Getting the big picture

OK, so let’s say we’ve done the strategy bit. We picked a customer segment (or two or three) as our primary targets, understood their needs and differentiated our products. Now what?

Now we in marketing do what most people think of when they think of marketing. We build and execute tactical marketing programs to fulfill our strategic objectives. We look at our targeted customer segments and decide the best ways to alert them to our products, their features and benefits. We determine the best way to communicate our differentiation and value to those customers. Which marketing techniques should be used – trade shows, direct mail, telemarketing, advertising, etc? Which messages and persona? When most people think about marketing, this is what they would identify as what marketing “does”.

Marketing executes campaigns to build awareness, establish and build a brand, and drive leads. And frankly, this is what most marketers are really good at. Most marketers can tell you with infinite precision how many direct mail pieces will be read and what the response rate will be. They can tell you how many leads to expect from a booth at a tradeshow. They can tell you the number of impressions from website traffic. All of these are important, because traditionally marketing has not been held as accountable for its expenditures as other functions – but they focus on the pennies and miss the dollars. If the strategy isn’t right – if the differentiation and segmentation weren’t done correctly – all the precision in tactical campaigns won’t help much. As marketing budgets shrink and marketers are held to greater accountability – let’s not lose sight of the importance of doing nothing but thinking. Getting the big ideas right first will save time, money and energy down the line and result in better messaging, improved targeting and increased sales.

We started this series of posts with the question – What is Marketing? Marketing is strategy and requires each of us to think through the big topics before rushing off to execute the tactical campaigns. Next time someone asks you as a marketer to build a piece of collateral, stop and consider the differentiation, positioning and overall strategy before moving ahead.