“Fail to plan… and you plan to fail…”

Look, I hate commercial clichés just as much as the next marketing professional (and you’ll never see one of those motivational posters emblazoned across our office walls).

Yet this phrase holds true time and time again. Success simply cannot be achieved without a strategy.

If you need to generate fresh leads and new customers for your company (and, let’s face it, who doesn’t?), then you need to create a marketing strategy. No ifs, buts or exceptions. Moreover, you need the right strategy. A marketing strategy that provides rock steady focus and guides direction; that identifies your potential customers and how you can communicate with them – and because timing is absolutely crucial – you need a marketing strategy that will also tell you when to communicate and how often.

For the average SME the mere term ‘marketing strategy’ can loom large and seem an almost...