Costs
Part of Plain Facts About Marketing Strategy Worth Knowing
Marketing Strategy Checklist: Questions to Put to the Author
A marketing strategy checklist for the approver: the questions to put to the author, the answers that mean stop, and how to attach conditions to a yes.
What to take away
- A strategy passes review when it makes a choiceit names what it targets, what it declines, and what would make it stop.
- Put questions to the author and judge the answers, not the page count.
- A yes with conditions needs an owner, an interim limit, a due date and a decision consequence.
- A new reader should be able to restate the strategy without coaching.
Start with the strategic question
Find the strategic question, business objective, horizon, scope, owner, approver and constraints first. If the draft does not state them, the rest of the review has nothing to test against. A marketing strategy template should make these the opening fields.
The Australian Government's guide, "Do a SWOT analysis", treats strengths and weaknesses as internal and opportunities and threats as external, then asks teams to prioritize and use the analysis in strategy. Record the evidence behind each item and do not let a brainstorming label replace market or capability proof.
Ask what the strategy declines
A strategy that declines nothing has not chosen. Look for primary, secondary, future and non-target groups, each with reasons and review triggers, and for the attractive options the team left out and why. Exclusions keep focus on the chosen groups and prevent drift.
| Ask the author | Stop if the answer is |
|---|---|
| Who is excluded? | Every group is a target |
| What separates the segments? | Differences that change no action |
| What else could the customer do? | Only direct competitors, with no substitutes, workarounds, delay or doing nothing |
| What proves the claim, and where does it stop? | A claim with no proof or limits |
| Which attractive options were left out? | None recorded |
Each answer needs a home in the record, and the strategy template sections show where one belongs. An answer given only in the meeting will not survive the next review.
Check Capability and Economics
A strategy is only viable if the organization can execute it and the economics are sound. Put these questions to the author to test both.
Ask about capabilities:
- What specific capabilities does this strategy require to succeed?
- Which of these are current gaps in our people, processes, or technology?
- For each gap, is the plan to build, buy, or partner to acquire the capability?
- Who owns closing each gap, and what is the deadline?
- What are the estimated costs and lead times?
Ask about the economic model:
- What are the key assumptions in the financial model (e.g., price, contribution margin, customer acquisition cost, retention rate, and payback period)?
- Why are these assumptions realistic? What evidence supports them?
- What is the expected range of financial outcomes, from best to worst case?
- How would the investment and cash flow requirements change in each scenario?
- If the model uses a single figure instead of a range, what is its source and sensitivity?
Test That the Roadmap Is Controlled
The Australian Government's guide, "Set goals for your business", explains how to set specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART) goals. Use these principles to build a roadmap that tracks progress against the strategy. Building the template itself is an earlier task, covered in create marketing strategy templates.
Ask about the roadmap and controls:
- What are the major milestones, decision gates, and dependencies?
- What early-warning signals or stop conditions would tell the team the strategy is failing?
- At what specific points will these signals be checked?
- How will the strategy be versioned and its status tracked?
- Who owns the handoff of the approved plan to the execution teams?
Archive the approved strategy, supporting evidence identifiers, calculations, dissent, decision conditions and superseded version according to policy. Confirm that the marketing plan, budget and measurement framework reference the same targets, definitions and strategic-choice identifiers, then resolve mismatches before execution begins. The marketing plan template checklist covers the plan side.
Attach conditions to a yes
Do not pass an unresolved item silently. Approve with conditions only when the gap has an owner, an interim limit and a due date, and record what the approver will do if the gap is still open on that date.
- Name the owner who will close the gap.
- Set the interim limit on what the team may do or claim until it closes.
- Set the due date for the next review of the item.
- Write the decision consequence if the gap is still open then.
Return the draft when a material choice is unsupported, either to stop or to redesign. Mark an item not applicable only with a recorded reason and approver, and recheck it if the scope changes. Approve outright only when every test passed with evidence.
A conditional yes is a record, not a mood. Write the conditions down beside the approved strategy, where the next reviewer will find them, so that the due date is checked and the consequence is applied when the date arrives.
Common questions
Should every checklist item be mandatory?
No. Mark a genuinely irrelevant item not applicable, record the reason, and identify who accepted that scope decision.
What happens when evidence is incomplete?
Record the gap, uncertainty, interim limit, test, owner, deadline and the decision it blocks. For a brief rather than a strategy, see the campaign brief checklist.
Who signs off the review?
The person with authority for the strategic decision signs off, but they should be supported by specialist reviewers. Ask the author who has reviewed the plan and for what purpose.
- Who is the designated approver with authority over this strategic decision?
- Which experts have reviewed the plan for financial viability, operational feasibility, and evidence quality?
- Who has reviewed the strategy for legal and regulatory compliance, particularly regarding consumer protection rules from authorities like the Federal Trade Commission (FTC)?
- Who has confirmed that planned activities and assets will meet accessibility standards, such as the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG)?
