KPIs) and analytics.

By using SOSTAC?, you can improve your marketing performance by:

• Having a clear and coherent direction for your marketing activities.
• Focusing on the most important and relevant goals and actions.
• Aligning your marketing activities with your business objectives and customer needs.
• Optimizing your marketing resources and budget.
• Evaluating your marketing results and learning from your successes and failures.

How to use SOSTAC? in practice?

To use SOSTAC? in practice, you can follow these steps:

1. Conduct a situation analysis using tools such as PESTLE analysis (political, economic, social, technological, legal, and environmental factors), competitor analysis, customer analysis, and internal audit.
2. Define your objectives using the SMART criteria and link them to your vision and mission statements.
3. Develop your strategy based on your segmentation, targeting, and positioning (STP) approach and your unique selling proposition (USP).
4. Select your tactics based on the 7Ps of marketing (product, price, place, promotion, people, process, and physical evidence) and the RACE framework (reach, act, convert, engage).
5. Write an action plan that details who will do what, when, where, how, and with what budget.
6. Establish control mechanisms that specify how you will track and evaluate your results using metrics such as return on investment (ROI), customer satisfaction, conversion rate, etc.

You can use various tools and templates to help you apply SOSTAC?, such as:

• SWOT analysis template
• SMART objectives template
• Positioning statement template
• Content calendar template
• Action plan template
• KPI dashboard template

You can also find more resources and examples on how to use SOSTAC? on?PR Smith’s website ?or?Smart Insights website .

SOSTAC? is a powerful framework for marketing planning that can help you create and execute a data-driven strategy for your company. By using SOSTAC?, you can improve your marketing performance by having a clear direction, focusing on the most important goals and actions, aligning your marketing activities with your business objectives and customer needs, optimizing your marketing resources and budget, and evaluating your marketing results and learning from them.