Products don't sell themselves, clever marketeers do; and to sell products, marketeers need a good marketing strategy. The key to developing a good marketing strategy is a solid marketing strategy timeline. A marketing strategy timeline lays out the steps for successfully implementing your strategy. It allows a firm to carefully implement a strategy in a step-by-step manner so that each phase follows from the previous.

Establish all the steps necessary to achieve your goal. For example, if your marketing strategy is to increase brand awareness online, lay out each step in the plan. For example, assess your current online marketing, assess and select new online marketing outlets, develop an online marketing campaign and implement your online marketing campaign. Typical steps in a marketing strategy include performing a market analysis, performing a quantitative analysis, forming a strategic plan, planning the product, developing promotions, coordinating internal communications and establishing sales support.

Establish a time frame. You must create a time frame both for the overall strategy and for each individual step. For example, you may have a goal of implementing your new marketing strategy within six months, which might include the goal of launching a new brand within two months.

Order the steps in your marketing strategy plan. It may seem self evident that you need to approach each step in a sequential way, but it isn't always clear what has to be done first. Look at each individual step and determine what needs to be done before it. Work backwards until you get to the first step.

Write down all of the steps in chronological order and review them. Make sure that your plan makes sense to you and that each step flows logically from the previous step.

Tip

Consider developing your timeline using a software program such as Microsoft Excel for ease of editing.