What internal and external stakeholders do you involve in your strategy development?

Before going into strategy setting, it’s important to align and joint plan with your fellow counterparts in sales, business, product, analytics, operations, PR, and other marketing functions, etc. to establish the topline business target for the year (or quarter). If your team is not currently involved in this cross planning process, I would advocate to be part of it. From there, identify the key products rollout and timing. This helps to develop the key marketing moments and activations needed to contribute toward business goals. Once your marketing plan is in a good spot, you can then walkthrough with your external stakeholders or vendors.

For strategy development, I recommend thinking about this similar to a RACI model (responsible, accountable, consulted, and informed). You’ll need to include internal and external stakeholders who are involved to some capacity or need to be informed. You’ll want to be able to answer questions such as:

• Who needs to sign off on the strategy?
• Who needs to collaborate on the strategy?
• Who needs to be informed?

I like to operate from the perspective of over communicating. Transparency is key. Focus on what the goals are and who needs to be involved to accomplish said goals.