The SOSTAC Model Explained

Q1. The SOSTAC model was formed in the 1990’s to aid with marketing planning by PR Smith. This marketing model has six stages on how to create a successful marketing plan. They include, Situation, Objectives, Strategy, Tactics, Action and Control. SOSTAC, as a marketing model is easy to follow and explains key struggles when creating a marketing plan.

Situation Analysis

Situation lays out the framework for any business marketing plan. It is recommended for businesses to use situation analysis to allow for an outline of their business be known, what their business entails, who exactly they are and how they intercommunicate.

Within situation analysis, a business should consider where their company is standing. It is recommended that a business follow certain guidelines. 1. A SWOT analysis, what the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats to the company are. 2. A competitor analysis, who your competition are and how do they compete in certain areas e.g. price, product and service. 3. Consider who your online consumers are and how do they react to your product and/or service? Does their demographic region increase/decrease sales? 4. Assess your digital channels. What channels are working and how are they effective for your business?

A SWOT analysis can be quite effective for your business as it highlights both the problems that are current and present in your company, while also it can enable improvements to be made in all departments, not just digital areas. A SWOT test can be efficient to gain customer feedback, specifically in retail.

Objectives

In Situation analysis, we asked the question of where are we now. The objectives centre on the question of where do we want to be? A company should focus on two methods of creating measurable and efficient goals. 

The first set of goals entail the 5S’s. Sell, Serve, Speak, Save and Sizzle. It is important for a company to make their goals to make their goals measurable. The 5S’s enable a company to create goals that achieve this. Once measurable goals are produced, it is recommended that those goals should be converted to SMART objectives.

In the sell area, a company needs to look at how they make the most profits, and how they can improve on the appearance of their product or service to increase their sales.

The serve area is one of the most important as it sets the tone for your business. How you look after a customer is what sets you apart from your competitors. The more you take into consideration a customer’s satisfaction, the increase of brand loyalty and awareness will rise.

A product or service in the market that a company produces has to sizzle. If you produce a product or service that it subpar in comparison to your competitors, it won’t withstand for long on the market.

To speak to a customer is a very important factor. By doing this, you are informing them about your products which in turn leads to brand awareness. A customer will have the ability to voice opinions and debate.

Budgeting and saving money in digital marketing is crucial as wasting money is a huge possibility. A budget is needed to ensure that money is spent in the right areas.

Your goals have to be SMART. Specific, Measurable, Actionable, Relevant and Time Related.

It is crucial for your objectives to be specific. A company has to create goals that are specific to a particular issue within the company.

Can they be recorded through traditional quantitative and qualitative methods such as surveys and questionnaires?

Can your objectives improve the overall running of the business?

Are the objectives related to the issue at hand within the digital marketing department?

Is there a reasonable time frame to achieve what the company has set out to do?

Strategy

Strategy looks at how the company will get to the place where their objectives set out to do. In order to fulfill this, an acronym called STOP and SIT is used. This involves; segments, target market, objective, positioning (OVP). SIT uses; sequence, integration and targeting and segmentation. A company must ask how they are going fulfill their objectives.

Segmentation: A company must decide who they are going to market their product to. You should state whether or not you are going to segment your market by either geographic, demographic or even behavioral. Each group should have similar needs and wants.

Target Market: you must decide who your target market is, following the segmentation of your market. Is your product going to target and older or younger audience?

Objective: Base your strategy off your objectives. When creating a strategy it is important to keep your objectives in mind as you ultimately want to achieve these goals within a specific time period.

Positioning: The question a company should ask is how do we want to be perceived in each different target segment? Positioning includes how a brand takes their position against their competition brands.

Sequence: The sequence that is recommended to follow is Trust, Try. In a digital marketing company, sequencing is important as it allows for customers to feel as though the information being provided to them can be trusted, and also where the source came from.

Integration: Integration involves a company combining all their data base they have on their customer relation management. This can include their company’s website, email marketing, telephone lines and customer satisfaction surveys. Integrating their information allows a company to evaluate their data bases and can provide solutions on how to improve them.

Segmentation: It is important to segment your market based off the product a company is planning to sell. Dependent on the product, it could benefit the business by targeting to a younger audience in a specific region. A company should segment their target market based on the geographical, demographical or consumer behaviours.

Tactics

Tactics entails how exactly do we get there? While in strategy we ask how we get there, tactics involve how to get there exactly.

Within the tactics strategy, a company needs to think about their product and how they are going to market it effectively to meet your objectives. It is recommended that they use the 7 P’s of the marketing mix to focus on key areas.

What is your product, and is there a justification on why it is on the market alongside competitors? Is the price suitable dependent on what your product entails? From where it’s sold, is it there an effective reach for customers globally, or are there restrictions? To promote your product do you have sufficient advertising to sell it to consumers?

A company can promote a product efficiently in a number of ways digitally. Email marketing can boost your sales and increase profit by sending emails based on customers buying habits which can influence their decision to repurchase, while also offering promotions to tempt a customer.

Ensure your company can provide positive customer service, as it improves the overall rating of your product. Consumers will have common questions about delivery of the product, returns policies, etc.

When a consumer purchases your product, create a checkout process that is easy and efficient to complete. Basic details should be provided such as a name and address along with a post code. Card details should be filled out next to complete the purchase.

Actions

Actions bring to life your objectives and plans. It provides who does what jobs and when. It allows a company to start pursuing the action that was set into place. This is the stage that incorporates what tasks need to be fulfilled.

Within each stage of a company’s campaign, there are responsibilities that need to be covered. Information about responsibilities need to be tackled if any of the tasks are to be completed.

In this stage, a company must tackle weather they are going to use internal staff or external agencies.

Key questions should be considered based on what tactics are being carried out. For SEO’s, what keywords should a company be using. From there, a company should use those keywords to enhance their websites and increase their overall rankings.

Another example of a tactic can be PPC (Pay per Click). Are keywords that a company is using effective to enhance their target market, is the planed budget sufficient?

The overall actions a company makes will effect whether or not a marketing campaign will be carried out efficiently. A company must plan their tactics with the result they want to achieve at the end.

Control

Control is the final stage of SOSTAC. We can ask the question of how we know that we are getting there.  This stage is based on how a company will consistently track their campaign based off their objectives that were created in stage 2.

 Companies can do this by continuing to monitor their Sell, Serve, Sizzle, and Speak and save tactics. It is important to include usability testing. Constantly seeking out problems or issues that arose through the website should be monitored and tackled. Within this stage you can test your customer satisfaction through customer surveys and tests. You can have the control on how to fix problems in customer satisfaction areas. We can then figure out what happens with all information received about the monitoring of all departments of the company and who reports to who within the business.