Marketing Strategy by Jenna Tiffany
Juan Carlos Zambrano
Gerente de Finanzas @ Tecnofarma Bolivia | Coaching ontologico
Introduction
In this straightforward and engaging book, I will draw on my years of experience as a world-renowned strategy expert to teach you all the skills you need to become a successful strategic marketer.
We will together cover everything you need to know about marketing strategy, from definitions to implementation, analysis and even history. With an easy-to-follow breakdown to create marketing strategies that include all elements, this book leaves no stone unturned.
Strategy is a very complicated thing to work out but should be a very simple thing to eventually explain. In our world of marketing it comes down to being able to answer three basic questions and answer them long before we have started spending money on VR headsets and the latest Facebook ads. Who am I targeting? What is my position to that target? What are my strategic objectives for that target market? - Mark Ritson, 2020
My experience as a marketing consultant resonates with Mark Ritson’s: that many brands simply do not have a marketing strategy.
My experience as a marketing consultant resonates with Mark Ritson’s: that many brands simply do not have a marketing strategy.
It’s understandable. I refer to tactics as the ‘shiny shiny’ part of marketing. Tactics are what we, as marketers get excited about. They’re the fun part. It’s for tactics that we create and choose the imagery, design, content, message, marketing channels and so on.
These chapters follow the stages involved in creating a marketing strategy from start to finish. To do this I have turned the word STRATEGY into an acronym which provides you with a checklist to ensure no element is left out. Inside each chapter are tasks to complete along with my examples detailing the strategy I created to launch this book. The book concludes with 10 of the most common pitfalls facing marketers and tips on how to avoid and overcome each one.
01 What is strategy?
Strategy is the map which takes you to your destination.
Tactics are the vehicles you use to get there.
Tactics are the ‘how’.
Strategy is the ‘who, what, where, when and why’.
‘Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory. Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat’ - Sun Tzu, The Art of War
Most modern marketers are well versed in the execution – the tactical ‘how’ – of a marketing plan. However, not many have been taught, have learned or experienced the ‘who’, ‘what’ and ‘when’ of strategy. This is where this book will take your marketing efforts to a strategic level
S-T-R-A-T-E-G-Y framework. As an example below, the tactics are defined after S-T-R-A when the following questions are answered:
S: Scenario – Where is the business now?
T: Targets – What are the objectives?
R: Reach – Who is your customer?
A: Awareness – How will you drive awareness to the target market?
Five reasons why you need a marketing strategy
For those who need a reminder, here are the five major reasons why you need a marketing strategy:
(1) It will give your business direction
A strategy will give you a clear roadmap towards your goals and objectives. Your strategy will define the who, where and when of your message. Who needs to hear your message? When? Where can you reach them?
(2) It will make your tactics successful
However, you really do need that long-term strategic planning if your tactics are going to work out. If you haven’t got a long-term goal in place, data analytics informing your decisions or even market research, how do you know that your tactics are appropriate?
With consumers increasingly busy and distracted, now is the time to have an 80 per cent strategically focused and 20 per cent ad hoc marketing plan
(3) It will help you to gather the right data
Without data collection and analysis woven into your strategic plan, you’ll struggle to gather any data at all – let alone relevant data which can provide you with those all-important insights
(4) It will build trust with your audience
Beyond individual campaigns, strategizing will give you a greater understanding of how customers engage with your product or service. This is very helpful for improving your offering as a brand.
All of this will create a closer relationship with your audience, and close relationships foster trust
(5) It will improve your performance
A planned approach to your marketing will enable you to quickly and easily identify areas of your activity which are performing well, as well as those areas which aren’t.
Knowing what you’re doing well and what you’re struggling with is crucial to refining and improving your activity. If you want to seriously up your performance, a good strategy is essential!
The modern strategic challenge
Consumer patience is a thing of the past. This is in part due to the rise of disruptive brands such as Uber, who have conditioned customers to wait a maximum of three minutes for a taxi. If the taxi isn’t nearby, it will lose its potential customer. This has a huge impact on how people receive brand messages
You can’t ‘grab’ the attention of a ‘captive’ audience any more. Tactics-based marketing just won’t cut it. If you want people to focus on your message, your campaign needs to be targeted, punchy, timely and on-message – something only a good strategy can ensure.
It’s also worth noting that budgets are tighter than ever before – particularly since Covid-19 dealt a blow to many bank accounts. Marketing really has to prove its worth and ensure that your campaigns aren’t wasting any of your precious budget. You can’t just wing it – every penny spent must be justified by a comprehensive strategy.
Walk into a clothing store now and you’ll be greeted with the same kind of bland layout that you’d have seen 10 or even 20 years ago. The products may be new, but the basic experience is the same. In my opinion, there’s a huge lack of energy and soul in high-street shopping – what exactly is different about this shop to any other retailer?
This, for me, is an example of a brand that really understands how important strategy is. They’ve not got tactics tunnel-vision. They’re working from a bigger strategic picture. And it shows in the immersive nature of their shopping experience
By focusing on strategy first rather than focusing on tactics, the bigger picture suddenly becomes a lot clearer for everyone – marketers and the brand bosses included. At last, everyone is on the same page!
A strategy is an overarching plan by which you hope to achieve your vision. A good strategy should be well researched, have strongly defined goals and act as a roadmap towards achieving clear objectives. To identify the key stages in strategy building, I created an acronym from the word STRATEGY (Figure 1.1). Each letter represents, in order, the steps to take when creating a strategy and is the flow of this book
Are you stuck in the post-war era?
The world has changed a lot, but many brands haven’t changed with it.
A lot of companies are suffering because they are still using the same (or lack of) strategies from the post-war era. While these approaches certainly helped to win the war, modern business has very different needs to a 1930s military unit
A modern business needs to be able to adapt swiftly and creatively to new challenges. It must be agile in order to respond to the unforeseen. A military-style operation just isn’t capable of this. With endless protocols to follow and permissions to be sought, the post-war mode of business is simply too rigid.
Both businesses as a whole and marketers in particular can survive and thrive in this fast-changing world through strategy
Where should you start? I suggest with a Vision
Vision
A vision is the cornerstone of any decent strategy.
Without a real vision, the objectives of the business and the direction in which it is heading will become blurred and unfocused.
Remember — people follow people, not concepts. Your business leaders need to promote your vision if it’s going to be the driving force that it needs to be. If they follow the vision, your other employees will take their lead
There are many challenges when communicating the roll-out of a new vision (or refreshing an established vision). One common problem occurs when the teams which create the vision are fixed in their way of thinking and/or have a closed team culture
For visions that are already in place, a very common issue is employees forgetting what it is or dismissing it entirely as one of those ‘marketing things’.
TIPS
The vision needs to be easy to remember, succinct and written in the language used throughout the company
Encourage employees from each department to participate in the creation of the vision
Regular check-ups on how the vision is being implemented in each department are also important
Rewarding employees and/or departments that are actively engaging with the new vision is an effective way to bring the vision to life
Choose the person who delivers the vision statement to the company carefully
In the same vein, ensure that the representative is well briefed on any answers to give to potential questions
Most of all, make the vision’s delivery fun
From vision to strategy
Once you’ve established a vision, you should find that you have a much clearer idea of your brand’s direction, values and so on. You’re now fully equipped to get beyond the theory and into the fine detail of strategizing.
The process of creating a strategic marketing plan should start like this:
These foundation steps should be taken long before you even start thinking about tactics.
These should be first and foremost, front and centre when you’re working out your strategy. Without identifying marketing objectives and goals your focus will be unclear. You won’t know where to concentrate your efforts and how to measure your performance.
The marketer establishes a plan to achieve set goals and objectives. A strategy should always define the ‘why’ before the ‘how’. This links back to the ‘vision
Engaging with data is crucial to the development of an effective marketing strategy
Turning a blind eye to data insights, or not tapping into the right knowledge when you need to, will leave your business open to failure.
To gather and use data correctly, you need to position the customers’ needs in the centre of your data practices. There is also a need to ensure you obtain reliable and credible data
When we speak of ‘utilizing technology’, most peoples’ minds jump immediately to shiny new tech. Data analysis is much less sexy, but it’s by far the best way of getting to grips with the latest trends and the prevailing mood. That’s not to say that you shouldn’t play with shiny new technology too, but be sure to know what you’re dealing with before you take the plunge!
Marketing, when conducted correctly, is an intelligent and sophisticated art.
Your campaign’s audience needs to be a constant touchpoint throughout your strategizing. It’s not about starting with the channels or media that you’re going to use (Facebook, TikTok, Snapchat or email); it’s about ensuring that, no matter the media, your message will benefit your customer and enhance their experience with your brand. After all, it’s the customer who wants to hear your company’s story, and it’s the customer you need to convince that you’re the brand to choose.
A strategy is the first point of call, yet many marketers delve straight into the shiny, sexy part of marketing – creating lavish campaigns and creative content – without stopping to analyse and assess their customers’ needs and wants. It’s also important to ensure that the product lives up to the marketing message, otherwise there is a danger of overselling which will lead to disappointed consumers.
SCENARIO
Where is the business now? What is your current scenario? What are the environments internally and externally? What’s happening inside your organization that could limit or amplify success?
TARGET
What is the desired destination, ambition? What are your objectives?
REACH
Who are your customers? What are you customers seeking to gain from the product or service you are offering? What is the key benefit to them?
AWARENESS
How do you drive a response? What’s your strategic approach to reaching your audience? How are you planning to target and position your messaging so that the right people see it
TACTICS
Based on what you discovered in the ‘A’ stage of this framework, what tactics are most appropriate to reach the target audience?
