Dr. Ralf Strauss recently found time in his busy schedule to talk to MyVenturePad about marketing planning. Ralf has been chief marketing officer for SAP in Germany and Central Europe since 2003. Last year he took on responsibility for global product management for all SAP CRM marketing solutions—that is, for solution strategy, product vision, and the company’s roadmap for CRM marketing.

His detailed thoughts can be found in “Marketing Planning by Design: Systematic Planning for Successful Marketing Strategy,” which was influenced by an SAP study he conducted in 2006 that included a survey of 43 chief marketing officers in Germany’s leading companies.

One of Ralf’s many findings is the danger of pursuing tactical initiatives prematurely. “Before you have any discussion of any tactical activity (like sending out an email), first of all be crystal-clear – and have this aligned across the company – what content you’re trying to communicate to which target group,” he cautions. “It sounds pretty simple, but in the majority of the cases… we found that very often the schedule for marketing planning ends up in a tactical discussion.”

 

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