How Strategic Planning Works

Hello all, This past week has been a great week for my blog. Recently, I have been getting a large number of readers and viewers on my blog. I currently have 230 views which is about a quarter way to my semester goal of 1,000! I have noticed that Facebook has been a great outlet to get my blog recognized. I am fortunate enough to have great friends and family “share” my blog on Facebook which has resulted in over 180 views! Therefore, I have connected my blog to update my Facebook friends and family whenever a new post of mine is published.

Please Remember: Share my blog with your friends so we can all learn together, www.deanfromsiena.wordpress.com

We spent the past week in our Advertising class discussing the importance of strategic planning. Not just strategic planning of one’s advertising campaigns, but for organizations as a whole. Strategic planning is defined as the process of which an organization decides on how to allocate their resources to pursue their long term direction or strategy of choice. The four processes of this process include:

• Identify a Problem
• Determining Objectives
• Deciding on Strategies
• Implementing Tactics

I’m not going to go into detail on how this works and give you step-by-step lecture. Why? Because nobody will want to read my blog and I will never reach 1,000 hits. With that being said, I will talk about the strategic planning of the most important kind of brand, an individual’s brand, because I believe that it is more important that any type of company.

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1. Steven Cox

Steve is a great friend of mine. Out of all my collegiate friends, I believe that he is the most motivated, realistic, and focused on his professional future that is rapidly approaching. I immediately approached Steve, who recognized his problem, he was a college student without a job. In order for Steve to land his career aspirations, his objectives are to gain his Master’s Degree at SUNY Oswego where we then plans to work for a certified public accounting firm. While employed he plans to spend his time and money in pursue of his CPA in order to work in corporate finance and eventually become a CFO.

Steve plans to accomplish his objectives through working hard while as an undergraduate student and transferring that into a potential job through networking with various professionals on Linkedin (Steve’s LinkedIn, Check it out.. smart student with a lot to offer). There’s is no doubt in my mind that Steve will not succeed based solely on his thorough strategic plan.

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2.  Sam Derico

Another great friend of mine is Sam Derico. Sam is in his third year at Becker College, Massachusetts studying Sports Management. He plans to one day land a job with his Sports Management Degree from Becker College locally in the Capital Region, New York. He aspires to have a job that is comfortable to him through networking in his professional field.

Sam is in a great position in comparison to his competition due to his strategic plan after college graduation.

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3.  Chris Landers

Lastly, I would like to talk about another aspiring college student. Chris is currently enrolled at Hudson Valley Community College studying Criminal Justice. In talking to Chris, his “dream job” is to be a youth advocate who works with troubled youth through juvenile delinquency who have had problems growing up. He hopes to achieve this by working and using his time with children at Colonie Youth Center and establish relationships with the kids, parents, and other people in the industry.

I have complete confidence that Chris has the skills to succeed and with his strategy!

I hope you guys enjoyed my real life examples of how strategic planning should be done. Stay tuned for next week to see what is up for discussion!

Best,

Dean Maloney from Siena College

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World’s Largest Garage Sale

Hello all, I am very happy to be back on my blog to keep sharing my experiences with you all. I am now up to 55 views and growing everyday! This is very good news as my goal is to reach 1,000 viewers by December! At this rate it actually seems attainable. Don’t forget to share my link with your friends and family: www.deanfromsiena.wordpress.com.

This past weekend I attended the annual World’s Largest Garage Sale in Warrensburg, New York. What an event it was! Warrensburg is a relatively small town, located just north of Lake George in Warren County. Although, the town is geographically and physically small, this event is considered the large highlight of their year. There are hundreds of vendors that will set up tents along Main Street with their quality merchandise hopeful that they will be rewarded with high sales revenue. This event lasts from Friday afternoon to Sunday evening resulting in a weekend of fun, advertising, sales, and more sales! So what does this have to do with Professor Scardillo’s Advertising class? Quite simple, with the already large number of options for consumers, one must make their products appeal and different from their competition. The main way to do this is segmenting their market correctly.

Before a vendor even decides to engage with Warrensburg’s World Largest Garage Sale, they should understand the descriptive characteristics of the population of Warrensburg. The reason for using descriptive characteristics are that they are easy to understand and easy to measure. Demographics are widely known as descriptive characteristics. I know you all understand what demographics are because I have smart readers, but incase you forget in your busy lives, demographics are measurable characteristics of a consumer that can help advertisers group them into smaller segments (i.e. age, gender, income, and education level). According to Nielsen, the people are Warrensburg are 98% Caucasian, over 50 years old, evenly split between male and females, and earn an average of $50,000/yr. So as a vendor, you should not be selling Michael Kors suits because this is out of the reach for the target market. This means you must provide a product selection that would meet the needs and desires of your target market. This was reflectively shown through the actual product selection available. I noticed a lot of more products that were associated with the woods, beer, hunting, sports, and other rustic goods.

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This picture captured above is a small sample that shows that one must understand their market segment in order to ultimately increase their number of sales. As you can see if the picture above, this is a table full of products that are made of out wood and would be associated with a cabin in the woods. There was not a lot of materialistic things like you would find in Crossgates Mall in Albany, New York.

Overall, I was very surprised by the turnout of the World’s Largest Garage Sale. I would estimate that approximately ten thousand people ranging from Canada, Vermont, and Southern New York State. It was quite the experience to see the amount of business that was brought to the town of Warrensburg. The energy of the town was also electric. You had satisfied adults, with high-energy kids, and satisfied vendors that are sitting back and counting their money as I write to you all. I had a great time and personally caught some great deals and got some cool things! I am anxious for it’s return next year! See you all next week!

Sincerely,

Dean Maloney From Siena College