EXECUTION
Who will implement the strategy? What will be implemented? When will activity take place?
GENERATE
Are you on track to achieve the goals set?
YIELD
Were the objectives achieved? How do the Year-on-Year (YOY) results compare if this is a multi-annual marketing strategy? Was the target audience reached and engaged?
02 Scenario
Establishing the current situation
The combination of analyses created by using these frameworks is an important step in building your marketing strategy. These analyses provide context regarding where the business and the market are now, the opportunities and threats (both internally and externally) you face, and the strengths which will help you gain a competitive advantage
What do I mean by ‘competitive advantage’? Well, simply put, a competitive advantage is something which helps you to win custom over your competitors. Examples include
Where is the business now?
Our first step in creating a marketing strategy with the STRATEGY framework begins with S – Scenario. This involves analysing the context of your organization by assessing the internal (micro) and external (macro) factors which could be affecting it. This is known as analysing the situational environment
Micro factors have a direct influence on the firm’s marketing operations, some of which are controllable (eg resourcing). Macro factors have an indirect influence – mostly uncontrollable. These factors make up the typical PESTLE forces (Political, Economic, Social, Technological, Legal, Environmental)
Micro environment
The micro marketing environment consists of the factors which affect an organization internally, and the resources which help it to respond to these factors. Team skills, patents, financial stability, reputation or supplier relationships
Macro environment
The macro, external environment consists of all the outside forces and influences that could affect the organization. The economy, for example, or current events
It is vital for marketers to understand the environment in which their business is operating. Analysing the marketing environment helps marketers to understand customer needs and wants, as well as how well equipped their own business is to fulfil these
Without monitoring and analysing the market, marketers are simply guessing. The marketing environment represents the total sum of factors and variables impacting upon the firm. The very survival of an organization depends on understanding it. If the marketing environment is not monitored closely, the firm is at risk of being caught out by market changes that have the potential to impact corporate survival. The business environment is an open system, and many elements of that system are unpredictable
Models to analyse the two environments
For the micro environment there is the SWOT
SWOT analysis
SWOT is a simple but useful framework for analysing your organization’s strengths and weaknesses, as well as the opportunities and threats that you face. It helps you focus on your strengths, minimize threats and take the greatest possible advantage of opportunities available to you
PESTLE analysis
To analyse the macro, external environment influencing an organization, we have the PESTLE framework
PESTLE is an analytical framework used for understanding the external factors that could impact an organization. It stands for Political, Economic, Social, Technological, Legal and Environmental.
Once you’ve conducted your SWOT and PESTLE analyses, summarize your key findings. You can do this in whatever form works for you (bullet points are popular!), but it’s important that you can use your analysis to draw conclusions which will form the basis of the marketing strategy
SWOTELL
To advance your SWOT analysis even further, I’ve added ELL to the original SWOT
This model will take your analysis conducted in the SWOT to another level by analysing and adding a further three elements
EXISTING
What does your existing marketing activity consist of? What channels is the organization actively using? Are they achieving the KPIs set? Do they engage the target audience? What’s working and not working?
LIMITATIONS
What’s holding your marketing back? What’s the structure of the marketing team?
Are there skill gaps or is this an experienced team? Is there an adequate marketing budget available when considering the competitive landscape? (Covered in more detail later in this chapter).
LEVERAGE
What’s already successful that can be leveraged? Are there agencies in place, for example?
Is this an experienced and capable team? Which of your tactics are working, and why?
Analysing the competition
Your competition is a vital part of your marketing environment. It’s important that you know as much as possible about your competitors if you are to build and maintain your competitive advantage
The framework I have created to do this is called COMPETE.
COMPETE
When analysing competitors there are key areas to focus on. COMPETE provides a structure that ensures all the bases are covered
C – Current operators
Who currently exists in the same marketplace that you are operating and competing in?
Are the current companies in the market easy to imitate?
Are there any start-ups entering the marketplace or is the marketplace dominated by established organizations
Are there any barriers to entry?
How many competitors are there?
Which competitors are your biggest?
O – Offering
What are your competitors providing? Who are they providing it to? Who is their target market? Are there different tiers or packages available?
M – Market share
Market share refers to the amount of available custom that your competitor is taking. If you picture the market as a literal market square, a company with a large market share would be taking up a lot of space, and customers would be crowding around them
What is their market share?
Does the market appear to be growing or contracting?
P – Price
Pricing strategies are important to understand, as they tell you a lot about supply and demand in the market, and how your competitors are responding to those forces.
What is your competitor’s pricing strategy?
Do they have several different pricing options available?
What criteria are their different pricing options based upon?
Is there a range of suppliers available to help you produce your product or service?
E – Expertise
How long has the competitor existed?
Are they recognizable and well known?
What are they known for?
T – Target
Who is their target customer?
What is their consumer persona(s) and profile?
How easy is it for your buyers to switch suppliers?
E – Employees
Are they globally based?
Is their workforce skilled and experienced?
What do their team, departments and structure look like?
Now, compare your SWOT, SWOTELL and PESTLE with the outcomes from your COMPETE analysis to inform your marketing strategy. By this point, you should be starting to see how wider strategic analysis can get you the best starting point for your campaign by highlighting solid and actionable insights
VRIO: Resources and capabilities
The most critical aspect of a strategy is the execution. Many organizations create a strategy which can’t be implemented in the organization. This happens for a number of reasons. A model that helps to ensure that the strategy you have created actually can be implemented is the VRIO framework
VRIO stands for: Value, Rarity, Imitability and Organization
By analysing your resources (or those of your competitors), you will learn more about your competitive advantage
Competitive advantages provide organizations with an edge over the competition, adding value to the company. It becomes increasingly difficult for competitors to match a competitive advantage, the more sustainable it is. If it is difficult for the organization to retain the advantage, then the competition will eventually match it, or the company will struggle to maintain it
The VRIO framework can be applied across the organization or to individual departments. It provides a solid perspective on each area of the business and how it should position itself in the marketplace. Capabilities and resources change over time, so the framework should be used regularly
03 Targets
Setting objectives
This brings us to the first T in the STRATEGY framework: Targets.
Using analysis, you can create or redefine existing marketing objectives, ensuring that they are aligned to achieving the business’s objectives.
Objectives give a sense of purpose and direction. They help departments direct their activities towards the same goals in a consistent way. Objectives motivate staff to achieve them, particularly if they are tied into performance measures. Objectives give a benchmark for control so organizations can assess whether they are meeting the set objectives. Digital objectives are aligned with corporate objectives
Objectives should be acceptable and understandable to internal managers and external stakeholders
Let’s discover how to create strategic objectives using the SCALE framework
Building objectives that SCALE
The best approach to creating effective objectives is to use my SCALE framework
S – STRATEGIC
Remind yourself where and why these objectives fit in with your overall strategy
To keep things strategic, clearly define the objective of the marketing campaign
Avoid generalities as they only create confusion and can lead to poor results
C – CONSIDERED
Realistic targets are those that your business can achieve with the resources you have
Belief in the objectives set is important for their success. Everyone in the organization must agree the goals are achievable and that there are the tools and skills required to achieve the objectives
A – AUDIENCE
When tracking the results of the campaign both while it’s live and after it’s complete, it is important to remain focused on the target audience you defined at the start
L – LIFT
The KPI number chosen needs to be broken down into key milestones throughout the reporting duration of the campaign
To be effective these should be very specific. A clearly defined measure of success is vital in understanding if the goal has been achieved
E – END
Establishing a solid end date will help you to schedule your reporting, as well as helping to determine the timescale for reaching each milestone
Clear endpoints also support measurement of your success during the key milestones running up to the end date
SCALE-defined objectives will help you to align your objectives with both the metrics that can help to measure progress, and with a timely reporting schedule
04 Reach
Researching your customers
We are now at stage R in the STRATEGY framework, which is where we find out more about who your existing customers are or who your new target audience is
Constant developments in technology and devices have both led to changing marketing environments. This, in turn, has led to swift changes in customer behaviour, loyalty and focus
Companies are forced to keep up and stay ahead of the ever-changing likes, dislikes and behaviours of the consumer, or risk losing attention
So, we’ve moved from a position of mistrust to a place in which this previously ‘creepy’ technology is not only seen as normal, but as essential
Interesting consumer psychology is at play here, and Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs captures this
The requirements at each level must be satisfied before the person moves up a tier.
Question the psychological needs that your offering satisfies, as this is an area that can be mapped to the benefits of your product
All of this will play an essential role in marketing your communications to engage your target audience.
The importance of understanding your customer
Ultimately, what your customers want from you is something of value to them. They’ll be willing to pay for something they think will really benefit them. This is known as the value exchange
This starts with tailoring your marketing towards the kinds of people you think might want what you’re selling. But the concept of value exchange can be carried further. It works for marketing, as well.
In the value exchange of marketing, the customer exchanges their valuable attention for the information about your offering
So, once you’ve identified a specific audience for your marketing, take things further. Look deep into who that audience is. Learn about them. Understand them. And think, while you’re doing so, of the kind of marketing message which would engage them
Make sure that the information is portrayed in a manner worth their attention. If you get it right, you’ll gain the holy grail of marketing – value-added relationships
If you can increase the strength of this collaboration, you’ll get a high Lifetime Value from your customers as they continue their relationship with your brand, and even bring family and friends into your circle. But achieving this means providing constant value for and engagement with the customer. Michele Gettins, Global Category Manager at baby supplies company Tommee Tippee explains the importance of knowing your customers:
For me one of the roles of marketing (and the marketing strategy) is to really understand consumers, their wants, needs and desires and to deliver innovation that delivers against those, and genuinely makes parents lives easier
As Michele explains, the fundamental role of marketing is to truly understand customers
The organization can then use this ‘voice’ to steer the direction of innovation or to change areas of the business in order to satisfy these needs, wants and desires
Just as in real life, the best brand/customer relationships are based on mutual understanding.
