You might look at the term "strategic plan" and think, hey, shouldn't every plan be strategic? Yes, yes it should. But it pays to be specific—otherwise, you might end up with plans that look more like notebook doodles than actionable roadmaps.
If you're here, actionable roadmaps are what you're after, so I asked experienced managers what goes into a successful strategic plan and turned their insights into four easy-to-use templates that'll help you go from doodling to doing.
Table of contents:
4 free strategic plan templates
Strategic plan templates are all about simplifying things, so you can spend less time deciding between Arial and Open Sans and more time putting your ideas into action.
Each of these strategic plan templates for Google Docs targets a different timeframe or project type. Cut whatever sections you don't need, add sections specific to your business, and then fill in the blanks.
1. Basic strategic plan template
I call this template basic not because it's always first in line for Starbucks' holiday drinks, but because it features the most high-level components typically found in strategic plans. Even still, it's set up to cover a hefty amount of detail, including:
Executive summary
Mission statement
Vision statement
SWOT analysis
SMART goals
Business strategy
Financial projections
Use this for:
Setting broad objectives for your organization
Aligning multiple teams or departments
Launching a new business
2. Annual strategic plan template
This annual strategic plan is basically the one-year version of the basic template. It'll help you break your goals down by quarter so you can see which ones you've accomplished at the end of the fiscal year.
An annual strategic plan is best if you have goals that can realistically be achieved in a (relatively) short timeframe. It'll also allow you to set tentative deadlines for certain projects or initiatives. It includes:
Executive summary
Vision statement
SWOT analysis
SMART goals for Q1 through Q4
Business strategy
Timeline of milestones
Use this for:
Year-end reviews
Annual kickoff meetings
Planning around seasons and holidays
3. 5-year strategic plan template
Now we're entering long-term strategy territory. Because you'll be covering a long period of time, you won't get as granular with the details here. Instead, you should focus on having at least one actionable goal for each year (plus a strategy to accomplish it). This template features:
Executive summary
Mission statement
Vision statement
SMART goals for years one through five
Long-term business strategy
Use this for:
Anticipating market trends
Big-picture business direction
Board meetings
4. Strategic project plan template
This template zooms in to focus on a specific project or bundle of projects. For example, maybe your SEO team has an initiative to refresh old blog content—you can create a strategic plan for just that project and share it with colleagues ahead of the start date. The template includes:
Project overview
Project goals
Project strategy
Assigned tasks, roles, and due dates
Use this for:
Marketing campaigns
Event planning
Product development and launches
Why are strategic plans important?
Strategic planning is a method of outlining a company's long-term goals and the strategies you'll use to achieve them. You might have all this information floating around in your head, but it won't do your colleagues (or stakeholders) much good until you've put it down in writing.
According to Mike Fretto, creative director for Neighbor, the purpose of strategic planning is to "set goals, devise strategies for reaching those goals, set benchmarks for how to track progress, evaluate the results, and repeat."
Why do all that? Rytis Lauris, CEO of Omnisend, shares the potential pitfalls of skipping strategic planning: "Without a clear plan, there's a risk of fragmentation, where teams work towards individual goals that don't contribute to the broader business objectives. When a plan tells a clear story about where we're headed, everyone in the company can understand and connect with it."
Parts of a strategic plan
Different organizations will put different things in their strategic plans, but here are key components to consider:
Executive summary: This sums up the overall aim of the strategic plan in two or three concise sentences.
Vision and mission statements: Include and reference these statements to ensure your company's goals and strategies stay aligned with its core values.
Business goals: Strategic plans should include strong goals. You can use Zapier's SMART goal generator to ensure yours are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound.
Strategy: This is where you state how you plan to turn your goals into reality. This can be very general or broken down into departments, like marketing strategy, operations strategy, and sales strategy.
SWOT analysis: A SWOT analysis charts your business's strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. It'll help you see how you measure up to your competitors. While not every business will need this, it's a useful tool.
Now that you've committed that all to memory, you can forget it and just use one of the strategic plan templates above.
Tips for using strategic plan templates
These templates aren't as terrifying as a blank Google Doc, but it'll still take some work to turn one into a polished strategic plan—and that's something only you and your team can do. Here are some tips for turning these templates into actual plans:
Tailor it to your industry: Before you actually start filling out your strategic plan template, make adjustments based on what industry you're in. If you're an online retailer, for example, you might add a section for sales targets and revenue projections.
Use AI for brainstorming: Ask an AI chatbot for advice on what details to include or how to make your goals SMART-er.
Get input from stakeholders: All of our Google Docs templates are collaboration-ready, so you can share with stakeholders and ask them for feedback in the form of comments or suggested edits.
Present your plan: Once your strategic plan is complete, walk through the main points in a meeting or (my preference) a recording. The templates are pretty enough as is, I promise—focus on the content, not the look.
Stay flexible: Your strategic plan doesn't have to be set in stone, and you can update it if your goals shift or timelines change. Consider revisiting it at least once a quarter for annual plans and once a year for five-year plans.
Automate your business operations with Zapier
Once you have a plan in place, it's time to put it into action. With Zapier, you can streamline workflows for every arm of your business—including RevOps, sales, marketing, and IT—and use automation to make executing your strategies faster and easier. This could mean helping teams connect the apps they use most, automating repetitive tasks, and making your key processes scalable. Learn more about how to automate your business.
Zapier is a no-code automation tool that lets you connect your apps into automated workflows, so that every person and every business can move forward at growth speed. Learn more about how it works.
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