The thing about marketing is that there is no one right way to solve a single problem. So much of the advice and commentary is tactical. Five tips for this and 10 ways to do that. Everyone does it because people that are new or just dipping their toe into the stream of marketing knowledge need information packaged in an easy-to-understand and actionable format.
I’ve been thinking lately about how managing long-term marketing programs can be tricky with all the change that happens, but a strategy that focuses on a model of “Listen, Learn, Change and Grow” can make a big difference between long-term success or failure.
1. Listen: The very first thing a marketer needs to do with a new marketing project is to listen. Depending on your perspective (agency or client side) it will be critical to perform discovery tasks and probe for realistic goals, target audience characteristics, competitive landscape and messaging guidelines.
The trick is that while many people looking for help with improving lead generation and sales will tell you about their situation, goals and challenges, it takes an experienced marketer with excellent listening skills to decipher what that information means and to ask questions in order to construct a strategy.
Listening is key to discovering the viability and relevance of a particular marketing channel as well as the resources to ensure it’s success. Too many consultants take on projects believing the client knows what’s best for themselves. The reason to hire a consultant is that they bring expertise and an outside perspective to the situation and challenge existing processes to reach goals. If current processes and knowledge worked so well, there would be little reason to bring in an outside consultant.
2. Learn: A natural progression of listening is to learn about the uniqueness of the situation and what that means for constructing a strategy. Learning about the situation, which needs to be solved, for a marketing effort involves everything from an audit of the company website to the market, industry and competitors.
Reporting mechanisms need to be clearly defined for the scope of the program, and it is absolutely critical to take benchmark measurements as soon as possible. Even in somewhat ambiguous situations, it’s important to have measurement and data collection in progress, including web analytics, social media monitoring, sales channel analytics and anything that works as a proxy to desired outcomes.
- Phase 1 learning covers the discovery process of understanding the project situation, competitors and resources to make it happen. Getting up to speed quickly on a client, industry, competitors and resources shortens the time to start seeing results.
- Phase 2 learning is ongoing and helps determine how effective marketing efforts are as well as determining seasonality, patterns or cycles to audience “buying” behavior. Sharing this knowledge is also important for content and promotion scheduling.
- Phase 3 learning emphasizes client side education on how to best take advantage of insights from the consultant. Client education and training is critical for proper implementation and communication. Helping clients develop these skills makes the overall program more effective by more involvement of the right people with the right skills for implementation.
I call these “phases,” but all of them should start on day one of a marketing program.
3. Change: Internet marketing exists in part, because of the constant change and newness of the web. Companies need help navigating and adapting to that change. Each day there’s an abundance of new content being published, new users and ways to use the web and, of course, changes in how search engines do what they do. Innovation is synonymous with doing business online. That means change.
Companies hiring outside consultants will expect, for the most part, to receive recommendations that mean changes in strategy, tactics and processes. In order to take full advantage of the marketing and customer communication opportunities that the web affords, organizations need to embrace change. Consultants that have really “been there, done that” with numerous clients can be relied upon to facilitate the strategic and tactical changes necessary for a successful program.
If a company wants to increase sales via online channels but doesn’t want to change existing sales channel tracking in order to effectively track web sales, for example, then it’s incumbent upon the agency/consultant to provide a compelling argument or even a business case to make that change. Otherwise, the program is doomed for failure — not because tactics fail, but because the client stands in their own way for success.
4. Grow: Marketing programs should be self-funding, ongoing efforts. Successful programs will grow and scaling efforts to increase customer acquisition and sales should be inevitable. For search marketing, particularly SEO, it’s ongoing content creation, promotion and social engagement that grows an organization’s footprint on the web.
Organic growth of content, links and social connections on the web result in a compounding effect that persists and grows as long as you feed it. Growing these online marketing efforts is an ongoing effort and simple to budget as a flat rate cost. You can scale results by increasing these efforts and corresponding consulting costs, but time is also a factor with scaling organic growth.
Following these four tips can help your company expand its market share and customer base. Do you have any other ideas?
