.png)
Scenario: How to Lay the Foundation for Award-Winning Campaigns
The S in the STRATEGY Framework stands for Scenario. Here's how you can use it to launch award-winning campaigns.
If you've been following my blog, you'll know all about my new framework for building a campaign: STRATEGY.
STRATEGY takes you through every step you need to create, launch, steer, and analyse any campaign from scratch. You can read all about it in my new book, Marketing Strategy (which you can buy here!).
Right now, I'm going to take you through the S of STRATEGY: Scenario.
What Is Scenario, and Why Should I Care?
No campaign is an island. There are lots of forces and factors to consider before you even get to the drawing board.
The Scenario stage is all about looking at the context of your campaign. It's about taking stock of what you have (and haven't!) got available. It's about learning how outside forces might affect your campaign, and how you can reduce (or take advantage of) their impact.
A good Scenario analysis gives you a strong foundation for building your strategy. It's like checking the weather and the lie of the land before setting up camp. This is essential if you don't want your camp(aign) to get swept away in a storm!
There are plenty of frameworks you can use to establish your Scenario. In my book, I go through all of them in detail, with exercises to help you use each model yourself.
To get you started, here's a quick rundown of the two most popular Scenario frameworks, plus an introduction to two game-changing new ones.
SWOT and PESTLE
I'll be very surprised if you haven't heard of SWOT and PESTLE. They're familiar old favourites that have been taught on every strategic analysis course for decades.
SWOT
SWOT stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. It is mainly used to analyse the internal factors that may affect a project. A SWOT analysis looks at the resources (and limits) your brand or team has to work with:
- Strengths. What is your team really good at? What do you have that others don't? What skills, resources, or qualities give you an edge over the competition?
- Weaknesses. What do your competitors have that you don't? Where do you need to improve, and how can you make that improvement?
- Opportunities. How can you make the most of your strengths, or turn your weaknesses into opportunities? Are there any current trends that could work in your favour?
- Threats. What is likely to derail your campaign?
A SWOT analysis gives you a good idea of what you're working with. Moving on to PESTLE will give you more context.
PESTLE
A PESTLE analysis looks at the external factors that could impact your campaign. PESTLE stands for Political, Economic, Social, Technological, Legal, and Environmental. By analysing each factor, you'll better understand how the big, wide world will receive (and affect!) your campaign.
- Political. What global issues and regulations could affect your campaign? For example, Brexit has changed the way many of us do business. Factors like this can have a huge impact on your marketing.
- Economic. Economic factors are always important. What is consumer confidence like right now? How high is inflation? Is the economy looking positive or negative? All of this affects how likely people are to buy what you're selling.
- Social. Trends, lifestyles, the mood of the moment... what's gripping the public right now? Are there any social trends, pressures, or concerns that could impact your campaign? For example, many marketers had to change their messaging when Covid-19 hit, because PESTLE showed them their old messaging no longer suited the new social environment.
- Technological. Technology plays a huge role in how consumers interact with campaigns. What technology does your audience use, and how can you turn this to your advantage? Keep an eye on new tech, too. You could use it to do something totally unique!
- Legal. Are there any legal issues to watch out for? For example, could you run into copyright claims, or break GDPR rules?
- Environmental. Who or what might your campaign harm? What environmental issues are linked to your product? We live in the era of the consumer with a conscience. People don't want to support unethical businesses. If you are ethical, how can you make this clear to consumers? If you aren't, how can you change that?
Both SWOT and PESTLE have been used for years to lay strategic foundations. And they're just as useful today as when they first appeared.
However, your competitors also know about SWOT and PESTLE. They'll expect you to use them, and they'll be using them too.
To get a real edge, you need to add something extra to your analysis.
That's why I've created two extra frameworks: SWOTELL and COMPETE.
SWOTELL and COMPETE
I don't want to give too much away here, but I'm personally very proud of these frameworks.
They take your Scenario analysis several steps further than SWOT and PESTLE can. They'll give you an advantage that leaves your competitors far behind.
You'll need to buy my book to get the full story (buy it at a discount here!). Here's why it's worth the investment for these new frameworks alone.
SWOTELL
"SWOTELL adds further actionable areas to your assessment. It tells you exactly where the business needs to make strategic preparations. The ELL factors are purely marketing focused and remain aligned to the specific organisation. However, they also incorporate external marketing factors (such as engagement) to determine what's currently effective, the limitations you face, and what you can leverage to advance even further."
SWOTELL is the traditional SWOT, but with an extra focus on marketing. The "ELL" at the end stands for Existing, Limitations, and Leverage.
Overall, SWOTELL boosts your SWOT analysis with action-based (and actionable) insights. It gives you practical pointers to help position your strategy.
COMPETE
Both SWOT and PESTLE look briefly at your competitors, but never in much detail.
That's a problem. Your competitors are a huge part of your marketing context, and you underestimate them at your peril!
COMPETE helps you gain a good understanding of your competitors. This helps you position your campaign in a way that shows you at your best and makes you stand out from the competition.
COMPETE stands for:
- Current operators
- Offering
- Market share
- Price
- Expertise
- Target
- Employees
I explain how each of these factors works in my book, Marketing Strategy: Overcome Common Pitfalls and Create Effective Marketing.
Here's how I describe the benefits of the COMPETE framework in the book:
"A COMPETE analysis provides a complete overview both of your competitors and of the marketplace that you're competing in. This will make you much more aware of your organization's challenges, the opportunities in the marketplace, and the competitors you should keep a close eye on.
You can then action these findings to adapt, improve, or stop something you're doing. All of this leads to a distinct competitive advantage."
Fully Understand Your Scenario with Marketing Strategy by Jenna Tiffany
I've barely scratched the surface of what a good Scenario analysis looks like. This blog gives you the basics. But if you really want to nail this stage, my book Marketing Strategy gives you all the tools you need.
Chapter Two of Marketing Strategy explains Scenario in detail: how to analyse it, and how to turn that analysis into profitable action. You'll also find useful exercises, case studies, and interviews with marketing experts to bring the theory to life.
Order Marketing Strategy today, and learn everything there is to know about strategic marketing!