If you’re doing your job right, your potential customers already have plenty of resources where they can learn about you. So, now it’s time to put in the work at your end. To build that all-important brand–consumer relationship, you need to learn about your customer.
Insights and understanding about your customers are vital for informing your strategic direction. You can gain these insights by digging into data
Data will tell you everything you need to know about your customer’s interests, behaviour, needs and wants. It comes in various types and can be gathered from multiple sources – from social media to website analytics to good old-fashioned face-to-face feedback
But before we start getting too deep into data and what it can do for you, a quick word about the infamous GDPR and other data protection legislations, such as the CCPA in the United States and PIPEDA in Canada
The problem is not with the fact that data was used – the problem is that it was gathered without explicit and transparent permission, and that it was used in a dishonest, manipulative manner. If we can collect and utilize data ethically, using it to add actual value to enhance the customers experience, there is no problem. The best way to do this is to give the customer control and in full agreement with us. As Tim Bond explains, ‘put the customer first’ (Bond, 2020).
If these practices are actioned, then there’s no reason why you should not keep gleaning valuable insights from honestly gathered data.
Here are some tips:
Primary and secondary research are the two main types:
Primary research – is first-hand information directly from your target customer. This can be gathered by conducting interviews and surveys where an organization can ask specific questions.
Secondary research – this is public record information such as trend reports, sales data available within your organization and industry content. This research is useful when analysing competitors.
Segmenting, targeting and positioning (STP) your organization with the target market
There’s data which can tell you about your customers, data which can tell you about your performance, and data which tells you everything in between. Understanding what the data is telling you will ensure that your marketing is optimized
Segmentation
Segmentation is a useful way of splitting up a broad target audience into smaller groups with similarities
There are four ways to start segmenting the target market, outlined in
Geographic: Regions, countries, counties, cities, neighbourhoods
Demographic: Age, gender, income, occupation, family size, family lifestyle, socio-economic status
Psychographic: Personality, lifestyle, attitude, beliefs
Behavioural: Those who know about the product, those who don’t know about the product, former users, potential users, current users, first-time users, loyal customers, brand-neutral, loyal to a competitor, prospects.
A combination of all can be used to create a segment, or just one
The essential factor to keep in mind when segmenting is that each segment created must provide value to your organization
Different segments should also have distinguishing features which make them unique. Segmentation can be used to boost conversions and to cut costs as it is a very effective use of marketing budget. By catering to the specific needs and wants of each segment, your marketing approach will be more effective. This enables you to optimize your messaging and offering to each segment
Targeting your customer segment
Once your customer segments have been defined, the next step is targeting. The purpose here is to not target ‘everyone’ with the same message but to define the target group by identifying and understanding your particular niche
It’s by understanding more about your target customers that you can then target them with relevant content, messaging and advertising that will appeal to them. Conversions will increase the more insight that you have about your audience
Targeting can be used to evaluate the potential and commercial attractiveness of each of the segments you’ve defined above. The more clearly defined each target group is within its segment, the better you can understand how and where to reach your target audience
Positioning your organization competitively to attract your target market
Positioning is the approach taken by an organization to market its product or service. When establishing positioning the image or identity of a brand or product is created for consumers to view it in a certain way. A product or brand’s ‘position’ is the place it occupies in the consumers’ minds relative to competitors
To build a competitive advantage through positioning, you first need to identify what makes your organization different from competitors
Potential differentiators include:
Creating customer personas
A customer profile defines your ideal (or targeted) customer by establishing their likes, dislikes, habits, behaviour, where they work, income and so on. They can be known as customer personas or buyer personas (depending on where they are being used in the business) and will add value throughout all departments – not just marketing.
Customer personas should be based on market research and insights gathered from existing customers. Each persona is a fictional representation of an actual potential customer. Many marketers find it helpful to assign personas to their segments or target audiences, but they can also be used in product development, to ensure that the needs of your customers are considered during decision-making
Customer personas are instrumental in the formulation of marketing strategies. They help you to illuminate who the buyers are, the situations they are faced with, their pain points and – most importantly – the goals they are attempting to accomplish
To develop a customer persona, you need to consider the following four identifiers: demographic, psychographic, environmental and behavioural
Researching your ideal customer
When creating a persona, the focus should be on making it as accurate and specific as possible. To do so, research ideally needs to be conducted on your actual customer base
TIPS
Conducting audience research
A well-managed social media account (or two) can be a great weapon in your strategic arsenal. In this first stage of building your strategy, it provides a great point of engagement with customers and prospects, which you can use to build your understanding of who your audience members are and what they want.
Use social media to ask questions about what your audience like, what they want, what they think of your brand. Take lessons from their comments. Analyse the demographics of engagement. And use your insights to inform your strategic understanding of your customers
Of course, social media is not the only channel through which you can open conversations with customers
Keep engaging in ‘social listening’ – ie keeping your ears open to all the ways in which customers are communicating with your brand (and what they’re saying!)
Lead scoring
Lead scoring involves allocating a score based upon activities which the lead/prospect has fulfilled. For example, if a prospect completed a form online, that may equate to a score of 2. If that customer also then subscribed to your email marketing, they receive a score of 3, making it a total of 5. This method enables you to understand more about how your customers ‘behave
This is useful, because it tells you who is the most engaged, who is the most likely to convert, and the tactics which successfully increase your prospects’ lead scores
Tailoring marketing
Once you’ve established your personas, it’s time to start customizing your marketing towards them
Negative personas can also be created, which are focused on the characteristics of the people which aren’t an excellent fit for your business. By understanding who’s not interested in you as well as who is, you’ll be able to segment out the unsuitable customers from the rest
The 4Ps
To validate and provide depth to your positioning, consider using the 4Ps
Price
The psychology of pricing in marketing is something that can make or break a product’s sales success
Place
The placement of where your product/service is available has an important role to play. At a basic level, if the majority of your target audience lives in city centres, having your product available in rural, hard-to-reach areas would not be productive positioning for this audience. The same principle applies online. Place or position your product or service as close to the target market as possible.
Promotion
This includes any method of advertising. The positioning element is important here because the same advertisement may not work for the intended audience when certain factors are different
The product includes all the attributes and benefits of the product with specific characteristics identified. This can also focus on the use and application of the product and the quality of the item
Market positioning
One way to determine your organization’s product or brand positioning is by using a perceptual map, also known as a positioning map. A perceptual map illustrates consumer perception of the products in your market.
This enables you to identify how competitors are positioned in comparison to yourself and allows you to identify any opportunities in the marketplace
Once you’ve identified your market and product positioning, a statement can be created to communicate this across the organization. This positioning statement will detail how you want the brand to be perceived by consumers succinctly
To create an online value proposition, identify customer needs, then clarify a value proposition to meet those needs at a profit
05 Awareness
Planning your marketing campaign
A stands for Awareness. It’s all about using the information we have gathered on the marketing environment, competitors and our target audience to achieve the objectives we’ve set.
We will do this through the creation of a marketing plan
What’s the difference between marketing planning and strategy?
Well, for starters, a marketing plan is part of a strategy, but it’s not the whole thing. A marketing plan – rather than being a road map – is an assessment of the terrain you’ll be covering. This is what we started in Chapter 2 when we analysed the external and internal contexts of the organization
A good marketing plan is a blueprint for marketing your products and services. Essentially, a marketing plan is a step-by-step guide which details how to deliver your marketing strategy
An excellent model to use to ensure that your marketing strategy is equally weighted and not overly focused on one area is the marketing mix – otherwise known as the 4Ps or the 7Ps
The marketing mix is invaluable. It’s a method that has existed for more than 60 years and it’s my go-to approach when creating a marketing plan to implement a marketing strategy. Why? Because the 7Ps ensures that all of the Ps are considered. As a result, your marketing efforts are equally weighted across all of the 7Ps, without all of the focus on product and price.
If the product doesn’t fulfil your target market’s needs, then it will provide little value. This will then impact the success of the pricing approach used. If it’s not being sold where the target market is, the same problem applies.
Your marketing strategy should be focused on engaging your customers, so always concentrate all 7Ps on your target audience when creating your marketing plan and align to the research, data insight and customer personas
Let’s break the marketing mix down into more detail and uncover how you can use each P in developing your marketing plan.
The focus here is on creating a product that will satisfy the needs and wants of your target market
During the product development phase, marketers need to conduct extensive research into the benefits of the product being created. There is a great tool that I highly recommend using for this. It’s called Augmented Product, a model created by Kotler and Armstrong
I have often used this model to help product and business owners identify the benefits that customers gain from their offering. Often, I find that they hadn’t previously considered many of the benefits that the model identifies
Augmented product breaks down a product into three levels. Each ‘level’ provides marketers with an opportunity to identify the core benefits customers would gain
Let’s look at each level in more detail
Level 1: Core product
This is not the physical product itself. The ‘core’ describes the basic benefit/purpose of the product, ie the elements that make it valuable to the target consumer
Level 2: Actual product
This level is the physical product. Level 2 is focused on what the consumer would think about the product when first seeing or testing it
Level 3: Augmented product
This level involves the non-physical part of the product. Level 3 is all about added-value elements which the customer may or may not pay a premium for
How can I use the augmented product model
This model is particularly useful to ensure that product design focuses not only on practical elements but also on the benefits to the customer. Many technology companies focus heavily on the features that their tool provides but fail to align these to the customer’s actual wants and needs
The life of a product
A product also has a life cycle which is important to take into account when defining your marketing plan because for existing vs new products, the approach and communication will be different at each stage
HOW CAN I USE THE PRODUCT LIFE CYCLE MODEL?
There are marketing approaches which can be used to extend the life of a product before it goes into decline. Adding new features to the current product
Your pricing should reflect the product’s positioning (as covered in the perceptual map in Chapter 4) and business objectives. It should also cover the cost per item and aim to achieve a profit margin unless the goal is to undercut competitors by being a loss-leader to gain market share
The following are the main pricing methods used
Cost-plus – this takes the production cost and adds an additional profit, which is factored into the price
Value-based – this pricing strategy uses the customer’s own perception of the product’s value to determine the price
Competitive – to use competitive pricing, you need to conduct research into the pricing approach your competitors are using for similar products
Going rate – this pricing approach is mostly used in markets where companies have little to no control of the market price. The price of the product would be based on the going rate of similar items
Skimming – if the product is of high quality, the price will be high to target affluent customers and to ‘skim-off’ maximum profits. When the market becomes saturated, the price is typically lowered as the product becomes more ‘mass market’ and available to everyone.
Discount – for old stock (or to sell excess stock), the advertised price is discounted.
Loss-leader – everything has production costs. A loss-leader is a product whose retail price is lower than its production costs. The rationale behind using this pricing strategy is to attract customers to your website or into your store and convert them to add more items to their basket
Psychological – the most commonly used psychological pricing method is to use a price that isn’t rounded off to the nearest whole number
Subscription – pricing that is based on a set monthly subscription package each month
Pay-per-view (PPV) – a widely used approach with the increase in online streaming is for customers to pay for each view online or through a smart TV
The ‘place’ factor concerns where or how your product is bought
There are various ways in which a product can be sold, including through intermediaries such as distributors, wholesalers, retailers or direct to the consumer via your website
In terms of distribution, it is also essential to consider where the products are stored and how quickly they can be transported to their final destination, be that direct to the consumer or to a retail store/warehouse.
Distribution channels
How your product is distributed is also an aspect of Place in the 7Ps. Ask yourself: how does your product get from the factory where it is produced to the hands of your customers?
The advantage with direct distribution is that the company has complete control over both the product and the customer’s experience. However, it does mean that there is additional responsibility placed on the organization to not only promote and sell the product but also to ensure that it is delivered to customers
INDIRECT: PRODUCER > WHOLESALER > RETAILER > CONSUMER
In this model, the producer/company uses an intermediary
This method of distribution could increase costs as each intermediary will receive a percentage of the profits or charge a fee as a result of providing that service
DUAL
This distribution channel is a combination of direct and indirect. The product could be sold directly to the end consumer and also sold through intermediaries. This option can reach more consumers but can also cause a risk of conflict or crossover between the direct and intermediate distributors. The consumer experience may also vary, and product marketing risks becoming inconsistent.
REVERSE CHANNELS
A consumer who sells their product back to the company they had purchased from is using reverse channel distribution
INTERMEDIARIES
There are various types of intermediaries. The four main types are:
Agents
Wholesalers
Distributors
Retailers
This P is focused on advertising and communicating your product or service to let your target customer know what you’re offering
To engage your target audience, your promotional activity needs to:
Linking back to the analysis of your target customer you conducted in Chapter 4, it’s important that your promotional content engages that customer. You need to grab their attention in a way that convinces them to convert.
The vast array of marketing channels, media and tools that can be used to promote your offering, and how to use them, are detailed in Chapter 6, but to start with here is a short summary.
Above-the-line (ATL)
This uses mass media methods. The advantage of using this type of promotion is that it attracts a large audience. The disadvantage is that anyone and everyone would be exposed to marketing, not just the target customer. ATL marketing channels include: radio; TV; print / leaflets; newspaper; magazines; outdoor locations such as billboards
Below-the-line (BTL)
The company can control BTL promotion methods – for example, in-store offers and direct selling. Smaller audiences are reached through targeted advertising. The advantage of using BTL promotion is that the company has more control and can target specific groups of customers.
trade marketing; sampling; roadshow; door to door; event management; direct mail; email marketing; online retargeting; social media; PPC; PR; search engine optimization (SEO).
The P of People was added within the extended marketing mix of the 7Ps during the rise of the services industry. It has since become one of the most important elements of the marketing mix.
Even with the best product in the world, people are required at some stage in the buyer’s journey. The customer may encounter people who are selling directly, shipping the product or answering queries post-purchase. A bad experience with a person from the organization at any stage could end the life of a product or company.
People includes everyone who is involved, either directly or indirectly, in the product or service. Not all of these people will be in contact with customers, but these people all have a role to play in the production, marketing, distribution and delivery of the products or services to the customer
Personal selling
Personal selling is where the business has representatives who sell directly to consumers. They aim to inform the customer and persuade them to purchase. Typically, personal selling is conducted by sales representatives who communicate the benefits of the product or service to the customer and, while receiving instant feedback, can adapt their approach specifically to their unique prospect.
It’s vital that the sales representative portrays the same marketing message as set out in the marketing plan and demonstrates the same vision, values and attitudes of the organization
领英推荐
Process is focused on the systems and processes that deliver a product to a customer. It could include the process of making transactions on your website, website design, the process of providing customer service support to your customers, etc.
The process of engaging a prospective customer doesn’t just start when an order is placed. The processing element includes all of the operational aspects of being able to service a customer. Having your website up and running 24/7 without any downtime is a ‘process’. The ability to respond to customer queries, the process of promoting your offering, the systems and resources required to deliver all of those processes – all of these and more come under this P. Process covers the customer experience across their journey
The marketing mix is a blend of both physical and psychological factors.
For products, physical evidence includes the actual product, the retail store
There are several ways to break down physical evidence; let’s review these in more detail below
Environment
This is the space in which you are situated when you consume the service
Ambience
Can include temperature, colour, smell, sound, etc. The combination of these can consciously or subconsciously improve or hinder the experience of the service
Layout
The spatial layout and design of your store are important when shaping the customer experience
Signage
Corporate branding contributes to physical evidence. For example, the signage of your favourite clothing store is instantly recognizable and reassures you that this is indeed where you can find that style you love.
The 4Cs
Let’s add another layer to our marketing mix by tightening focus on the consumer. We can do this by using the 4Cs
Robert Lauterborn created this alternative method to the 4Ps in 1990 (Smalley, 2017). The focus is on targeting niches in a similar way to segmentation, rather than mass markets. The 4Cs focus on understanding what the consumer truly wants from a product or service.
The 4Cs add the consumer layer to the 4Ps as illustrated
Let’s look at the 4Cs in more detail.
Customer
The focus here is on selling products that the consumer will want to buy
Cost
The price is typically the first thought when considering the cost of a product/service. But the price is only a small part of the total cost when producing a product or providing a service. The cost reflects the total cost of ownership, not just the price the consumer pays
Communication
This C shifts promotion from only being one-directional and focuses our attention as marketers on creating a relationship
Convenience
The location at which a consumer can purchase your product or experience the service is important for many businesses, but there is another layer here, and it involves understanding how the target market prefers to purchase
What makes service marketing different?
Marketing of services is different to the marketing of physical products. While the fundamental strategic principles (segmentation, research, creative thinking, tactical innovation) remain present, there are fundamental differences in the marketing mix. These differences can provide challenges for service-sector marketers. Usually, these challenges centre around five basic factors, of which every service marketer needs to be aware:
Intangible – services are not ‘things’ in the same way that, say, face creams are
Inseparable – a service is tied to the person or organization providing it
Perishable – services can’t be stored in the fridge and consumed later. They’re ‘produced’ and ‘consumed’ at the same time. Once you’ve used a service, you may get a similar experience by hiring that service again, but you can never have the exact same experience. This has an impact on pricing to manage demand:
when travelling during peak times the fares will be higher than at off peak
cancellation fees for beauty and physio appointments because of a no-show means that time has gone and cannot be recovered, costing the organization time and money.
Lack of ownership – what does the customer get to take away from the service they’ve used? As no goods change hands, customer experience and customer satisfaction are paramount when marketing services
Heterogeneous – services are difficult to standardize, as every service deliverer’s methods will vary
06 Tactics
Selecting the right channels
All of the above will help you determine which tactics are appropriate to use in your own marketing strategy. ‘Finally, with that strategy in place, we select the appropriate tactics to deliver the strategy and win the day’ (Ritson, 2020) and in this chapter we are going to focus on this selection process.
A marketing channel is the main route taken to promote your offering such as SEO, social media and PPC. The way that channel is implemented is the tactical element. Marketing tactics are the promotional elements and, in some cases, the ‘fun’ part of marketing. People often mistake tactics for marketing strategy, but tactics are the vehicles used to reach your destination.
Digital marketing channels (online)
Digital marketing tactics
According to Hootsuite (2020) there are three main areas to focus on when using digital marketing tactics
If the problem isn’t clearly defined then how can it be determined that AI is the right tool for the job? That’s an important distinction to make
Empathy and context are crucial when attempting to engage an audience. Continuing to broadcast a marketing campaign that isn’t relevant to the context is not just a waste of time and resources; it could also alienate your audience.
