SOSTAC ® marketing planning model guide

What is the SOSTAC® marketing planning model and how do you use it?

If you don’t know SOSTAC®, it’s worth getting to know. I’m alerting you to SOSTAC® now since it was the third most popular of the marketing models poll in 2011, but’s not so well known as #1 and #2.

What is SOSTAC®?

SOSTAC® is a planning model, originally developed in the 1990s to help with marketing planning by PR Smith, who is my co-author on Emarketing Excellence.

SOSTAC® 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?

We’ve applied this approach in creating our Internet marketing planning template and I’ve also used it in my books applying it to the core aspects of digital marketing. Here’s how I use it to summarise the main issues to consider within a digital marketing strategy:

You can see it gives a logical order for tackling your plan (with iterations) and a great way to summarise the main elements of each.

Why is SOSTAC® useful?

I think SOSTAC® has become popular since it’s simple, easy to remember and covers all the main issues which you need in a marketing plan or business plan

This is a short post because the mnemonic and chart says it all – the SOSTAC® model is useful because it provides a simple, effective framework to follow.

Tips for using SOSTAC®

Here are some tips on how to use SOSTAC® based on my experience of applying it in companies and seeing how students apply it in assignments.

1. Use SOSTAC® to review your process

Before looking at how you apply SOSTAC® at each step to create a marketing plan, my first tip is to use it to review your planning process and how you manage your marketing.

Ask yourself critically about the activities you personally and your organisation are good at. Maybe you spend too much or too little time reviewing the situation. Perhaps you’re not so good at setting SMART objectives, or developing strategies to support them or the control stage of assessing how effective your strategies and tactics are and adjusting them?

2. Get the balance right across SOSTAC®

Oftentimes, there is too much time spent on analysis within a plan and not enough on setting the strategies. I’d also say that for a student assignment, it’s best to make reference to AC relatively brief, incorporating them into other sections.

So as a rule of thumb, this is how your balance of content could look:

S (20%) O (5%) S (45%) T (30%) = 100%

3. Summarise your Situation in a TOWs matrix form of SWOT

To give focus to your situation analysis I recommend this form of SWOT analysis. This helps integrate SWOT with strategy.

4. Make your goals SMART and link them to your analytics/control process

Since digital marketing is so measurable, it makes sense to be specific as possible about your goals by developing a funnel conversion model. You should also setup specific goals in Google Analytics.

But it’s worth thinking about the full range of goals indicated by the 5Ss.

5. Integrate the different elements of your SWOT

Oftentimes in a plan or report there isn’t good flow relating sections. To help this I recommend summarising your entire SOSTAC® plan within a table.

Do let us know if you have any other tips on the best way to apply SOSTAC®