Marketing is not an island

1. What does your business do?

Pretty obvious – but if someone is going to market your business, they are going to need to know what you do, what makes you different and why people should choose you over the competition.

2. What do you want people to do?

Again, this might sound a bit of a stupid question, but marketing isn’t just used to sell stuff (shock horror, gasp). It can be used to raise awareness, build a reputation, get people to engage – so the ultimate desired action of the target audience needs to be well thought out, as it will dictate everything from the activity suggested, to the KPIs put in place to measure success.

3. What set up is in place to deal with potential customers?

It is all well and good coming up with a mega strategy to drive enquiries into a business or transactions on a website… but if your business is not set up with the resource or infrastructure to deal with this, then you need to look at how big you can really go with the strategy. Ten thousand enquiries a month is great – but if you only have 3 people to respond, your reputation and ultimately your aim is going to be undermined. Get your house in order.

4. How quickly does this all need to happen?

A big part of the strategy is going to come down to time. Are you looking for a long-term, 12-month plan? Or a seasonal campaign for a specific period of high activity? Is the strategy you need for a new product coming to market? Or an established product? All these things will dictate the plan of action.

5. What do you already have and what do you already do?

This is a big one – because the best strategies are based off previous learnings – even if everything you have done up until this point has failed – knowing that is more valuable than having a blank piece of paper. On the flip side of that, anything that has worked well for you in the past shouldn’t be thrown out just because there are a fresh pair of eyes looking at the strategy, that activity becomes your safety net, and can (if you are brave) allow you to try things that you otherwise might not do if you didn’t have a tried and tested way of marketing your product or service.

In addition to knowing what has and hasn’t worked for you in the past, knowing what resources (assets and people) you already have to hand is so important. If you are selling a product that has no sales collateral whatsoever, then the time it will take to create those assets needs to be factored into the plan, as does the people you have at your disposal to create them. An in-house team will allow you to move quickly but having to recruit or outsource could potentially slow your start down.

6. What is your budget?

The age-old question that no client has ever been able to answer in the history of the world… but it is probably the single most important. How much do you have to spend? Whether that be over a period of a week, or 12 months, it is vital information for whoever is putting your strategy together. The difference in cost between a full-scale attack across all marketing channels, vs a targeted online campaign, is vast, so even if your figure is ballpark – it would really help to have a steer.

Obviously, there are more than these few questions that will come out of a client discovery session, however, the above gives you a good idea of what you will need to share, (or if you are the person putting the strategy together – what you should be asking!)

If you are looking to shake up your current marketing strategy, or implement a new one, then get in touch, we would love to hear from you…