How can you fill foundational marketing gaps?

Video Transcription

Let’s talk about how we approach filling foundational marketing gaps. I’m going to show you some of the tools in a couple slides here from our own methodology that I absolutely invite you to grab and use. We’re going to share this recording, we can share the follow up materials and slides. We would love for you to take everything that we’ve developed in our tools and apply it in your business. And then of course, if you need help knowing how to apply it, we’re here for you. But some of the challenges facing businesses as they realize they have a disconnect between strategy and tactics is that they’re not sure how to choose the right channels. Like what kinds of marketing media do I need to reach which audiences, where, how often, how do we make those connections work? 

And there’s just not a lot of confidence that they’ve got the mix right or if the mix worked for them three years ago, it’s probably changed and they don’t have a confident process for reevaluating that and constantly testing those channels and to make sure they’re continuing to produce the results that they need. So I love to give this illustration because in the world of marketing, if you’re a marketer, you’ve lived this. I’ve been in marketing now for 20 plus years. And the pace of change when it comes to technology and tech tactics and techniques is crazy. And now AI is re-disrupting all of that again and increasing the pace of change. And in that very complicated landscape of marketing technology and tools and tactics, it can be incredibly overwhelming. And modern marketing can feel like it’s so complex. 

How does anybody figure it out? And while it’s true that no single marketer has all the answers or experience, that’s more true than ever. The other truth is that great marketing is what has always been actually a simple formula. That doesn’t mean it’s easy, but it’s simple. And great marketing always begins by asking these questions. Who do we want to matter to? Why should we matter to them? How and where do we enter their natural habitats, where they hang out and when we get there, it’s not how do we sell them something or how do we get a demo? How do we build trust? That’s branding. Right? And so ultimately, if you translate all those simple questions into marketing talk, when you answer the question of who we want to matter to, you’re defining your ideal customer persona. 

When you answer the question of why we should matter to them, you’re creating your unique value proposition. When you enter their natural habitat and you define where that is, you’re building your channel, strategy and your media mix. And when you determine how you’re going to create and maintain trust, you’re creating a brand promise and a customer experience. So I just wanted to map some of those timeless questions to the language we use in marketing and why they’re so essential. And then I want to start showing you some of the tools that we use as CMOs using our Authentic Growth® Methodology. 

Because when you look at this page, there’s a lot of words here, but it’s a story. This is the journey we go on with our clients. This is the roadmap. When we get to the table, most small businesses have done great work at the top of this page. They have a business strategy, they have a documented plan. It might be a two page business plan, it might be something more than that, but they know what they’re aiming at in general. And all of these businesses are doing something at the bottom of the page in terms of tactical marketing. Whether it’s maintaining a website and sales collateral and sponsoring events, whatever it is, they’re doing something. But what they lack is the connective tissue in the middle in different degrees. 

So often small businesses have a documented business growth vision, but they’ve never translated that into a go to market strategy that answers all those important questions from the prior page and then shapes the experience, the message, the journey, and activates that through a thoughtful annual plan that takes into consideration your actual resource realities for the budget that’s available. We’re going to talk more about that, the time and resources available with your people and then with the right management and leadership, which happens at a lot of different layers in marketing. Management leadership can happen for people, processes and projects. And it’s really important that you get the right kind of leaders around all the activation. 

So this is the journey and a lot of the work we do as fractional CMOs is quickly assessing where there are gaps in this foundation, where are the missing pieces? And making sure that we’re building and documenting that thoughtful brand and marketing strategy while we’re also building and executing an agile marketing plan. All right, so I welcome you to take that tool and look at it within your business and identify where there are gaps. And this is another helpful tool that at least could spark a conversation with your leadership team. This is our marketing maturity matrix. And really marketing is so much more than lead generation or your logo and your message or any of those individual pieces. Marketing great strategic marketing is even more than building revenue. Strategic marketing is about building value in a business. Transferable value. 

That’s what owners, investors, and future buyers care about most. And to get to transferable value, you have to be looking at all 10 of the attributes on the left side of this page at all times and moving them together forward in collaboration with orchestration between these things. And so this never, this is a process that never stops. And part of the work we do as cmos is to use the experience of having worked with hundreds of companies to assess the business we’re working with, to say, where are you on this maturity scale for each of these attributes. Some companies have invested a lot of money in marketing technology, but they still haven’t nailed down the right message or ideal customer that message should be in front of, or the brand experience they’re creating and the promise. 

And so we need to assess the maturity at each of these things, understand where the gaps are and how do we move them further to the right and to get there, what are the resources we’re going to need? And of course, it’s never done. Even if you achieve those flywheel results that we all dream about in marketing. Turns out the market and the world keep changing around us and new innovations happen and we have changes to our teams and we have changes within our stakeholder base. So, and if we acquire a company or we’re acquired, it kind of resets the whole, you know, integration of these things. And so this is a constant working system, but it’s a really helpful gauge.