With these focus areas in mind, let’s take a look at the most frequently used digital channels and how you could implement them in your strategy.
SEO
SEO stands for ‘search engine optimization’. The focus of SEO is to ensure that the content on your website is optimized to appear in the results when relevant search terms are entered into a search engine.
Crawling is how the search engines read your website; they ‘crawl’ through all of the pages of your site to determine the topics it covers
search engines have three primary functions: crawl; index; rank.
If your website can’t be crawled, you have some technical issues to fix.
Search engines can crawl your page, and they are displaying it on the search index. Now, you need to improve your ranking.
This takes us to the next stage of the hierarchy: compelling content. The most critical area of focus when optimizing your website for SEO is to ensure that your content will be relevant, useful and of value to your visitors
Keywords research is the starting point here. Keywords research allows you to identify common search queries being entered into search engines
Once you’ve completed your keyword research, you can then tailor your landing pages to answer queries according to what your research has indicated. Try not to over-engineer the keywords aspect of the content
The holy grail of SEO content marketing is useful pieces of material which include the keywords organically. Search engines are well aware of the practice of ‘keyword stuffing’, and know how to filter quality content from keyword-laden dross.
The future for SEO continues, with AI, machine learning and voice all starting to add another dimension to the channel. Google also dominates the search space with 86 per cent market share (Statista, 2020a).
PPC (pay-per-click)
Another key channel is PPC (pay-per-click). When you are using a search engine (such as Google or Bing), ads appear at the top of the results and on the right-hand side. What you’re witnessing there is PPC in action.
PPC involves brands paying for their ad to appear in search results based on several criteria, including: specific keywords; the location where the search is taking place; time of day; day of week; device
Advertisers and companies ‘bid’ (through specific, coveted keywords) for the position in which they would like their ad to appear. For highly competitive search terms, first place could cost thousands of an advertising budget. Every time the ad is clicked, that visitor is sent to the website of the advertiser. The advertiser then pays a fee to the search engine
Affiliate marketing
Affiliate marketing is based on performance in which an external partner receives a reward, typically a commission (Target Internet, 2020) for delivering a specific result to a merchant or advertiser. The affiliate searches for a product related to their website/offering, then promotes that product and receives a commission from each sale. The tracking of sales from one website to another takes place through specific links that are created for each affiliate
For affiliates, it’s vital to promote and engage visitors to click through to purchase. If successful, the affiliate receives a commission from the sale
Affiliate marketing spreads the distribution of communicating about a product or service to individuals from the seller to the affiliate or advertiser. This helps to support the marketing team’s effort, as the affiliate becomes another source of promotion. At times, the level of control and influence an organization has over an affiliate can be limited.
Social media
Buffer (2019) describes social media marketing as a way to ‘… connect with your audience to build your brand, increase sales and drive website traffic’. Content is published in a variety of formats on the social media platforms to engage audiences, and discussions take place to listen to and to partake in. Advertisements can also be promoted on the platforms and results of both organic and paid-for content can be analysed
Around 90 per cent of internet users aged 16 to 64 watch online videos, 70 per cent listen to music streaming services, 47 per cent listen to online radio, 41 per cent listen to podcasts and 51 per cent watch vlogs (Kemp, 2020). There are a variety of social media platforms engaging with different ages and demographics – some of which will include your target market.
Social media can be used in several ways. Brands can monitor what is said using social listening, and respond to conversations that are relevant to them or their product. Social media can also be used by businesses to understand what is performing well with analytics and to uncover the interests of a particular audience (Buffer, 2019). And new talent can showcase their skills using social media (on TikTok, for example), growing their following and raising their profile (Kastrenakes, 2020).
Getting down to practicalities, let’s take a brief look at top-line demographic usage of each platform and the total monthly number of users (Table 6.1). This is useful information to understand in depth so that you can plot your target market to the appropriate platform(s).
Influencers also have a part to play when engaging an audience. ‘Influencers’ are influential people who have a very large following and presence. Often these influencers are celebrities, but we are increasingly seeing the rise of ‘micro-influencers’. Micro-influencers may not have the 1 million+ range of celebrities, but they do have a lot of followers in their niche area. For example, a parent who has a large influence on other parents through their online blog or community could provide value to a brand with a product that is targeting the same demographic
Email marketing
Email marketing is an electronic method of communicating to an audience known as ‘subscribers’. Subscribers can be made up of both customers and non-customers, but both groups will have an interest in the company, the brand and/or its product or service
The term ‘email marketing’ describes commercial emails that are sent from a company to a prospect or customer. All email marketing should be sent to people who have provided their consent
Website and e-commerce
E-commerce is the ability to buy and sell products on the internet. To enable businesses to provide this online service to its customers, an e-commerce store is used. This enables organizations to handle both online marketing and sales activities as well as logistics and fulfilment functions that are required to make an e-commerce store operational (Hicks, 2020)
The primary use of e-commerce now is in company websites. Most brands engaged in e-commerce will have websites which can accept online orders and payments. The typical e-commerce website will also automatically calculate stock inventory and, for more sophisticated systems, the potential dispatch of deliveries
The following two channels, content marketing and PR, can be used in both online and offline contexts, but are included here as they are increasingly being used as digital media.
CONTENT MARKETING
Content can take many forms such as videos, blogs, infographics, podcasts, whitepapers, leaflets, emails, books, press releases and much more. Content marketing has evolved from traditionally printed content to digital marketing and electronic formats. Used across all marketing channels and tactics, it’s an important area to optimize.
Content is everywhere. It is used across all channels and comes in a variety of formats. Content is there when you look up at a billboard, when you read an email, visit a website, watch a video. Content marketing has evolved to include more sophisticated techniques such as storytelling, which we look at in more detail in Chapter 7. Content is now the very cornerstone of effective marketing.
Developing great content takes time, skill, expertise and patience. Testing and learning are also crucial to pinpoint exactly what engages your audience. Bloggers can also be influential when partnered with a relevant company, product or service
Public relations (PR)
Public relations (PR) is a form of using communications to inform, raise awareness, influence and maintain a positive reputation of an organization (Siddiqui, 2014). This can be focused on the company, the products/services, employees, or showcasing customer success stories.
Traditional marketing channels (offline)
Trade shows and exhibitions
Trade shows and exhibitions (also known as Expos) provide excellent opportunities for brands to showcase their product or service offering within a specific industry. Typically, they are more prominently used in B2B industries where attendees are within a particular industry and are ideally at the point of purchasing or searching for a new product/service
Direct mail
Direct mail refers to physically printed and posted promotional messages. Direct mailing may involve a ‘door drop’ campaign in which content is sent directly to the target customers’ door
Out-of-home (OOH)
Out-of-home advertising is any form of advertising that is promoted to customers outside of their home, such as ad wraps on transport, on benches and billboards, to name just a few. Billboards come in many forms, from a traditional poster to ever-changing digital formats
Radio advertising
The radio may seem to be a dated format when compared with others but it does have a place when promoting and raising awareness of products/services. In the UK, 89 per cent of people still listen to the radio at least once a week
TV advertising
While there are growing audiences using online streaming services, TV still has a place and one that is evolving within the ‘smart’ interactive world
What does the future hold for marketing tactics?
There are many developments taking place, particularly within the tech sector. One key development that I recommend tracking is the growing trend to own a smart home device — for example, a Google Home or an Alexa. A smart device starts to add a voice to a brand and its offering.
07 Execution
Implementing your marketing strategy
The key area to focus on when rolling out your strategy is consistency. Consistency is crucial to ensuring that your message is clearly understood. If for example, your tone is inconsistent, things will quickly become confusing for your audience. Confusion is a block to understanding, if a customer doesn’t understand your brand or your message they are unlikely to buy
In my experience, there are usually common denominators involved when a brand’s marketing starts to lose consistency. One is not clearly identifying as a business what you do, the benefits that the product/service on offer provides. In many cases each department in the organization and the individuals have a different interpretation of what the organization does and in turn the benefits being provided also differs
The second is visual inconsistency, which is where brand guidelines come in. The guidelines structure the use of colour schemes and graphic styles to visually represent the brand. The graphics that you use on your social media page, the colours that are displayed on your website, everything should be aligned to a pre-established guideline to ensure that there is consistency. More on how to ensure consistency and how to create tone of voice and brand guidelines further in this chapter
Branding
A brand is how a person perceives and identifies an organization or person (if it’s their personal brand). This perception can be influenced with what are known as branding elements, such as logos, a specific slogan/strapline, designs, symbols, and (most importantly) the feelings which the products or services evoke
A brand is an incredibly valuable asset to an organization and this value can be measured through brand equity. Brand equity is what a company generates from a recognizable name, logo, design, symbol or experience. Brand equity can be enhanced by creating products or services that are memorable, easily recognizable, superior in quality and reliability
Brand audits
To determine the health of your brand, a brand audit is a useful exercise. The brand audit can identify where brands may need more support, brands that aren’t adding any value or those that require changes to be made in areas such as positioning or to suit changing customer preferences
Key questions to ask during a brand audit include:
Finding your brand’s tone of voice (ToV
One of the ways in which we make our content empowering is to be very aware of our voice and our tone
Voice’ and ‘tone’ are closely related concepts but are not entirely the same. For example, when you speak to your friends in everyday life, you generally use the same ‘voice’. Unless you’re making a special effort to do an impersonation of someone else, your voice sounds roughly the same. You tend to speak with a particular accent, for example. The sound of your voice is recognizable and unique to you
However, your ‘tone’ will differ considerably depending on the circumstances of your conversation. You would not use the same ToV when addressing a scared child as you would when joking with your sibling, would you? In both cases, your voice remains identifiable as your own voice – but the tone you’re using is entirely different based on the situation in which you’re speaking
Documents like this are hugely useful for keeping all marketers and contractors on the same page
Creating comprehensive and consistent brand guidelines should involve all stakeholders. You need your instructions to cover everything from your voice to the way you represent your products/services, and the visual ‘feel’ of your brand. This will include the colour representation of your brand with pantone numbers
Many times I have worked with clients and inherited brand guidelines that may have a great story to tell but were far too complicated, too long, included a full palette of over 100 colours, fonts that aren’t online friendly – and didn’t include rules for how the logo should be displayed
When the remit of choice is this big, it’s very open to individual interpretation and, while personal innovation and creativity is useful, it always needs to be allied to clear ToV guidelines. When the guidelines give too much choice, inconsistencies quickly arise. This can lead to the website presenting itself as a different colour to the product, which has a distinct visual representation again to the presentation decks. The core essence of the brand and its message becomes confused, unclear and unfocused
Having decided on your brand guideline for tone and voice, you now need to roll them out across your operation
Bringing your campaign to life
When defining and implementing your campaign, think about the issues identified
Messaging
What are you trying to say? What is the process of getting this message across? Who are the stakeholders of your message?
