Why Roadmapping is Key to a Successful 2023 Marketing Plan
Your 2023 marketing plan is ready to roll. Or is it? Can you and your team easily connect all the big-picture thinking to the tactical work that needs to get done? This blog details how roadmapping is integral to a successful marketing plan.
You’ve just presented your 2023 marketing plan to your team — it’s one part high-level strategy mixed with one part revenue-based objectives and a pinch of company vision sprinkled on top. And now your team, the smart people charged with implementing all the big ideas, look overwhelmed and confused. Out of the silence, someone bravely asks, “So now what?” That’s where a marketing roadmap comes in.
Your customers can tell you the things that are broken and how they want to be made happy. Listen to them. Make them happy. But don't rely on them to create the future roadmap for your product or service. That's your job.
- Mark Cuban
What is a Marketing Roadmap?
A Marketing Roadmap visually articulates strategy, showing the goal and the milestones to be met along the way. And, as far as your 2023 marketing plan goes, it’s an extremely useful tool to capture your high-level goals and connect them to the team’s day-to-day activities. A marketing roadmap helps you define the “why” or the purpose behind your strategies, which is vital to understanding and implementing your marketing activities. Beyond the “why,” roadmapping is an effective tool that offers several other benefits:
Drives Alignment
From getting sales efforts aligned with marketing campaigns or IT aligned with web development, roadmapping draws a picture that brings cross-functional teams together.
Boosts Communication
As a visual tool, roadmapping captures observations and insights in a tangible way that’s frequently lost in planning sessions.
Builds Collaboration
Roadmapping makes it easy to see where cross-functional help is needed, where subject experts should weigh in, and where you can leverage efficiencies.
How Do You Create A Marketing Roadmap?
The overarching theme in roadmapping is to begin big and work backward, breaking down goals into more detailed action items.
Identify Who Will Be Involved
Roadmapping is a team sport, meaning it shouldn’t be left to the Director of Marketing or the CEO to hammer this out alone.
Start High Level
Begin with your marketing goals, getting them all out in front of the group. Keep it at a 10,000-foot view, don’t dive down into the nitty gritty just yet.
Then, Pick One High-Level Marketing Goal And Break It Down
Lay out all the campaigns and projects to obtain that goal.
Next, Pick One Of The Campaigns And Break It Down
Here’s where that detail comes in, refining each item until the team is comfortable with the level of granularity to understand responsibilities and timelines for deliverables.
Rinse And Repeat
Move on to the next high-level marketing goal and walk through the same process.
Tuna’s Take On A Marketing Roadmap
The reality is, creating a marketing roadmap can get complex pretty quickly. Never fear. You don’t have to go at it alone. At Tuna Traffic, we provide roadmapping workshops to facilitate the process. As trained facilitators, we engage directly with client teams to build a roadmap for strategic marketing plans as well as specific initiatives throughout the year as needed. Our expertise in agile methodology helps us incorporate a variety of techniques to our roadmapping that build in adaptability and clarity and make for a successful 2023 marketing plan
Roadmap Your Way To Successful Marketing In 2023
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Written By
Lori Weisberg
Lori lives by the mantra, “It’s not what you say; it’s how you say it.” As Director of Content and Client Strategy, Lori is the wordsmithing wind beneath many of our clients’ wings. Known for capturing our clients’ brand voices with compelling clarity and consistency, she also is a frequent Tuna blog contributor. When not perusing a thesaurus, Lori can be found adding more zing to her arrabbiata sauce or searching for an easier way to pill a cat.