Day with a Pro: Michelle Farabaugh, VP of marketing, West Marine

Much of Farabaugh’s job is dictated by an annual strategic plan. Ideas are generated for the catalogs and fliers, as well as for corporate sponsorship, public relations, boat shows and advertising. The comprehensive plan allows Farabaugh to focus the marketing department and balance budget dollars.

“I don’t think we could have executed as targeted of a marketing program throughout the year without this framework and initiative plan,” comments Farabaugh. “Our framework has six critical success factors that we believe are required for us to achieve our overall vision of being the customer’s first choice. If our marketing ideas do not fit into supporting one of these critical success factors and will not drive our strategic marketing targets that we measure, we simply can’t justify putting the program into the plan and into action. It is that simple.”