Channels
How will you get this message across? Consider things like events, research, PPC, paid social, your website and email marketing
Action
When considering ‘action’, draw up a schedule to implement your tactics.
Consider: What needs to be done, who will do it, when they will do it?
Resources
What do you need in order to put your plan into action? Do you have all the skills you need in-house, or will you need to outsource?
Roles and responsibilities
When implementing any marketing campaign (or even individual tactic) you need to clearly define roles and responsibilities.
What will each role consist of? What will be the remit of each person?
Defining roles and responsibilities is, in my experience, something that many companies struggle with. Let’s dig into it a little further
Roles and responsibilities
Roles and responsibilities should be clearly defined across your marketing team, including any external agency that may be supporting your marketing activity, and across the business if you’re a smaller organization. What’s important is that each person involved in the implementation of your marketing strategy is aware of what is expected of them – including things like deadlines, KPIs and budget constraints
When planning your marketing campaigns, I recommend grouping activity into core themes. If you’re promoting a product, these themes should align to the key features that the product provides
These themes will ultimately lead to a rich and complete detailing of the product’s core elements. Via themes like these, the entire topic can be explored in the marketing activity, be that through a blog post on the website, in social media content, in email marketing, in research focus areas or in paid advertising activity
Forming an action plan
Laying down an action plan is vital if you’re to roll out your tactics in an effective manner. Your action plan should include every single element and tactic of the marketing activity that is taking place. These elements and tactics should be aligned with
start and end dates;
target personas;
roles and responsibilities within the team
Project management
There are two main project management approaches. These are known as the Agile and the Waterfall methods
The Agile approach is one in which the ability to adapt to changes is vital to the success of the project. The plan is broken down into bi-weekly sprints and each sprint has a set of tasks that need to be completed. While this approach wouldn’t be the most suitable for many marketing campaigns, the ability to respond to change is a principle that should feature heavily and be catered for
there is a concrete plan with less opportunity for things to drop in and out. There is a clear process to follow, similar to that of defining a marketing strategy, and then there is a sprint-to-release process to follow. The downside is that there is little room to adjust the plan if a new requirement or a market change happens while the plan is underway. To include this in the plan, it would need to wait until the end, and by then it could be too late.
To manage a marketing campaign successfully, I recommend using a combination of both of these approaches. I suggest including clearly defined processes to follow when implementing each marketing tactic, clear briefing criteria, templates to ensure consistency, and a process for reporting to ensure that all activity is captured
Choosing your tactics
Of course, your action plan is going to need to be populated with tactics
PPC (pay-per-click) ads
The vital thing to remember with PPC is that clicks don’t necessarily mean conversions. It’s still important to optimize every step of the customer journey from click onwards. Don’t just tailor your content for clicks
Social media
Social media is rich and fertile ground for marketers – but you have to know how to use
Direct mail
Direct mailing may appear old-school – but there’s no reason why it can’t be used in innovative ways. I consider there to be four key stages when implementing email marketing, outlined
BE SEEN The focus here is on your email marketing being seen by your customers
BE OPENED Driving action with your email marketing once it’s landed in the inbox is crucial for the success of not only that individual campaign but also the overall performance of email
BE ENGAGED WITH Driving repeat engagement with your email marketing is an important way to keep your subscribers active with your brand’s communications
BE REPORTED Reporting the performance of your email marketing is vital to understanding what’s working and what isn’t within your email campaigns
Creating content
The content with which you implement your tactics depends a lot on your own brand voice, tone, goals, vision, etc. The right content for you will depend ultimately on knowing your audience, using the right tone and voice, respecting your brand guidelines and so on
Storytelling
Storytelling is a common and very successful tactic, which you can even tie in with other tactics. Ultimately, for a strategy to be successful, it needs to be tied into a storyline. Humans are hard-wired to respond to stories
The personal approach
Personalized content is vital for implementing any campaign. It’s how you grab and keep consumer attention
Personalization may seem difficult in this age when we’re mostly communicating from behind screens. But, in fact, technology can help us get closer to our audiences than ever before
Barriers to personalization
Personalization is fantastic if you can get it right. But remember – there is a fine line to walk between ’personalized’ and ‘stalkerish’. If you’re going to use personalization as a tactic, you must continually refer back to your strategic resources to make sure you’re not overstepping that line
DATA PRIVACY
CREEPINESS
COMING ON TOO STRONG WITH FIRST-TIME CUSTOMERS
NOT PUTTING THE WORK IN
ONLY BASIC ELEMENTS INCLUDED
Unleash your tactics – strategically
So, you’ve come up with some great, targeted tactics based on your understanding of your customers and tied into your strategic goals. Fantastic! Now it’s time to unleash them upon your public – but when, and how?
This is where the customer journey comes in
Relevancy is vital here. The more comprehensively you’ve mapped out your customer journey, the more relevant and timelier you can make your tactics. Where is the customer in their decision-making journey with you? How can you improve that experience based on the context that the consumer finds themselves in during each stage? At each stage the consumer will need different information from you to progress on their journey
A useful model to plan out the customer journey and to map the different messaging at each stage is the AIDA model. I have adapted this model to include an additional stage named ‘Educate’, for organizations that are either a start-up or have an innovative offering in the marketplace. In this scenario the marketplace may need to be educated about the benefit that the offering provides
The EAIDAL model is illustrated
This is where you’re educating your target audience on your offering and effectively ‘pulling’ them to your brand. This is known as pull marketing. Videos, guides, content, events, webinars, exhibitions to explain the benefits and the offering at an informational level.
KPI Website visits, Video views
The focus here is in driving more awareness about your offering.
Landing page, email newsletter, YouTube video, providing useful whitepapers, guides, templates and guides that offer visitors valuable content aligned to the offering.
KPI Email marketing subscribers, Content downloads
Product description on the website, photos, video demos of the product, but this can be in more detail than the educate video that is to continue to pique the interest of your potential new customer
KPI Unique visitors, Audience share
What are your USPs, and why should a prospect purchase from you ahead of the competition? This is the key element to focus on for this stage.
KPI: Bounce rate, Pages per visit
Action
Push marketing would be used here with the goal of quickly moving the customer to making a purchase. For e-commerce websites, this would be the online shopping process which leads to a conversion. There should be CTAs (call to actions) to encourage a conversion. Reviews, testimonials and displaying elements that promote that you’re trustworthy for a new customer.
KPI: Conversions, Conversion rate
Encouraging customers to return is important for the success of a business. Loyalty schemes providing incentives to return can be an effective tactic to use. Keeping communications with your customers via email marketing and social media are also valuable approaches to take
KPI Returning visitors, Churn rate of customers
The implementation plan
There are key questions to ask during the implementation plan phase, including:
What are the essential tasks?
This would include a Gantt chart, the evaluation of the results, a contingency built into the plan and be in a written format
08 Generate
Tracking the results
The starting point when measuring and analysing your performance is to align the marketing objectives set with defined metrics
Before you start measuring, remind yourself of what you want to achieve with your marketing. Many times, it’s a case of getting a campaign live – but what if you took a step back and thought not only about the reasons why you’re creating the marketing campaign, but also what you are trying to achieve: the action you’re trying to provoke? Are you aiming to increase visits to your website or more downloads of your latest guide? Whatever the objective is, make sure that the KPIs you set can be tracked throughout your campaign
Your strategic marketing goals should, needless to say, be tied in with your overall business strategy. Think back to that vision!
As well as making your objectives measurable, you also need to ensure that you have a way of measuring your customers’ level of interest, potential for conversion and position within the sales funnel – their ‘lead value’. Which means that you need to determine how you, as an organization, define a lead.
