In today’s marketing world, the need for marketing planning is increasing by the day. The marketing mix became more extensive, budget is under stress and the call for return on marketing investment using extensive measurement is key.  

In this episode of Reimagine Marketing, Steven Hofmans welcomes guest Sandy Kirchhoff, senior marketing manager at Office Depot Europe. Steven and Sandy discuss marketing planning, which allows an organization to plan where the organization is going based on the objectives that need to be met, accelerate the plan if needed and ensure there is a fair chance of hitting the set KPIs.  

This podcast covers: 

• Marketing planning best practices from Office Depot Europe.  
• The impact marketing planning can have on an organization and which KPIs to measure.  
• Can marketing planning and agility go hand in hand?  
• Typical challenges when using marketing planning, including what to do when programs underperform against ROI goals. 

Here are some complementary resources: 

• Marketing Planning with SAS: Centrally manage your marketing life cycle with speed and agility. 
• Experience 2030 Resources: Learn about what defines today’s customer experience and how consumers and brands will evolve through the year 2030. 
• Connect with Sandy: LinkedIn  
• Connect with Steven: LinkedIn 

Check out additional episodes of the Reimagine Marketing podcast series at reimagine-marketing.transistor.fm. 

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About our guests: 

• Sandy Kirchhoff: Sandy holds a Master of Science in marketing and has held different marketing positions at Office Depot. From retention manager, head of campaigns to today senior manager of commercial marketing, Sandy is always planning for an amazing customer experience and a good return on marketing investment.   
• Steven Hofmans is a customer experience advisor on a mission to make every citizen a happy customer. Steven believes today’s customer experience needs to be personalized, zero effort, frictionless, proactive and about the customer. During his first years Steven worked for the marketing divisions of 3M, AB Inbev, Deutsche Bank and ING. In 2013, he joined SAS as a customer experience advisor and works with numerous customers across southwest Europe with a focus on understanding their pain-points and driving value for their marketing organizations. Steven holds a master’s degree in business administration.