Marketing Plan - Part 2: Superstructure

Marketing Plan — Part 2: Superstructure

Substructure Recap

The substructure is the foundation or the bones of the marketing plan. These encompass the 3 components that make up a marketing plan or process — Lead Generation, Conversion, and Retention. Having these components in place and a general idea of how you want your organization to deploy its resources is the first step in building out your overall marketing plan. In general, you don’t really see the substructure or interact with the substructure per se.

We now turn to the next step of that plan — building the Superstructure. This is the part that you and your clients do see and interact with. These consist of the actual apparatus or device or program that makes up your process. Think of the superstructure as your strategies come to life.

The Superstructure — Lead Generation

I’m going to use an organization that I’m about to assume presidency over as my example for the bulk of this article. My board and I will be developing a lead generation apparatus that leverages other organizations’ member bases — this is a “complex” strategy (see Part 1 for more on complex strategy).

The goal is to attract potential members to my organization by engaging with other existing organizations because these are the best candidates within the target market as they are already engaged and active in that market. To clarify however, the intent isn’t to “steal” members. Rather, attract them by offering something parallel but different in addition to their current membership.

The difference lies in how my organization is positioned within its ecosystem and how it will interact with other comparable organizations. In this case, mine will serve to connect, engage, collaborate with, and highlight other orgs. In effect, we will be one step away from the ground level, if you will. Away from boots on the ground like other orgs might be.

As far as targeting potential members (or clients), we are seeking members from 3 distinct communities — people of color, women, and LGBT. There are several orgs that exist to support and advocate on behalf of these communities as it is. However, they advocate specifically and solely for those communities separately. My org will target all of them as a whole and look to attract a handful of members from each community organization so that each one has effective representation within my organization — think of it as trying to attract people to a big table so they have one main platform (in my organization) to be represented on.

The apparatus is formed twofold: building our own content and events independently and engaging in other organization’s content and events. More simply, we throw our own parties that everyone is invited to but we also go to other people’s parties, and bring friends, too. By engaging with them in that way, we create a pipeline of leads.

The value here is that the members who are a part of one community’s organization gain knowledge of and access to other opportunities they wouldn’t have otherwise known about. Which opens the door to even greater opportunity to build and share resources, network, collaborate, and build capacity.

Remember, this is the superstructure we’re discussing. This is the part you do see and engage with. It doesn’t exactly feel like “generating leads” but that’s what it results in.

Another device my organization will utilize is a more commonly known strategy. That being digital advertising — we’ll be using roughly 8 different channels (social media, website, etc.) to create engagement and communications with potential leads with the intent of introducing the organization to them and building the relationship.

These are two separate and distinct strategies and will represent the superstructure component of my organization’s lead generation apparatus (or “program”, whichever you prefer). The substructure here is Lead Generation. The superstructures are Membership Engagement and Digital Advertising.

Superstructure — Conversion

This crucial step in the process requires intention but also a solid base of knowledge around your client’s interests, goals, and skills. For me and my organization, even more so. Because we offer a luxury purchase (any membership is such), we must ensure very clear and strong value for our clients’ membership — we need to really deliver for them.

The strategy here will be to build a process that effectively brings the member along from start to where they want to go (i.e. the reason they chose to buy a membership).

It’s all about the experience. (Which hints at the next article about an approach to marketing.)

The worst experience is when you sign up for a membership, pay your money, and then have no idea what happens next. There’s minimal communication, if any. No direction. Little in support. This leads to confusion and confusion is the quickest way to lose clients. So in order to combat that we will create a process that begins from discussion with the member around their interests and why they purchased a membership in the first place.

This way, we can learn about them and get a better sense of where in the organization they may be most interested or best suited to engage with our community or the community organizations we partner with. That is, after all, my organization’s purpose in facilitating relationships and connections throughout the city.

The process is relationship based and with that comes a required approach that is focused on the member explicitly. Prospecting for knowledge about the member is the most important part, followed by getting them connected to the right person(s).

Utilizing devices like welcome messages, an onboarding kit, orientations, etc. are generally prescribed here. The key, again, is making it about the member. Not the organization and how great or accomplished or well-connected it is. Think, this is the actual part (superstructure) of my organization that the client interacts with on their path to converting from a lead to a client.

Superstructure — Retention

The programming around my organization’s retention is three-fold. At a high level, it consists of information distribution, event opportunities to engage in, and membership perks. The reason why these 3 have been chosen is tied to the resources we have, or will create, and the nature of the organization and our goals. Again, these are relatively complex strategies that strongly deal in the relationship we build with our members. Although the goal is simple — get our members to come back — the strategy is a complex one with several moving parts and is an ongoing effort.

It works by creating a newsletter to stay in constant communication with our members and disseminate relevant information they might not ordinarily know about — value. Developing in-person events which are opportunities to meet other members, make friends, develop new business maybe, and become introduced to and engaged with the community at large — building the relationship through positive, impactful experiences. And finally, offering perks of membership that are only available through membership like discounted prices, access to invitation-only events, opportunity for participation in decision-making for the organization — enhancing the relationship experience.

Remember, we’re talking about the Superstructure of the marketing process here. That’s the things you do see and interact with. The substructure is Retention. The superstructure is Producing Events and Member Perks.

The reason why you need to build a superstructure for retention should be obvious — it’s where the actual retention takes place and comes to life (its tangible in some way). The reason why we want to focus on the client or member may not be as obvious however.

It’s easy to get caught up in thinking about how best to position your organization to make the most money or build the largest member base but these are all self-oriented notions. The focus should always be on the client and how you impact them, how you create a moment in their life, a transformation to a better version of themselves. If you want to build real retention, this is the mentality you and your team need to take when developing your marketing tools and programs — they need to be oriented around impacting your client in the best possible way. This will bring them back for ever.

My next article will pull all of these things together to be viewed through a lens and help you understand how exactly to approach your marketing plan as well as your clients. How you make your marketing really take off.

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