Documenting your new marketing strategy

Over the last few weeks my posts have concentrated on the steps I like to follow in building a marketing strategy. I identified 7 steps initially – the Customer Review.

Once you have completed the Customer Review you need to document your strategy. Remember my guide is not there to be adhered too slavishly. You will have your own processes and procedures and formats to follow, but below is a suggested approach to sharing the outcomes of your customer thinking;

What you should have now is a series of outputs that you can turn from thinking into action. By working through the 7 steps you should have:

• Engaged your team
• Identified the key strategic challenges faced by your business
• Organised your thoughts logically and given yourself some answers to the critical questions posed
• