Ok, insane might be pushing it, but in this short post we’ll run through six high-impact-at-the-very-least internal exercises that you can take (on your own, or in a small group), that will help you form a solid foundation for an actionable and measurable marketing strategy.
And, because getting to a cohesive and actionable marketing strategy (one that the business will buy into and support you in) takes both time and patience, these sessions will add serious fuel to your existing marketing plan or, it’ll give you the super-sharp tools to get you started on one right now.
As is often the case the hardest part of creating (or indeed revisiting) a marketing plan is actually know where to start, especially when there is so much happening day-to-day sucking up your time and head-space.
If you can take half an hour out to use these six quick sessions, you too can kick start your marketing plan today… and have a keen structure by the end of the week.
In marketing it’s always easier to deal with what’s priority right now rather than what’s needed for long-term success.
Use these quick sessions below to give yourself an overview of an actionable plan that can be added to once you understand who has the answers.
Consider taking ten minutes on each of the following. Then when you have a broad outline you can start adding in the detail…
Business Goals that marketing can help achieve – It always helps to start with what success looks like.
Priority Products, Key Product Applications, Key Target Audiences and Audience Profiling. Scribble these all down to elaborate on later.
Positioning Statements (company and products), Messages, Corporate Identity and Brand Reinforcement. What does your marketing say today and is it still relevant based on the above exercise?
Tactical Approaches (web, email, social, blog, Analytics set-up reporting etc). What’s working now (how do we know) and what needs improving?
Lead Management, Lead Automation, Project Data, CRM, Keeping in Touch [KIT] strategies. Again, what’s working now and what needs improving?
Building Trust, Proof of Capability/Experience and Building Credibility – This is what content creation is all about (case studies/testimonials/technical articles/whitepapers/video etc). What can we create that will add value and benefit to our audience?
What we’re aiming for is sections of a plan created independently so that we don’t get bogged down in thinking that we need to do the whole plan at once.
Of course all of the above sessions when answered thoroughly will form an effective, hardworking digital strategy, one that can be measured and actioned, given current budget and resources, and one that benefits the business going forward.
This is just a quick and dirty approach to tackling the beginnings of comprehensive marketing strategy; however it will provide you with a good base to stimulate ideas, ask great questions, challenge the status quo and ultimately help you to develop a measurable and actionable marketing strategy to move forward with.
Next month, we’ll look at expanding on this with ‘How to structure an effective building product marketing team’.