If you’re not sure how to establish lead values, start by determining your average sale value and the value number of sales per customer. It would be good also to identify your average profit margin, the target cost per acquired customer and, if possible, the projected lifetime value of a customer
Doing this will not only help you to align specific lead measurements to your marketing campaign – it will also give you the kind of results that senior leadership teams understand and are interested in
Turning data into insights
When conducting your analysis, you will find yourself presented with an awful lot of data
Data is hugely important to marketing. At this point, I’m going to talk to you about how you can turn your data into actionable analytical insights
The decisions made about how to split the marketing budget across the tactics and activity can then be informed based on more than performance insights. This is important. When I’ve consulted with brands, I’ve often found marketers that are just looking at the vanity metrics (opens and clicks) for their digital performance. Marketing has much more to offer than a click
In order to bring their data into line and start transforming it into useful insights, I took four steps. Let me share them with you
Step 1 – Define your benchmark. These become your check-in points
Step 3 – Consistency is critical. The approach taken to measure performance should be consistent across time to enable fair comparisons; if changes are made to the measurement method, document the difference
Step 4 – Align to objectives. There are hundreds if not thousands of data points to measure, but if they are misaligned to your objectives, they are not going to highlight anything relevant
Step 2 – Set non-subjective KPIs to measure performance
Following our restructuring of their data-gathering and measuring process, the company was able to use these insights to their advantage, focusing their efforts on the channels giving the greatest return on investment (ROI), and enhancing the tactics used for channels which were falling behind.
Methods and tools for tracking marketing performance
Of course, you can’t start drawing insights from data until you’ve extracted it
Here are a few common ways to track and draw out the data from your digital campaigns
Website analytics
By tracking your website performance, you can measure visits to your website, the marketing tactic which drew them there and the location from which they’re visiting
One of the most popular is Google Analytics (GA). It’s free to use and easy to configure by adding a single tracking script to your website
Paid advertising
To measure the success of paid advertising from PPC and paid social activity, there are individual tracking platforms within the ad managers themselves. Facebook Ad Manager, Google Ads, Bing’s Ad Manager and Twitter Advertising all come with analytics embedded as standard. Each of these tools are focused specifically on each particular advert, so it’s important to constantly monitor these accounts, set budget limits and include the results within your overall marketing campaign performance report
Email marketing
Most email marketing platforms offer a sophisticated array of analytical tools. You should be able to tell with a glance at your dashboard how your open rates are doing, whether click-throughs are going up or down and so on. The trick is to understand what those numbers indicate in the real world
Social media
Campaign-specific hashtags are a great way to not only raise awareness of your marketing across social media, but also to measure mentions, engagement and sentiment of users. Keywords can also be assigned to help track campaigns as well as specific locations, languages and pages
Tracking offline activity
If you’re including offline marketing tactics such as print, direct mail, TV and radio, there are still ways to track whether these channels brought people to your website
One way is to use a unique URL which is campaign and marketing tactic specific.
There are distinct urchin tracking module (UTM) parameters that can be added to a URL to track every piece of your marketing campaign. I like to think of them as unique items to add to a tracking URL. Within the URL builder you can add the campaign source, medium and so on to track specific campaign activity in GA
Customer relationship management (CRM)
A customer relationship management (CRM) system is very useful for tracking, storing, sorting and analysing customer data
Performance reporting
To keep your finger on the pulse of your campaign, I recommend implementing performance reports. Depending on the number of moving parts (and therefore how fast things are likely to change) in your campaign, these should be monthly or weekly
Year-on-year (YOY) comparisons
Comparing your marketing performance from year to year should, in theory, quickly highlight whether it’s going in the right direction. However, if you’ve implemented a brand new marketing strategy this year, take a comparison with a pinch of salt. A complete change in direction will have a short-term impact on your marketing performance
Creating a reporting dashboard to measure performance each month will help you keep an eye on performance against any targets and KPIs you’ve set. Don’t worry if your performance isn’t quite where you expected – drill down into an analysis of each channel to see if there is a glaringly obvious reason for the difference in comparison to last year
09 Yield
Analysing your strategy’s success
The starting point is to assess which marketing channels are driving the largest number of visits to your website. Next is to dig deeper into this to understand the best performing landing pages. Compare this with your top exit pages to identify content which needs improvement. There are some pages such as your blog content that would naturally have higher bounce rates, but the goal for those pages should be to increase the read rate and encourage your visitors to read other pages during their time on your website. We touched on this in the last chapter, but it’s worth getting into a little deeper here
Over time, trends can be generated from this data analysis by digging deeper into interests and behaviours of your subscribers. These learnings can then inform segmentation for future email marketing activity. Analysing the search terms, keywords and content driving traffic to your website by the SEO and PPC activity can also highlight potential gaps and areas for improvement. Combining that analysis with your email marketing data will present a very insightful picture about your prospect and customer base.
Many marketers miss out on painting a fuller picture of what engages their audiences by not mapping all your digital marketing channels analysis together. You may find that one audience engages more with a particular topic than another and identify learnings that other marketing channels and tactics can also adopt. Use this insight to inform your future strategy and marketing activity.
Statistical significance
Before you draw any conclusions from your data analysis, it’s essential to ensure that the data you’re analysing is statistically significant
Once you’ve identified trends and established a statistically significant dataset, you can start to review your performance. Dig deep into everything and scrutinize it hard to see where you sit in the marketplace, and what you need to improve upon
Performance tracking has to be aligned to the objectives and goals set for your marketing strategy. For example, if your goal was to achieve an increase in website traffic from SEO, then this is what needs to be measured and analysed
Control systems tell you what’s working and what’s not. They help you to determine what data you will look at each day, week, month and quarter, and the objectives that need to be measured and monitored.
Data insights: how to get them and how to use them
The first step towards gleaning those all-important insights from your data is reminding yourself of what you wanted to achieve with your campaign. This will determine the metrics you need to focus on in your analysis. You can give yourself a helping hand with this by setting and analysing KPIs
Key performance indicators, otherwise known as KPIs, are the performance metrics that highlight whether the specific activity you’re measuring is achieving the goals set
KPIs immediately indicate if a marketing campaign has been a success and whether the tactics at play are achieving the desired results. These insights should be a snapshot. They should be easily identifiable, specific to your business and the marketing campaign, and aligned to your objectives. To determine your KPIs, go back to your SCALE objectives and determine how you would measure whether you have achieved them or not
It’s important not to measure everything, as this will waste time and effort, as well as diluting your focus, which could potentially derail your marketing efforts
Focusing on ‘interesting’ rather than useful KPIs is known as measuring ‘vanity’ metrics
Let’s go through the common KPIs
Marketing KPIs
Marketing KPIs involve interactions (or additional data) from outside your content itself. They can be a bit more complicated to work out, but are essential to indicate how well each channel is contributing to the brand’s overall marketing and business objectives. For example, if email drives visitors to your website, and plenty of those visitors convert, this would indicate that email is performing well – even though the KPI figures are drawn primarily from outside the email itself
CONVERSION RATE (CR)
Any piece of campaign content has a goal. The conversion rate indicates the extent to which it achieves its goal
RETURN ON INVESTMENT (ROI)
Return on investment measures how cost effective a particular channel was in a campaign. It is a useful metric when comparing each channel’s performance, but it’s not always relevant
CUSTOMER LIFETIME VALUE (CLTV)
Customer lifetime value measures the value a customer brings for the duration of them being a customer. The calculation is based on the average purchase value, the average frequency of their purchases from the brand, and their average customer value.
COST PER ACQUISITION (CPA)
Cost per acquisition determines how much it costs the company to acquire a new customer. It measures both marketing costs, which may be your email marketing costs, and sales costs
CLOSE RATE (CR)
The close rate measures the number of prospects that become customers in comparison to the number of leads in the pipeline
This can be determined for each channel and be used as a comparison for each one too
CUSTOMER RETENTION RATE (CRR)
This KPI measures the percentage of customers that are retained for a specific time period
This is important to understand because if this KPI is low, it would highlight an issue in retaining customers and demonstrate a high churn rate.
Channel-specific KPIs: Websites
When measuring the performance of channels, you’re aiming to discover if that tactic is achieving what it was designed for and delivering the desired results
Ways of measuring the performance of a website will differ depending on the objective set and the type of business. For e-commerce websites, the following will be useful KPIs:
CONVERSION RATE (CR), BASKET/CART ABANDONMENT
AVERAGE ORDER VALUE (AOV), REFERRAL SOURCE
For B2B websites that are focused on generating leads, there are slightly different KPIs.
CONTENT DOWNLOADS, LEAD FORM ABANDONMENT RATE, GOAL CONVERSION RATE
Channel-specific KPIs: PPC
Let’s follow PPC KPIs through the customer journey
IMPRESSION SHARE (IS), QUALITY SCORE (QS), AVERAGE POSITION (AP), CLICK RATE, CLICK-THROUGH RATE (CTR), COST PER CLICK (CPC), COST PER CONVERSION/ACQUISITION (CPA), TARGETED CPA, CONVERSION RATE (CR), CUSTOMER LIFETIME VALUE (CLTV), BUDGET ATTAINMENT (BA)
Channel-specific KPIs: SEO
ORGANIC TRAFFIC, SEARCH RANKING, SEARCH VISIBILITY, ORGANIC SESSIONS BRAND VS NON-BRANDED TRAFFIC, BACKLINKS, PAGE SPEED
Channel-specific KPIs: Social media
IMPRESSIONS, AUDIENCE GROWTH, POST REACH, SOCIAL SHARE OF VOICE (SSoV)
Engagement KPIs
AVERAGE ENGAGEMENT RATE (AER), AMPLIFICATION RATE (AR), VIRALITY RATE (VR)
Measuring conversions
CTR, BOUNCE RATE, COMMENT CONVERSION RATE (CCR), COST PER CLICK (CPC), COST PER THOUSAND IMPRESSIONS (CPM), CR
Direct mail KPIs
RESPONSE RATE (RR), CONVERSION RATE (CR), COST PER ACQUISITION (CPA), AVERAGE ORDER SIZE
Email marketing KPIs
DELIVERY RATE, OPEN RATES, CLICKS, BOUNCES, UNSUBSCRIBES, CLICK-TO-OPEN RATE (CTOR), DEVICE STATS, SPAM SCORE
Turning measurements into action
The analysis conducted shouldn’t hide away in a spreadsheet but should be used to inform change and future marketing activity. The value from evaluations comes from drawing insights that aid development and learnings
If you have a good marketing platform, a lot of the work of gathering and reporting metrics will be done for you. All you have to do is notice trends (for example, dips in engagement) and work out what’s going on. You can do this by comparing with other metrics, looking at the wider context and coming to an informed understanding of the issue based on what you’ve learned.
