Your Guide to Creating Your 2015 Strategic Plan

It’s the holidays! Time for eggnog, seasonal lights, friends, family — and oh yes, your strategic business plan for 2015!

Now is a great time to reflect on the past year, take a focused look at your goals for the coming one, and determine how to get there. Although traditional strategic planning exercises can be helpful, publishers may want to customize the planning process for their needs.

Why create a strategic plan?

For publishers, who work several months ahead, it can seem like each year blends into the next. That’s why a strategic plan is so important.

It’s easy to get lost in day-to-day workings of the company, so it’s important to create a big-picture view of your company and set a strong vision that you can refer to throughout the year to help guide every decision. A formal strategic plan serves as your “North Star,” keeping you on course and steering you away from activities that don’t support your goals, your mission and your customers.

[sidebar]Click here to watch Part 8 of the Publishing Excellence Series, “Building Your Strategic Plan.”[/sidebar]

A strategic plan is tightly bound to your organization’s mission and helps identify what is important to all stakeholders. It results in quicker decision-making because activities are approved (or not) based on an agreed-upon set of criteria.

In addition, developing and implementing a strategic plan helps bring all employees together working toward a common purpose. 

Hit the basics and go beyond

Most leaders have had exposure to basic principles of strategic planning — identifying strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT). A SWOT analysis can be highly valuable, but it’s just the beginning, not the entire process.

In Part 8 of the Publishing Excellence Education Series, Ryan Dohrn, ad sales consultant, offers up his own version of a strategic analysis that is more appropriate for publishers than the generic SWOT analysis.

He recommends four areas of focus:

• Content — Instead of guessing about future topics, use analytical tools to determine what readers are searching for and match your content to their needs. You can use this information to fine-tune your editorial calendar.
• Sales — Perform a detailed analysis of your competitors; then look closely at your sales team and their processes to determine which strategies lead to success.
• Marketing — Acquire new readers and advertisers by surveying them to determine what they want from you — and provide it.
• Retention — It’s cheaper and easier to keep readers and advertisers than find new ones.

In the video, Ryan explains these four areas in detail and how to incorporate them into your annual strategic planning.

Most publishers are already gearing up for the first-quarter. But during the holiday season, take a moment for quiet reflection with your team, and refocus and re-energize your efforts!

[cta]Contact your Sheridan representative, Susan Parente at susan.parente@sheridan.com, to learn how Sheridan can help you streamline, reduce costs, and keep up with advances in digital publishing.[/cta]