There are three different questions worth asking before planning a campaign: where do we stand and where do we want to go (SOSTAC), which direction should we look for growth in (the Ansoff Matrix), and how tough is the market we’re operating in (Porter’s Five Forces). These three frameworks don’t replace each other — each structures a different decision, and they’re usually used one after another.
SOSTAC: The Skeleton of the Planning Process
SOSTAC, developed by PR Smith, is a six-stage marketing planning framework:
| Stage | Question | Example output |
|---|---|---|
| Situation | Where are we right now? | Market share, current channel performance, competitor position |
| Objectives | Where do we want to get to? | A measurable goal like “grow organic traffic by 30% in 6 months” |
| Strategy | How will we get there (overall direction)? | Which segment, which positioning, which channel mix |
| Tactics | What tools will we use to execute the strategy? | Campaign type, content format, tool selection |
| Action | Who will do what, and when? | Task assignments, calendar, ownership |
| Control | How will we measure and correct course? | KPI tracking, reporting cadence, correction mechanism |
SOSTAC’s strength is that “tactics” comes near the end. When a team starts directly with “which platform should we advertise on,” it has actually skipped an unanswered situation and objectives question. SOSTAC forces the order: define where you are, then where you want to go, and only then which tool gets you there.
The Ansoff Matrix: Which Direction Should Growth Take?
Igor Ansoff’s 2x2 matrix, defined in 1957, maps four possible growth directions across the existing/new product and existing/new market axes:
| Existing product | New product | |
|---|---|---|
| Existing market | Market penetration | Product development |
| New market | Market development | Diversification |
Market penetration is the lowest-risk direction: selling the existing product more intensively into an existing market — more ad spend, more aggressive pricing, more frequent campaigns. Market development takes the same product into a new geography or a new customer segment. Product development offers a new product or feature to the existing customer base. Diversification is the riskiest corner — because both the product and market are new, none of your existing advantages (brand awareness, distribution network, customer relationships) can be fully leveraged.
The matrix’s practical value is that it stops you from evaluating a growth idea without seeing which corner it falls into. “Let’s enter a new market with a new product” sounds bold, but it’s the diversification corner, and its risk profile is entirely different from market penetration.
Porter’s Five Forces: How Tough Is the Market?
Michael Porter’s framework, defined in 1979, evaluates how profitable and accessible an industry is through five forces:
- Competitive rivalry among existing players: How many players are in the market, and how common is price competition?
- Threat of new entrants: How easy is it to enter the industry? Are there capital, brand, or regulatory barriers?
- Threat of substitute products/services: Can the customer meet the same need with a completely different solution (bike-sharing instead of a taxi, for example)?
- Bargaining power of suppliers: If suppliers are few and powerful, they can push costs up.
- Bargaining power of buyers: If buyers are numerous and alternatives are easy to find, they can push prices down.
Together, these five forces show how “contested” an industry is. A market with low entry barriers, strong substitutes, and high buyer bargaining power is one where profit margins face constant pressure — in that situation, marketing strategy needs to lean much harder into differentiation.
Using All Three Together
These three frameworks follow a natural sequence. Porter’s Five Forces is used to understand the competitive environment you’re operating in — how tough the market is, and where differentiation is possible. Once that’s understood, the Ansoff Matrix decides which direction to pursue growth in — going deeper into the existing market, or opening up a new one. SOSTAC then turns that chosen growth direction into an executable plan — situation, objectives, strategy, tactics, action, control, in that order.
For example, if a Porter analysis shows high competition and low differentiation in an industry, the “product development” corner of the Ansoff matrix may make more sense than “market penetration” — because competing on price in the existing market is already difficult. Once that decision is clear, SOSTAC turns the “product development” objective into a concrete action plan: which feature, on what timeline, announced through which channel.
Summary
The three frameworks answer different questions: Porter’s Five Forces structures how tough the competitive environment is, the Ansoff Matrix structures which direction growth should take, and SOSTAC structures how that chosen direction turns into an executable plan. A marketing plan that starts directly with tactics — which platform should we advertise on — usually skips all three steps; the result is a campaign that executes well but points in the wrong direction.