Navigating the Noise

Introduction to a New Marketing Framework - Part 3

Feel free to check out Part 1 and Part 2 if you missed them!

Advancing thoughts and new ideas in the digital age can often be tricky. If we don’t already have an established audience, or write it in X number of words or less, or have a video with it, we might fail to get our information out there, into the great collective of worldly knowledge.?

Introducing new concepts in the year 2025 is…an elevator pitch, a soundbite, a meme. Anything more than that will often comes off as, “wah, wah..wah, wah…wah, wah.”?

In order NOT to be tuned out like a Charlie Brown cartoon adult, I’m going to do what I can, in whatever catchy ways that I can and I’d love your feedback in the comments. Did you learn something new? Can you put into practice what I have talked about? Are you still reading this even though I have surpassed 100 words??

I hope so, because what I am about to tell you can MAKE OR BREAK YOUR MARKETING efforts in ways that are both simple and also complex, going beyond surface level practices to find connections you may not have known existed.

If you’re ready? I’d like to welcome you to Part 3 of my series “Introduction to a new marketing framework.” The series already includes Part 1 Here Comes the Sun and Part 2 Winning the Race. If you’ve read those two articles, congratulations you’re in good shape! If not, here’s a faux conversation to get you caught up.

Hey friend, you’re doing marketing, but you’re missing something important.

I’m pretty sure I’m doing everything I’m supposed to be doing?

No, you’re not. Because what’s important isn’t what you think.

Ok, now I’m confused. I have all the elements for successful marketing. I have a budget, some tactics and some messaging. What else do I need??

Do you have a plan??

Yeah, I have plans.?

No, not plans. A plan? A framework that guides all of your marketing efforts. Not just different plans for each effort??

Oh, well no. I’m not even sure what a framework looks like or consists of??

Ok friend, let me show you…it’s called the Revenue Leadership Compass.

This type of conversation–two colleagues discussing their profession– is not uncommon but it’s not always effective. For one reason or another, one side may fall on deaf ears. Maybe ego is involved? Maybe a little condescension? Maybe indifference or poor communication? Or maybe none of those things, yet the conversation just doesn’t take.?

Then when re-telling the conversation later to someone else, it sounds more like a conversation without substance, or one with a lot of implied reasoning that not everyone understands.?

You know what avoids all of this confusion? No more wah wah wah, or yada, yada, yada. Clear communication and a clear understanding of your marketing efforts, i.e. having a framework like the Revenue Leadership Compass.

In Part Two, Winning the Race, I introduced the compass and broke down each part. But success comes, not just from having the right pieces, but from knowing how to use those pieces in the right way. It’s critical to have a clear understanding of the interplay between all the parts.?

These two elements define our reality before we get to things like goals, tactics, content, etc., and there’s a reason why I introduced these concepts first in my breakdown of the Compass in Part Two.

The Ecosystem is critical because this is where we come to understand what our marketplace wants and needs, the problems they would like to solve, what they will pay to solve them, and what they will and will not tolerate from companies they hire or products they buy.

Similarly, more than anything, our Investment defines what we are willing to tolerate in terms of what we can spend to reach the market.?

When I mention investment as a foundational element for success, a lot of people say, “Well, of course–the more money I spend, the more successful I’ll be.” But that’s actually not true and not the point.?

?? Big budgets aren’t better if they’re allocated poorly.?

?? Big budgets aren’t better if spend is inefficient.?

?? Big budgets aren’t better if there are faults in the sales process.?

? Budget defines the boundaries for my efforts and once those boundaries are in place I can more effectively look at goals, measurables, and tactics in order to start from a place that’s “realistic” from day one.

??Meanwhile, Value defines what we need to get in return in order to justify the spend.??

Oftentimes when people fail and lose faith (? of CEOs dont trust their marketers, ? of marketers dont think they are empowered to be successful) is when goals, tactics and budget have absolutely nothing to do with each other. I spoke with a business owner the other day who, to his credit, took a breath before making this exact mistake and he explained his deep frustration with marketing. He was looking at a proposal from a marketing agency who was suggesting that he commit $40,000 (not including the cost of advertising) to a marketing effort. When was that effort going to bear fruit and what would that fruit look like? The agency didn’t have answers. “What do you think you should get if you spend $40K or more?” I asked. He didn’t know.?

