Marketing Strategy
Great marketers listen
Found a great post on LinkedIn (credit: Dan Basset) that is reminder that marketing is about the customer not you. The job of the marketing team is to give the business a lens into the customer’s mind and understanding what they (the customer) is really asking for. So first we listen and then create.
Brand strategy vital
In the 2020 Gartner CMO Spend Survey, brand strategy has leap-frogged to the top of marketing capabilities, from its lowly position near the bottom of the list in 2019 with one-third of CMOs now placing it in their top three capabilities that are essential for business success.
Strategy and planning
“What?” you ask. “Time to sit back and look at the bigger picture? You’re joking me, I barely have time to run this business. And to be honest, that’s what I know, not marketing strategy!”
This is an all too often comment we hear from clients. And unfortunately a harsh reality for many small business owners. Now this is where we come in, ’cause that’s what we do.
Keen to look at the bigger picture but have no time, reach out and let us help you with this.
The planning process
The process consists of three equally important phases: diagnosis, strategy and tactics
Diagnosis
This is the process whereby an understanding of the consumer and their perception and views of your brand are uncovered. It is the consumer’s perspective and their view of your brand that is the most important. The key to this phase is understanding the customer, their needs and what pain points they may have.
We get this information from a range of different types of market research such as speaking to the founders (you), conducting ethnographic research (spending time with your customer), surveys and focus groups.
Typically this takes 4 – 6 weeks.
Strategy
Strategy is the process where you take the information from the diagnosis phase and work out what you need to focus on. This is an inward-looking process (unlike diagnosis where we looked outward) resulting in a clear understanding of the following:
Targeting : who you are going to talk to.
Brand Positioning : developing the brand position and being able to clearly articulate what the brand is to each of the target market segments.
Brand Codes : also known as brand assets. These are cues that consumers will immediately associate with your brand eg logo, colours, fonts, music etc.
Brand objectives : setting the right objectives, and the right number of objectives. These are the marketing objectives by which you will measure the effectiveness of your communications.
Brand architecture : how the different products are arranged in your business.
Lots of marketing mumbo jumbo here, but don’t worry we will explain it to you.
Also takes 4 – 6 weeks.
Tactics
Essentially this is where your brand is going to show up, to ensure that when a customer and/or potential customer needs your brand to solve their problem, you are their top of mind solution.
So with the strategic objectives set, the target market identified, the brand positioning defined and all the brand codes in place we now look at which channels and what communications you are going to need.
Now the creative gurus join us.