You heard a lot last year about Smith Content's Advisory Services. This year we wanted to start the year off by offering some solid advice to our clients, prospective clients and partners concerning the growth of your company in 2007, by taking a lesson from a great strategist from another generation. Our advice to growing companies for 2007: MAP it out with an event-driven marketing plan, but don't put it on the shelf. In fact, don't even print it.

See, here's the lowdown on business plans, strategic plans, marketing action plans, communications plans and the like. World War II Supreme Allied Commander, General Dwight D. Eisenhower said it best: "A plan is nothing, but planning is everything." He wrote those words reflecting on the Normandy invasion of World War II (the largest invasion in the history of the world) and the fact that once the paratroopers were in the air and the Higgins boats were launched toward the shore, his plan was worthless. It was up to the ongoing planning abilities of everyone involved, and the alignment of those people with the mission and "the plan"-all the way down the chain of command-to reach the intended outcome, no matter what got in the way. A planner to his core, Ike didn't send every soldier in the army into battle with a giant three-ring binder with the plan to liberate Europe from the Nazis. So, how did it happen? And what could this possibly have to do with your company? Think about it for a moment:

What the Allies had was a mission that was greater than any one individual. They had phenomenal clarity about each individual's role in the accomplishment of that mission, and they had a keen focus on the specific strategies and tactics that were most likely to produce the desired outcome. They had, in a word, a plan. And that plan was successful because it was combined with the ability to be flexible-to adapt to the realities on the ground, and to quickly change what wasn't working (that's planning) in order to win the war, regardless of what "the plan" said or how the battle of the day was going.

Every company [isn't it interesting how we use that word both in the Army (i.e., a "rifle company") and in business?] is literally, or figuratively, fighting some battle each and every day. The battle to get out of the beta phase of development and launch your first product, the battle to hire and retain good people, to make payroll, to beat your biggest competitor, to increase market share, to stay in business through the generations...But how many companies and how many individuals within companies can say that they are this prepared for the year ahead?

How many of us can say we understand the mission and are aligned with it, and are confident in our ability to play our specific role toward its accomplishment? Or that we have studied, understand and can deploy the specific strategies and tactics that are most likely to produce favorable, sustainable results? Or that we understand our market context, our strengths and weaknesses? Or that we have the necessary level of sincere communication with each other to be flexible enough to put our egos aside, change our tactics and strategies and complete the mission?

Not many. And that's why so many business plans and marketing communications plans fail. A plan is nothing, but planning is everything.

So our advice this year is to take the time to go through a formal marketing action planning (MAPping) process. And yes...write it down. But don't print and bind it. Instead, make it a living document; keep it on your server or on Sharepoint where people can collaborate on it and it can grow and change as needed. Put a journal section in it. Take notes in it regularly and workshop it throughout the year with your colleagues and marketing advisor. Own your mission, declare your goals, determine your marketing mix and launch your offense-all with the emphasis being on the words your company uses to describe itself, because your words make your world. We believe that. It's why we own a content-centric marketing communications firm.

Our philosophy is that your MAP (though it should be developed with input from your designers and provide guidance on issues like identity and design) should be ultimately concerned with just three things: 1) developing your value proposition; 2) targeting that message to the specific audiences you're seeking to do business with; and 3) choosing the right marketing mix to reach your intended audience and drive them through the sales cycle, because The Message Makes the Sale^TM.