Smells Like Cookies #5 - The Biggest Marketing Mistakes (2 of 5 Parts)

Second in my series on the biggest marketing mistakes seems like an obvious must do.

However, I have been amazed at the number of companies that don’t.

I’m talking about creating and executing an annual marketing strategy (and tactical plan based on it).

The reasons for doing an annual marketing strategy are many.

Foremost, it captures all of the previously documented/undocumented marketing information about your company in one document.

What is especially important in this regard is the tacit information in the heads of executives, managers and staff.

This information includes years, sometimes decades, of learnings that are often not leveraged in a company’s marketing efforts.

Tacit information typically only makes an appearance during a meeting or part of a conversation over a drink.

Maybe someone who hears the information makes a note about it.

Or, they state they should do something with it.

They probably won't.

Then it’s gone, never to be referenced again.

While capturing tacit information is a good reason to complete an annual marketing strategy, it’s not the only one.

There are many others:

1. ? ? It provides an opportunity for stakeholders to give marketing-related input and identify areas of agreement and disagreement.

2. ? ? It provides a comprehensive view of your industry, market(s), and competitors.

3. ? ? It provides an audit of all things marketing, including campaigns, programs, operations, branding, communications, content, staffing, budget, etc.

4. ? ? It reviews past performance against your goals & objectives and provides recommendations for improvement.

5. ?It evaluates the strength of your business model and new potential market development opportunities.

6. ? ? It provides a baseline/reference for future strategies.

7. ? ? It provides the foundation and direction for the annual tactical plan.

Companies that don’t do an annual marketing strategy and tactical plan tend to do the same tactics every year because “that’s what we’ve always done.”

This approach to a marketing strategy often misses real growth opportunities.

Instead, companies of this mindset randomly try new things – often because a third party did a great sales job convincing them they should.

It’s not part of your strategy, it’s not part of a plan, it’s not part of a campaign.

And it’s not budgeted, which often leads to big problems later in the year when there is no money to do items that were in the budget.

Unfortunately, these items typically get cut - regardless of their importance.

The result?

Your marketing strategy becomes more of an ad hoc approach.

This typically leads to ad hoc (and less than satisfactory) results.

To drive optimum results from your marketing strategy, you need to build an itemized plan (organized into campaigns) that details every tactic you will execute in the coming year.

An estimated cost is included for every tactic, and the total cost for all tactics is calculated.

This is a bottom-up approach to creating a budget.

It includes everything the marketing department would like to do in the year regardless of the total cost.

The executive team typically reviews the bottom-up budget to determine how much money to allocate to marketing in the company’s annual operating plan (AOP).

Marketing RARELY gets the entire bottom-up budget.

Still, it is better to ask for too much budget and not get it than build a top-down budget from a predetermined (often arbitrary) budget number.

A top-down approach to budgeting leads to a tactical plan that has been stripped of important campaign elements.

For example, let’s say your marketing strategy includes launching a new product that targets the beverage industry.

Your tactical plan may include a campaign for promoting the product to schools.

The campaign includes tactics for each marketing phase: pre-launch sales training, awareness, interest, confidence/evaluation, quote/order, reorder/loyalty and advocacy.

Tactics for each phase may include:

1. ? ? Pre-launch sales training – launch overview via Zoom with your sales channels

2. ? ? Awareness – press release, digital ads, blogs, billboard, trade shows, social media

3. ? ? Interest – website, print collateral, promotional videos, presentations

4. ? ? Confidence/Evaluation – case studies, demonstration videos, ROI calculator

5. ? ? Quote/Order – online RFQ form, quotation template, eCommerce site, electronic order confirmation, welcome kit

6. ? ? Reorder/Loyalty/Advocacy – ROI/performance summary reports, advisory board appointments, user groups, user reviews

There are many other tactics that can be included in each marketing phase, especially as the product matures and user experience information becomes available.

To build the rest of your tactical plan, itemize the tactics by phase for every campaign identified in your marketing strategy.

Add all the campaigns and budgets together and your tactical plan is complete.

Now it’s time to execute.

But do you have the right staff?

I explore this topic in my next article.

?[ If you need marketing leadership on a fractional/contract basis, or want me to cover specific topics in this newsletter, reach out or leave a comment. ]