The bottom line is this: the more able you are to measure your success, the better your campaigns will be in both the long and short terms. You need to weave measurability into every stage of your marketing strategy. This is the only way to learn, grow and improve.
Post-campaign analysis
Post-campaign analysis (PCA) is vital to understanding what worked and what didn’t, to inform future marketing campaigns. Your PCA will also help to assess whether the strategy was a success by analysing if it achieved the objectives set. The place to start when conducting a PCA is actually at the start of your campaign. The objectives are set, and the tactics are being added to your action plan. Include details of the date of when the activity begins, and details on who, when and where, as we covered earlier.
The purpose of a PCA is also to present/share your results with the rest of the business and key stakeholders, so it needs to include the detail that many outside of the marketing team wouldn’t be aware of. In your PCA, include visual examples of the content and advertising that has been published as part of the marketing campaign. For example, screenshots of email marketing sent, online banner display ads and secured press coverage. This is also a very effective way to document past campaigns to revisit at a later date
When your campaign is over, you can return to your PCA. The next part is to analyse the performance of the activity against the objective(s). If the objective was to increase website traffic from new visits, did the campaign do that? Did engagement levels rise? Did orders increase? Were there any sales conversations following the activity, increase in live chat enquiries and so on? By utilizing a dedicated landing page and/or UTM tracking (as detailed in Chapter 8) you’ll be able to uncover these insights
As part of this analysis, be critical. We all want to end on a high note, but it’s important to ask yourself what went wrong. What didn’t work? What could have been better or more efficient? Consider: if you were to repeat this activity, what would you change, improve or keep the same? The way to progress and improve in marketing is through critique. In doing so, you take away key learnings that can be used in the future activity, always pushing your marketing further.
If campaigns are repeated like for like over and over again you’ll not only get the same results; you’ll also see a decline, as fatigue starts to set in from targeting the same audience repeatedly with the same unchanged message. So, be brutally honest with yourself! The best way to do this is to document the next steps by answering these three key questions:
What are you going to repeat?
What are you going to change?
What are you going to stop?
Suppose you found yourself adjusting the planned activity during the campaign, including that in the PCA. Document your rationale as to why. This will be important to come back to when planning your next campaign, and it’s easy as time passes to forget these nuggets of information. The PCA is an effective way of documenting the campaign activity as and when team members change.
Depending on your business set-up and communication channels, your PCA can be created in a presentation format or PDF that can then be widely shared across the company. This is important to keep the rest of the business informed and engaged in the marketing activity, but it also works as a self-promotion for the marketing department.
On reflection, what would you change?
As you reflect on your marketing performance, remember that a successful marketing strategy is one that can adapt to changing environments and situations. Use your PCA to reaffirm any assumptions made and adjust any areas that have since changed
10 Common pitfalls in marketing strategy
A strategy needs to contain focus, a clear direction to take the company where it wants to get to. This is where the vision comes in. A vision should clearly articulate what the business is aiming to achieve, as covered in Chapter 1. The challenge comes when a vision is unclear, when it’s difficult to understand or the ambitions of the business are constantly changing. There may be moments when there is a change in the direction of a company but that shouldn’t be a regular occurrence. Everyone within the organization should be clear on where the business is trying to get to, what it is trying to achieve and who it is targeting. If none of that is clear, there’s a problem either with the way in which the vision has been articulated, the communication of it or that it hasn’t been defined in a concrete way.
There is an art to keeping the very complicated simple. Many times, I have worked with companies who have brilliant technology, products and services but who over-complicate their marketing message to the point that no one truly understands what the organization does
Providing too much and being overly complicated will alienate and turn away many prospects. Being clear and concise is a way of winning business and retaining customers. If it takes more than three lines to explain what your organization provides then it’s already too long and overly complicated
The rule of simplicity also applies to your wording. Complicated words have their place – but people need to be able to easily understand what you’re saying
An area that can be easily overlooked is the structure of a marketing team. A structure can make or break the effectiveness of a marketing strategy. It can hinder communication, reduce efficiency, limit people and demotivate teams
A structure that was fit for purpose a year ago may no longer be the case today. And that purpose is dependent on the goals that need to be achieved. A structure needs to elevate and support the marketing team. There need to be clear lines of responsibility, ownership and accountability. Any blurring of lines in roles and responsibilities can cause leaks in the structure where key tasks or areas of focus are slipping through the cracks without anyone noticing
If you’re interested in a product, you’ll probably get into it by searching on Google, which will take you to the brand’s website. You could then sign up to receive the brand’s email marketing and check them out on social media. That’s a lot of channels. For the customer to develop a sense of brand consistency (crucial to building brand/customer relationships) it’s important to maintain the same branding, ToV, goals and so on across all your channels. For this, you need a decent strategy
Consistency is surprisingly hard for some brands to nail. The reason for this is usually that a lot of marketing teams are working in silos. Different channels work separately, or the content team never talks to the budget team – you know how it goes! It’s understandable – but it does make for a lot of inefficiencies
Meetings can be incredibly useful for progressing essential decisions, but can also very quickly zap time
There is also the number of communication channels now available, increasing the chances of over-communicating. There’s email, telephone, Slack, Hangout, Skype, online video and WhatsApp to name a few and believe me, I have worked with clients who have used all of these channels simultaneously! The key questions to ask here are:
Does everyone included need to know about that particular communication?
Is there one core communication channel that is used across the business?
What action do you want attendees of the meeting to take either before, during or after the meeting? What is required of them?
Sometimes, the rest of your organization doesn’t understand the value of marketing
This can be a tricky one, especially if the rest of the business thinks that marketing is something that ‘just happens’. The primary cause of this pitfall is the learnings and successes within the marketing activity not being communicated to the wider business. It can also be from bad experience of poor performing marketing activities (which usually result from not defining an effective marketing strategy).
If the rest of the business isn’t informed of the value that the marketing activity is bringing to the organization, then it will be looked at in terms of cost. Typically, marketing and sales have the highest costs in a business – making a cost-based judgement dangerous!
Unclear target audience: ‘let’s target everyone!’
It may sound like a great idea great to target everybody, but, in reality, not every single person on the planet will want, like or need your product/service. If the target market for your product/service is unclear or unfocused, you’ll very quickly burn into your marketing budget unnecessarily. This is where STP (segmentation, targeting and positioning) come in, as covered in
The challenge of going from ad hoc marketing to a strategically planned approach
There are several challenges to overcome when adjusting from an ad hoc reactive marketing approach to a strategically planned one. This switch doesn’t necessarily mean that you can’t react at short notice. The switch is in the approach to clear objectives and outcomes. When marketing is constantly ad hoc and doesn’t contain any overarching long-term focus or any form of plan, objectives or focus, the results of success and even what resembles success become very unclear
Ad hoc marketing activity often occurs when a director in the organization has an idea and insists that the marketing team see it through. The request is to do so quickly, regardless of what else is taking place. The more of this that takes place the more and more ad hoc the marketing activity becomes
You have a strategy but with no clear goals
Well, I’m sorry to say it, but that isn’t a strategy. If you think you have a strategy, but it’s one that doesn’t include any milestones or objectives and isn’t aligned to your business objectives as a whole, it’s merely an indicative plan. Let’s not forget the first T in STRATEGY, which means Target. This is where the desired destination, ambition is defined in the objectives that are set. If this stage is missed, then you’re missing that T in strategy
Creating a plan is a great start but, without aligning it to your organization’s objectives, you can trot along your planned path as much as you want, but it’s unlikely to achieve anything. Your objectives are essential because they will outline how you can achieve the goals you’ve set your sights on. Remember – SCALE objectives: Strategic, Considered, Audience, Leverage and End
It’s important to be clear within your objectives, so that everyone in the organization understands their overall purpose and how their input feeds towards that purpose. This retains enthusiasm and motivation, ensuring that everyone within the company is working together in the same direction
The right strategy is in place, but the wrong people are executing it. People are featured in the 7Ps, an essential element of the marketing mix and one that can complement or hinder the success of a marketing strategy. Let’s explore why
The people executing the marketing strategy must be motivated. Motivation can suffer due to Pitfalls 1 and 2. There is also the importance of the structure that supports People, as covered in Pitfall 3. But the wrong people in the wrong jobs can be a pitfall in its own right. I’ve experienced this on several occasions in situations where the direction of the business has changed but people have not changed with it. There is also the challenge of potentially unmotivated team members if an ad hoc plan has been in play as covered in Pitfall 8. Unmotivated team members can very quickly erode the company’s culture.
iBook Store
Youtube with the author
o