Marketing strategy – the power of thinking

Marketing strategy. It’s the clear approach that will direct your marketing plan, the way a film Director will shape the path and colour of a movie.

Most marketing is tactics, all the things done. Think of these as what a movie Producer would organise; all the practical components that make up what the movie is.  They comprise the film’s tangible parts but, without direction, those practical components won’t have coherence. They’ll feel like a busy scramble of cast and costumes, of sets and lighting and props.

It’s Directing that makes movies successful. And its strategy that makes marketing succeed.

We do marketing strategy in groups, around a whiteboard, and we do it on our own, staring at the wall, as our GoodSense Associate, Allanah Robinson, describes the intense thinking needed.  Marketing strategy is a learned skill and a professional discipline.  As a practice, marketing strategy is informed by insights, by experience and by intuition.

Take our six question strategy sanity check

1. Do you know WHY you’re doing social media posts? Or sending a monthly eNewsletter? Or paying for Google Adwords? Or  … [substitute here whatever marketing activity you are spending money on]?
2. Do you know WHICH customers are your most loyal; those most likely to buy from you repeatedly and the most likely to buy again?
3. Do you know WHO in the wider world might be most like those loyal customers, or the most likely to succeed them as your future best customers?
4. Do you know WHAT marketing activity brings in the customers who go on to become the most loyal? Do you know WHAT distribution channel delivers the best customers? Do you understand WHAT impact your pricing is having on profit and on sales? Can you identify WHAT your best selling products or services are – or the ones that are in decline?
5. Do you know WHEN that activity is most likely to succeed – in the year, in the week or in the day?
6. Do you know HOW the trends in the wider world – the technological, the political, the social, environmental and legal factors – are affecting how your customers feel and how this might influence their affection for your brand?

If you’re finding it hard to answer any of these, you need to get a crew round a whiteboard, or to do some staring at a wall, because you need a clearer marketing strategy.

Without sorting your marketing strategy, your marketing plan will lack direction and your tactical marketing activities can’t possibly be as successful as they could be.

Marketing strategy is making choices

Your marketing strategy can be informed by:

• Insights
  • by answers to the six questions we’ve listed above,
  • through analysis of your sales and results,
  • by desk research reading what others have published or
  • by specific market research you commission.
• Your experience and the knowledge you and your team accrue through supporting customers, watching how people behave, listening to customer service calls all help shape your strategy.
• Our gut instincts as humans – the creative, intuitive leaps our complex, asynchronous minds can make – play a vital role.

Weaving all those elements together won’t give you a strategy on its own.  The strategy is the set of choices you make BASED on all that insight, experience and intuition.

To make a strategy you need to reflect on the insights, experience and intuitive creative ideas, and then choose what you will prioritise.  Using the Director analogy, you need to choose what shots to use and where to make the cuts.

At GoodSense we work with clients to co-design streategy in groups, around a whiteboard, in a room or together online. We also do it on our own, in what can look like we are ‘staring at the wall’. While we’re ‘staring’, we’re doing  intense thinking, in multiple directions, using our judgement to determine what choices will give our clients the best result, based on everything we know.

Marketing strategy is cyclical and ongoing

Your strategic direction needs a chance to play out over time – the tactical activities in your plan need to be implemented and to be given the time to prove themselves.  So marketing strategy is cyclical, set yearly and reviewed quarterly or six-monthly, depending on the rhythm and pace of your organisation.  But marketing is also ongoing.

New opportunities need to be evaluated for how well they fit with the strategy. Surprising results need to be assessed more often that a quarterly or six-monthly formal cycle allows for.  Your whole organisation needs to be wooed or cajoled into getting behind the marketing strategy because every aspect of your business, every customer experience, helps determine how well that strategy succeeds.

So the best thing we can do when we’re leading marketing is to always think like a movie director.  Make every choice a good one. Make every marketing decision strategic.

How we can help with your marketing strategy

At GoodSense our team are experienced in supporting clients with marketing strategy through strategic planning, facilitation, professional development, or as your outsource, fractional marketing directors or chief marketing officers.  Whatever your scale or stage, if your organisation is doing good things for people or the rest of nature we can help you get your marketing strategy sussed.  If you’re a funder or investor and you aren’t sure if the organisations you support have their strategy sorted, we can help.  Get in touch today for a free, no pressure, confidential chat with one of our GoodSense crew.