Christmas Cheer

Can you believe that Christmas is already around the corner?  It sure has creeped up on us this year, hasn’t it?  With crazy gas prices, presidential elections, economic turmoil, etc., etc., there are a lot of folks caught off guard by the approaching holiday.  I’m one of those!

So I woke up this a.m. thinking, what should I do to get myself into the holiday spirit?  Well, I think the most appropriate thing is to remember all the things that I’m so very thankful for in my life:

• My Boys (Quinton and Ethan) – they are certainly a challenge, but hey, I’m always up for a good challenge.  And can’t think of anything more worth it!
• My Business – Clear Message Communications (www.clear-message.com) is really something that I’m tremondously proud and thankful for.  We have a wonderful team of great marketing and learning (training) professional that have truly made a difference in the lives of many of our clients throughout 2008.
• My Home – four years ago, in the midst of many life changes, I added another one by moving to Frisco, Texas.  After living in Flower Mound for about 10 years, it seemed like a foreign country.  I have to say, that I am so happy with that choice today – great schools, great sports, great entertainment, and much more – right in my backyard.  Love it!
• Friends and Family – I am so very blessed by wonderful friends and family – and friends who have become family.  A recent visit from my sister from Piggott, AR (yes, P-I-G-G-O-T-T, famous for the home where Ernest Hemingway wrote portions of A Farewell to Arms, can you believe it?), reminded me of how much I miss her!

Those are my top 4!  God has blessed me and I am now ready to celebrate all my 2008 blessing and look forward to what 2009 has to hold!

Who Cares?

We recently worked with a client on their corporate messaging which would serve as the launch pad for their organization’s marketing efforts.  As we listened to the client tells us about all their service offerings, we asked clarifying questions to make sure we had a full understanding of these offerings.  Our next line of questioning took us down the path of…  “Who Cares?”.

That’s the real question, isn’t it?

In this fast-paced world, when you only have 5-10 seconds to grab someone’s attention and your lucky if they give you 30 seconds to get out your pitch, you better make sure you answer that question.

When working on messaging and your company’s unique value proposition, be sure that you are focused on your customer and what they care about.  Many organizations are so focused on themselves – what they do and what they have to offer, they often forget that they have created these valuable offerings because they are trying to solve their customers’ issues.

It is always great if you can paint an image in the mind of your potential customer with the problem your organization solves.  You want them to envision themselves in the problem and then clearly explain how your company’s offering resolves their problem – be their Knight in Shining Armour!

To sum it up, when you are writing for your company’s website, brochure, sales script (you get the idea!), make sure that you do a litmus test and that you don’t leave your audience asking, “Who Cares?”.

$$$ and People

A lot of things boil down to money and people, don’t they?  Marketing efforts are no exception.

The final components of your marketing strategy should cover these two topics:

• Financials – forecast & budgets
• Controls – implementation and organization

When we talk about Financials for your company’s strategic marketing plan, we are specifically talking about your sales forecast and your marketing budget to support that forecast.  Every organization should understand their sales track record and should use this to support the development of their 12-month sales forecast.  You need to:

• Review your sales from the most recent 12-month history. 
• Consider how many sales associates it took to get you to where you are today.  Do you have the right people in place to get you to where you need to be over the next 12 months?  Do you plan on adding to your sales team?  How long will it take for them to begin producing for you?
• Review the products/services you sold.  Do you see a trend?  Can you predict if that same trend will hold true over the next 12 months?  Do you have new products/services to sell?  If so, how many can you expect to sell with your current staff and at what price point?
• Consider other growth opportunities you have over the next 12 months.

Once you have spent time in analysis and consideration, formulate a realistic sales forecast for the upcoming 12 months.  Now, the next step!  You’ve already brainstormed and come up with what you believe is a good tactical list of programs for your organization and you have validated them against your research.  Now we have to put numbers to these programs and see if the marketing spend is realistic based on the sales forecast we just created.

We typically recommend our clients having a marketing budget that is no more than 15% of their sales forecast.  This allows for a good marketing mix of programs that can support the anticipated company growth.

Now that we’ve got a budget, the final step is defining the marketing organization and how the plan will implemented.  By defining the marketing organization, I mean really putting together a chart of personnel or outsourced organizations and what role each of them will play.  Your implementation plan should include major projects, milestones, and timelines so that those driving the bus can determine if they are on the right road!

Whew!  All done!  That is the final component to developing your organization’s marketing strategy!

Getting Down to the Tactics

So we are almost through all the components of a solid marketing strategy!  We are to the part of the plan where you actually need to take all the research you have compiled and make good decisions on the tactics to support the marketing strategies that you defined in the previous section.

As you think about the possible programs you should actually implement, keep in mind the audience you are addressing and what the end result of the programs should be.  Be sure that you focus on programs that are going to drive the core of your business.  It doesn’t make sense to spend your effort and $$$ in areas of your business that are only going to account for a small percentage of your revenue.  Put your time and $$$ where it counts!

Consider various types of activities both traditional and online:

- brand definition/messaging
- brochures/product sheets
- website development/redesign
- email campaigns
- webinars
- interactive multimedia
- presentation development
- networking
- speaking opportunities
- and the list goes on.

