weBranding
  • Home
  • About
  • Blog
  • Articles
    • Five Simple E-mail Marketing Tips
    • Mandatory Elements for Business e-Newsletters
    • The 411 on E-mail Testing
    • What is the Value of Text vs. HTML E-mails?
    • The Hows & Whys Behind E-mail Marketing
    • What’s the Best Time to Send Your e-Newsletter?
    • Effective E-mail Subject Lines
    • How to Improve E-mail Open Rates
    • Four E-mail Marketing Ideas
    • Key Benefits of Landing Pages
    • A Tip on Writing Google AdWords
    • Get the Most Out of Google AdWords
    • Simple Search Engine Optimization Tips
    • Four Easy Tips to Improve Your Next Presentation
    • Nine Tips to a Great Webinar
    • Choosing a Webinar Vendor
    • Conducting a Successful Webinar
    • Four PowerPoint Presentation Tips
    • Create a Winning Press Kit
    • Campaign Development Checklist
    • Why Commercials are Like Airline Tickets
    • The Third Dimension
    • Pricing Into Oblivion
    • Proving the Value of PR
    • Trust And Loyalty Go Hand-in-Hand
    • How to Conduct a SWOT Analysis
    • Digging Up Your Best Prospects
    • Create Better Ads
    • Learn From Spying
    • Why Waste Space?
    • Tips For An Effective Opt-in Form
    • The Unique Selling Proposition Explained
    • Five More E-Mail Subject Line Tips
    • The Hows & Whys Behind E-mail Marketing
    • What's the Best Time to Send Your e-Newsletter?
  • White Papers
    • A Corporate Web-Based e-Newsletter Is Within Reach
    • Enhance Lead Generation & Sales With e-Newsletters
    • e-Newsletters: Increased Sales & Profitability
    • Learn To Use e-Newsletters Smartly
    • Five Steps To Plan A Strategic e-Newsletter Program
    • Utilizing Web Meeting Tools As An Operational Advantage
    • Six Simple e-Newsletter Publishing Tips
    • Conducting a Successful Webinar
    • Enhance Lead Generation & Sales With e-Newsletters
    • e-Newsletters: Increased Sales & Profitability
  • Email Gallery
  • Services
    • Marketing Consultation
    • Site Development
    • Interactive Marketing
  • Contact
  • Subscribe via RSS

How to Conduct a SWOT Analysis

In our world of 60 plus hour work weeks, instant communications, and ever changing market dynamics, many times companies don’t take the time and effort to plan. One of the most effective, yet overlooked planning tools is a Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats (SWOT) analysis. A SWOT analysis is a powerful tool from both a business and marketing communications point-of-view.

To carry out a SWOT Analysis, you’ll need to address the following questions:

Strengths:

  • What are your advantages?
  • What are your advantages?
  • What do you do well?
  • What do others perceive as your strengths?

Consider these questions from your own point of view, as well as your various internal and external target audiences.

Weaknesses:

  • What could you improve?
  • What do you do badly?
  • What do others perceive as your weaknesses?

Again, consider the answers to these questions from both an internal an external point of view-from within your organization, as well as from without. This is the place to be painfully candid; don’t hide or gloss over any unpleasant truths.

Opportunities:

  • Are there changes in technology or market dynamics, on both a broad and narrow scale, that you can exploit?
  • What are the social or economic trends that could affect your market?
  • Are there coming changes in social patterns, population profiles, or lifestyles that will bear on what you’re selling?

Look for opportunities in both the short and long term. Most importantly, find out if you have the data required to locate profitable market opportunities; if not, determine what information you need-and from where you can obtain it.

Threats:

  • What obstacles do you face?
  • What does your competition plan to do?
  • Are changing technologies or market trends threatening your position?

Market threats can take many forms. The goal is to identify potential threats so you can steer your organization around them before your competition exploits them to their advantage.

Carrying out this analysis will be illuminating. Done correctly, a SWOT Analysis will help you focus on your strengths, minimize or rectify weaknesses, take the greatest possible advantage of opportunities, and protect against threats.

About weBranding

Hi, I'm Tommy. I'm an interactive marketing executive, writer, tech geek, and sometime designer. I live in St. Louis, Missouri. I currently work as an interactive marketing consultant. You can view my online resume here.

weBranding is my creative outlet, testbed, and digital playground. You’ll find articles and posts about interactive marketing, online publishing and community development, information architecture, graphic design, gaming, and all things digital. To contact me you can send an e-mail to tommy [at] weBranding [dot] org.

Follow Me Online

Facebook Twitter LinkedInYouTube

Email Creative Slideshow

    Get the Flash Player to see the slideshow.

Interactive Marketing Articles

  • Email Gallery
  • Five Simple E-mail Marketing Tips
  • Mandatory Elements for Business e-Newsletters
  • What is the Value of Text vs. HTML E-mails?
  • What’s the Best Time to Send Your e-Newsletter?
  • Effective E-mail Subject Lines
  • How to Improve E-mail Open Rates
  • Key Benefits of Landing Pages
  • A Tip on Writing Google AdWords
  • Get the Most Out of Google AdWords
  • Simple Search Engine Optimization Tips
  • Why Commercials are Like Airline Tickets
  • Pricing Into Oblivion
  • Trust And Loyalty Go Hand-in-Hand
  • Digging Up Your Best Prospects
  • Tips For An Effective Opt-in Form
  • The Unique Selling Proposition Explained
  • The Hows & Whys Behind E-mail Marketing
  • What's the Best Time to Send Your e-Newsletter?
  • Enhance Lead Generation & Sales With e-Newsletters
  • e-Newsletters: Increased Sales & Profitability

Elsewhere Online

  • A List Apart
  • Ad Contrarian
  • Eric A. Meyer
  • Jeffrey Zeldman
  • Mashable
  • ReadWriteWeb
  • Seth Godin
  • Signal vs. Noise
  • TechCrunch
  • xBlog

Recommended Books

Bulletproof Web Design Tribes Web Standard Solutions

On Writing Well Eric Meyer On CSS Defensive Design for the Web

Archives By Category

Archives By Date


© Copyright 1995-2010 weBranding. All rights reserved.
Powered by WordPress 2.8.6 & GoDaddy.