We understand the importance of getting the right message in front of the right people. However, without strategy or focus your marketing activity can start to feel like a lot of effort with mixed results. Here we’ll walk through some simple steps to zoom out, get strategic about marketing, focus on the right content and channels to make marketing activity work harder and the power of joining up your marketing and business development activity.
Align marketing strategy with business objectives
Essential content and channels
Joined up business development
Brand and marketing strategy aligned with business objectives
Get hold of your business plan and commercial strategy and review your brand and marketing against it. Are they aligned? What work are you known for, what is your most profitable work, what do you need to focus on and who do you need to target? Does your message and tone fit with all these objectives and does this resonate with those you need it to - your ideal clients? To truly harness the power of your brand & marketing it's not just about focussing on what you do, but what you do differently, that which sets you apart from your competitors and why you do what you do. Plus it is important to regularly review your brand strategy and marketing activity against your business strategy, commercial goals and growth objectives. Have circumstances changed recently? Have you had to pivot the business? Have you got new products and services in development? Are you over prioritising your least profitable work because it’s the easiest thing to market and gets good traction?
Content & Channels: making the essentials work for you
Consider the essentials here as a three part pyramid. The bottom is the foundations, the channels and content you need for business to run well - the essentials such as what your products and services are, the channels and platforms you need to be on for your target audience to find you, setting out who you are and what you do …even making sure your contact details are clear and working! The middle is your content hub - telling the story of what you do and how you do it differently and making sure you’re getting the most out of each of your channels. Your hub could be regular content pieces to showcase your expertise, case studies, results, opinion pieces, getting to know the people behind your business and putting a spotlight on your clients . At the top of the pyramid are the larger annual or biannual ‘hero’ pieces, like campaigns and thought leadership projects, really going big on a stand-out campaign, download, event or report.
In order for the pyramid to stand strong, your foundations need to be in place and working hard for you. So working through the foundations and the hub content and channels and getting these in place before you tackle the top of the pyramid makes sure your activity will work hard for you. Going all out on campaigns, advertising, sponsorship etc. without sorting - and testing - your foundations and hub first can mean lost opportunity and hard work for less results. Identify where the parts of your marketing strategy fit into your pyramid and make sure the foundations, content hub and channels are solid before moving to the next step.
Joining up business development
Marketing and business development work better together and joining up your strategy and tactics is important in order to be successful. Linking your Marketing plan to your Business Development plan. Plus there are simple ways to ensure the approaches are joined up, such as identifying the clients your business development plan is targeting and creating marketing content that can add value to these people. It's really helpful to use your internal sales and business development meetings to understand exactly what problems your clients need solving and map out how to feed this directly into your marketing content and quarterly plans. For example, use your business development and sales activity; follow-ups, calls, introductions, client review meetings and coffees to capture FAQs, themes and key issues that have been raised and shape your content in response.
There are lots of tactics and approaches you can use to make your marketing work harder for you and your business but these three simple reviews are a great place to start and can help you gain perspective and make your marketing activity more focussed.
Get in touch for a copy of the Content and Channels Essentials Pyramid you can use. For more information & support contact sarah@wildepurpose.co.uk or you can book a discovery call here.