So where was the breakdown? Was it in communicating to the agency before they created their proposal? Was it possibly because the folks at the agency didn’t understand exactly what was being asked of them? I don’t know, but I do know what fixes that problem: A framework that clearly directs how your marketing is supposed to impact your bottom line.?

I start by having a budget that links directly to the results my clients want in return. I have a really simple way of drawing a direct line between profits, revenue growth, and marketing spend that I won’t detail here, but there’s a simple calculator that will show you the most basic version of this math on my website.?

We can probably agree that having a budget designed specifically to help you fund the results you want is very helpful, but having the right dollar amount to work from doesn’t help you understand exactly what you should spend it on. I’m coming to that.?

So yes, Ecosystem and Investment are crucial when it comes to defining the reality that we’re working in, but the other aspects of the framework are also SUPER important.?

When I’m planning with a client, I like to go step by step in a doc and break down exactly how we’re going to be successful:

• Ecosystem: Who exactly is the customer we need to attract and what is it that they want or need? And what, if any, knowledge gaps do we have that we need to close before we can engage them?
• Investment: What do we have to spend and what do we need to be able to achieve with that money? Is that realistic, and what assumptions have we made that, if proved incorrect, would cause us to fail?
• Success: How exactly will we know if this effort succeeded and what will we measure to make sure we get there??
• Ingredients: What do we have in terms of content, collateral, brand assets, and people that will help us and what do we need in terms of assets or people that we do not currently have? And can we close those gaps?
• Execution: What tactics are we going to employ and how do they fit into our greater plan? What potential failure points might we have in our execution?

So, when it comes time to dig into Execution, how do we ensure the RIGHT execution?

In marketing, many people pick the wrong tactics for the wrong reasons and that leads to failure. Perhaps you can see that using the compass to define your direction in all of these areas is helping reduce your odds of failure, but you still don’t know how to pick the right tactics that will help secure your success.

Get out your magnifying glass! This is how that planning comes into play…

When I choose a tactic for a marketing campaign, I need for four things to be true, and ONLY if all 4 things are true do I include it in my marketing plan

When I choose a tactic for a marketing campaign, I need for four things to be true, and ONLY if all 4 things are true do I include it in my marketing plan:

1. It has to align with my goals. If I’m trying to sell a new product to my current customer base, I don’t need mass media advertising, but if I’m trying to sell a new product to new people or a new marketplace, I might. If I can’t make a logical argument for how this tactic supports my stated goals, I can’t do it.
2. It has to align with the behaviors of the people I identified in my assessment of the ecosystem. For example, if I want to drive brand awareness using highway billboards, it would be a bad idea if my customers almost exclusively ride public transportation in New York CIty. If I can’t draw a line between my target customer’s behavior and the tactic, I can’t do it.
3. It has to align with a stage in the buying process that I need this tactic to influence. For example, if I need to drive awareness, marketing to my email list is not a good solution for that as those people are already aware of my company. If I can’t identify what part of the sales process the tactic influences or if the tactic is designed to influence an area in that process that I don’t need help with, I can’t do it.?
4. It has to be accomplishable within my budget. If I want to drive awareness, we saw earlier this month that a Super Bowl ad might be? a great way to do that. But it’s likely outside my budget. If the tactic breaks or compromises my budget, I can’t do it.

That planning work at the end might feel like the most valuable piece of all of this, but it only works BECAUSE I took the time to understand all the elements of my Compass.?

So what we’ve done here is we’ve created an environment where marketing (and sales) are set up for success from day one because of the direction the Revenue Leadership Compass gives us. We’ve taken a serious inventory of everything we have, everything we need to be successful, and the things that we are missing or could cause us to fail.?

You’ve got a method now for drawing a straight line that connects your market ?? to your budget ?? to your goals ?? to your resources ?? to your tactics and, finally, ?? to results.?

Companies often get lost in the massive amounts of data and information now at their disposal. But what’s important for marketing is being able to navigate, in a straight line, past all the wah, wah, wahs, and yada yadas, and blah blah blahs, and etcetera, etceteras to getting results that align with your company goals, i.e. a positive ROI (return on investment).?

Thanks for taking the time to read Going Up! Please subscribe if you found this valuable and reach out if I can help in any way.

-Erik Wolf

Connect with Erik on LinkedIn.

Website: https://ewolf.live/

About the Author

Erik Wolf is a Denver-based marketing leadership coach/consultant. He has also written three books, taught as an adjunct professor at Metropolitan State University, and is a speaker with Vistage Worldwide, a coaching and peer advisory group for CEOs.