SOSTAC MAKES YOU READY TO ATTACK
Why should your SME take note and adopt this framework?
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In 2020 we lived and experience the crisis of organizations who needed to adapt of die in a market that was stopped and flipped on its head. This resulted in numerous organizations especially SME’s closing or downsizing significantly as they could not adapt to the market and how it needed to function as they failed to have the correct tools and knowledge to do so.
WHAT ARE THE WEAPONS IN YOUR ARSENAL?
The use of a framework such as SOSTAC is of the utmost importance, how does this framework, work you ask, here is the quick definition and basics of the framework.
Situational analysis — The basis of situational analysis assists you in determining the current situation your organisation is functioning in and what your position in the market, industry or arena is. Further to this Situational Analysis assist in identifying the strengths and resources you have to your disposal and what your target market and competitors are pursuing (Hidden Gems, 2020).
Objectives — The setting of specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and time-based objective are important to an SMEs as this ensures that all role players in the organisation have clarity on what the future will look like and what the SME wants to achieve.
Strategy — Objective without strategy is pointless because if not action plan accompanies the objectives they will rarely if ever be achieved. A strategy might be obtaining of a specific scarce resource, development of specialised software or rebranding the organisation.
Tactics — The tactics are the detailed steps during which specific tasks that align with the plan are developed. This is often done when SME’s use the 8P’s which allows for an informed plan to be formulated, which in turn assist in identifying the possible pitfalls (Chaffey, 2020).
Actions — As with anything after the plan has been developed certain actions need to take place, this stage requires roles and responsibilities to be assigned and processes to be put in place.
Control — This is the last but most important phase of the process without control measures the efficiency and actual progress cannot be measured and development may be delayed as a result. This process of control can be achieved through KPI’s, customer experience surveys and processes of reporting (Hidden Gems, 2020).
WHY THE USE IF SOSTAC IN AN ATTACK IS IMPORTANT.
The most predominant reason why it is beneficial to use SOSTAC to attack your change objective of effective marketing communication is that it is a simplified and systematic approach which is easy to understand, explain and implement within any SME.
The SOSTAC framework achieves the following when implemented and understood correctly.
Clear and concise results.
Establishes clear structures.
Team based information sharing is simpler and more developed.
The strategy can be viewed as a whole or broken into segments of action plans.
Accurate when building marketing plans as it is systematic.
DEBRIEFING THE ATTACK
It is for the abovementioned reasons that all SME’s should understand, develop and implement the SOSTAC framework due to the fact that without this framework the success of the marketing strategies currently and that will be developed in future will be problematic and will not render the desired effect.
The marketplace as we know it has been changed forever and without proper frameworks to guide and oversee the process of evolvement or adaption, organisation will not survive.
REFERENCES
Chaffey, D. (2020, February 29). SOSTAC Marketing Plan Model. Retrieved from Dr Dave Chaffey: Digital Insights: https://www.davechaffey.com/digital-marketing-glossary/sostac-marketing-plan-model/#:~:text=SOSTAC%C2%AE%20has%20six%20steps,Marketing%3A%20Strategy%20and%20Implementation%20book.
Hidden Gems. (2020, March 2). Having a digital strategy for SME’s — the imprtance and benefits! Retrieved from Hidden Gems: https://bethymcdaniel.wordpress.com/2020/03/02/having-a-digital-strategy-for-smes-the-imprtance-and-benefits/