Have fun and think out of the box, but be practical and make sure that your programs stay within a reasonable budget based on your sales forecast!

Defining Your Strategy

So the next section of your formal marketing plan should be defining your Marketing Strategy.  What does that include?  There are several things:

1.  Define the overall mission.  This should be 1-3 sentences that summarize the overall goals for your marketing efforts.  A good example might be, “Our 2009 mission, is to develop programs that support generate a 30% increase in our sales pipeline activity.  We will focus on online programs as we have seen a substantially higher conversion to sales from these programs in 2008.”

2.  Define your marketing objectives.  You should clearly lay out the objectives for the marketing programs you will be executing in the tactical plan (which is the focus of my next entry!).

3.  Define your financial objectives.  You need to clearly define your financial goals for the time period in which your strategy is being developed.

4.  Define your target markets.  Clearly define the markets that you are targeting your marketing programs to in this plan. 

5.  Define a your positioning.  Basically, how will you position your products and services within your target market to achieve the marketing and financial goals you have defined.

This section is critical to your marketing strategy so be sure and spend an appropriate amount of time as you define this portion of the plan.

What’s Your Company’s Situation?

OK – back to my original quest!  The second component to your marketing strategy is Situation Analysis.  So what is included in this section.  Well, there are several things:

1.  Market Summary – in your market summary you need to define who your market is via demographics, psychographics, need trends, etc. 

2.  SWOT Analysis – this is where you have to be very honest with yourself and clearly define your company’s strengths and weaknesses, as well as your opportunities and threats.  Most of these are self explanatory.  Threats is one that often needs to be clarified – threats are those situations which you have no control of.  For example, the economy.

3.  Competition – you need to clearly define your direct and indirect competition.  This section might even include “secret shopper” type information that you’ve collected while shopping your competition.

4.  Product Offering – include specific information about your product/service offerings.  This information should be specific and detailed.  You might even want to put photos of your product in this section.

5.  Keys to Success – this section should include specific things that you believe are required in order for your company to be successful.  All the marketing programs that you develop should support these success factors.

6.  Critical Issues – your critical issues are things that your company must have in order to be successful. 

Remember as you are working on your company’s situation analysis – it is critical that you are honest in your analysis.  A strategy is no good if it is based on a fantasy!  This is time to be “real” because you are going to be basing marketing programs on this information and research.  If this information is not based on reality, then the programs that are developed will not be successful and the business will be jeopardized.

Personal Branding

Just did a mini-presentation yesterday on the topic of ‘Personal Branding’ and thought I should share some of those points here.

Personal Branding is the process of creating a brand for you and your career.  The same way you would think about branding for a business – you should consider doing the same exercises for yourself.

Your brand should be:

1. Clear – clearly define what you want you have expertise in and what you want people to think of when they hear your name.  For example, I am an expert in strategic marketing and helping people focus on strategies and programs that support their business.  When people hear my name, I want them to think “Marketing Strategy” and how that will help them build their business.

2. Consistent – Your brand should be consistent.  Meaning, once you have decided you want to promote yourself as the expert in a certain area, don’t change that area of expertise each time the next ‘new shiny thing’ comes along.  Brand is reinforced in the continuous repetition of the same image and message.  For example, like I previously stated, I’m an expert in strategic marketing.  I do not reinforce my personal brand if I decide that I’m going to start selling Mary Kay and promoting that message in addition to my marketing expertise.

3. Strong – You need to identify what your unique value proposition is to the prospects you are trying to serve.  This should be a powerful message and one that is reinforced with facts.  For example, I bring to my clients over 18 years of marketing experience where I have been a key player in helping many businesses grow through strategic marketing plans that have been put in place and executed.

There are many ways to promote your personal brand.  Here are just a few online/offline ideas:

Online – blogs, social networks, SEO, published papers, press releases, publication mentions

Offline – 1-on-1 relationship building, personal appearance, personality, speaking opportunities, solid and consistent 30-second commercial

Welcome to My Blog!

Well, it has been a long time coming, but it is finally here!  I look forward to sharing some great ideas, observations, and marketing stories here on my blog. 

It seems appropriate in my first blog to discuss what should be the first order of business in marketing – developing a strategic marketing plan for your organization.  Whether it is a plan for the next quarter, or a plan for the upcoming year, it is essential to establish a plan that supports the goals of the overall business as well as the sales team.  Here are the components that every marketing plan should include:

1.  Executive Summary
2.  Situation Analysis
3.  Marketing Strategy
4.  Tactical Plan
5.  Financials
6.  Controls

The first thing you read in a formal marketing strategy – the Executive Summary – is the last thing that you write within the plan.  The Executive Summary should be an overview of the entire plan summed up in 2-3 paragraphs at most.  This summary is a quick view of the business goals and the marketing plan to support the achievement of those goals.

You should take time and put a lot of thought into composing the Executive Summary.  Often times, people reviewing your plan, may not make it any further than this area – and if you are using this plan to secure business funding, you want to make sure they dig deeper.

I will address the remaining sections over the next several blogs. 

Thanks for tuning in!