What are YOUR marketing priorities? Here’s how to pick them
Not sure of your marketing priorities? Don’t worry, it’s a common issue.
I’ve even sat interviewing candidates from big corporates and asked them that very question: - what are your organisation’s marketing priorities and what role did you play in helping to achieve them? – and you’d be surprised how many times this has stumped a candidate. Because, even if someone in the organisation knew, often the team within it wasn’t fully focused on it…
It's easy to get carried away though…
Everyone chasing the next big thing…
The next shiny social platform…
The CEO who’s had a big idea, that sounds good in practice, but now you’re not so sure…
But how can you stop yourself falling into this trap? Here’s my six-step guide for getting focused:
1. Learn the art of doing less
Having had the benefit of working in a fast-growth, PE-backed business, I can tell you first-hand that there is not only a benefit in doing more with less, but it’s also a necessity. It’s all about making quick decisions, prioritising the actions that will bring the fastest return and it also means being sure as hell you know your onions.
Because, and here’s the thing, if you don’t know what your priorities are, then it’s also very likely that you:
a) Don’t understand your customers’ buying habits and/or
b) Don’t have a targeted marketing plan for targeting those customers
And truthfully, all too often brands are focused on doing it all, without really honing-in on the customer and bringing them some genuine value.
2. Ask yourself some tough questions
To establish what’s important, one of the best ways to get started is by answering this question:
“If you turned off all your marketing activity and you could only turn one back on, which one would it be?”
And the answer is sometimes a bit of a surprise to many…
Because often, the answer is not email marketing; it’s not Twitter, and it’s not Facebook – three avenues that brands invest so heavily in.
Instead, it’s often things like –
“I gained two of my biggest clients last year through speaking opportunities.”
“All of my customers follow me on LinkedIn.”
“Instagram brings the biggest traffic to my website, but I notice that this traffic spikes when I write a blog and share it.”
It’s a very cut and dry approach I realise, but the fact is, it’s unlikely that all customers will go through every touchpoint before they come to you. (In fact, if you’re talking in ‘touchpoints’ you’ve probably lost your way already). Instead, you need to start by finding the one thing that works for you and amplify it, own it and invest more of your time/money/energy in it.
In a previous role, my team and I realised early on that many of our sales leads were coming from an annual luncheon and white paper launch. This was despite the marketing machine running Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook and Xing pages, a targeted email marketing strategy, plus in-house telemarketing team. It was a lot.
We scrapped Twitter and Facebook overnight, the telemarketing stopped, and the email marketing was paired back. It was a drastic move, but it was one that helped us focus on producing more white papers, events and ultimately, more value-driven content. In time, the leads coming in were more high-value and converted much more easily, bring a much higher ROI, even though lead numbers actually went down.
3. Embark on some market research
I mentioned above that if you don’t know your priorities, then you don’t know your customer. So, if this is you, it’s time you spent a little bit of time finding out.
Identifying the most effective sales channels will either come from examining what you’ve done already, and assessing results, or if you’re just starting out you may need to do a bit of market research.
But don’t worry - market research, isn’t going door to door with a clipboard. Instead, it’s about asking yourself a few questions and then validating them. You can do this via desk research (social listening / search intent research), by running straw polls and surveys, by talking to customers directly, or by doing a combination of all three.
The key things to establish are:
Product market fit – what’s the problem and solution you are solving? How are you different from your competitors? And - what evidence have you got to prove you are solving a problem?
Who is your audience? If you had to draw them, what would they look like? What do they like and dislike? What makes them happy? And importantly, what other brands do they buy-into?
Is your current positioning strong enough? Is it memorable or forgettable? And is it consistent? Do you have a consistent message? Or perhaps it’s too similar to a competitor brand? How could you position yourself differently?
If you answer these questions with as much information as you can, you’ll start to create a really comprehensive picture of the problem you’re trying to solve.
4. Don’t assume your competitors are doing it right
While there are no ‘bad routes to market’ you can easily overlook the best ones, by following the crowd.
It’s such a common mistake for businesses - big and small - but it’s so important you do your own research to find out how and where your customers want to buy and work backwards from there. Just because your competitor is doing something, doesn’t mean it’s right for you. Particularly if they are further along in their marketing strategy to you and if they have contrasting business objectives to you.
For businesses just starting out on their marketing journey, a strategy is likely to be more focused on activation (i.e. generating immediate sales leads) however as brands advance on their marketing journey, tactics then tend to become more focused on brand development initiatives - a much longer term strategy. Only you know where you are on your journey, at any given time, so put your blinkers on and keep focused on you, you, you.
5. Start slowly
I have the absolute pleasure of working with some fantastic start-up brands, which is one of the reasons why I went freelance. But one of the things I’ve found with small businesses, is that there’s an innate desire to do too much, too quickly.
“I’d like a social media strategy, content and email marketing strategy please.”
Woah woah woah. I know we’re living in the ‘age of speed’ but let’s just hold fire for a second. Why are we doing everything all at once please?
This comes back to points 2&3 on my list. What is your market research telling you?
Once you know that, then you’ll have the best place to start and then everything else will follow…
So, if you think Instagram is your biggest priority for capturing your customers, then start there and begin the build. Throw everything you can at building your Instagram profile, try different things and get it to a point where it’s a well-oiled machine before attempting doing anything else.
And, if you’ve prioritised your efforts based on insight, rather than a hunch, you’ll be well on your way to delivering some fantastic results.
6. Test, test, test
The market - and therefore marketing - is a funny thing because it is so variable.
One day, something will work and one day it won’t.
One day a video will go viral, but on another day the same video might not. Gut feel, experience and monitoring key trends will give you A LOT of insight about what will work for you (and what won’t) but the only sure fire way to know, is to test it.
And you should test everything.
Test dates and times to post your content. Test your imagery. Test subject lines in emails. Test the colours of buttons on your website. Test content themes and video. Test reel lengths and music choices. The list goes on…
If this six-point plan started with research, then it’s only sensible that it ends with knowledge. You need to know what your customer wants - plus when and how they want it - and you need to maintain that knowledge. Never stop learning, never stop understanding.
That’s the real trick to finding and remaining focused on your marketing priorities.
It goes without saying that a lot of this is much easier to say, than actually do in practice. That’s why I’m on hand to help you create laser focused marketing strategies, that deliver real results against your business objectives.
Think you need my help? Get in touch and let’s get started.