Whenever a marketing leader takes a new job or gains responsibility for marketing a new product or service, the leader should conduct a comprehensive research investigation to assess the business and the market. The goal is to use this research to inform a world-class marketing program that will help the company generate profitable revenue.

Bob Baginski, ITSMA’s senior vice president, has laid out a five-step framework to help marketers acquire broad and deep knowledge of the state of the business and market. Most marketers understand the importance of these questions, but having a rigorous approach to answering and updating them on a regular basis is less frequently the case. Marketers need to know the business as well as or better than anyone else in the organization—and be ready to discuss its possibilities from multiple perspectives. This knowledge will not only enable more effective marketing strategy and planning; it will also help position marketers as peers at the management table.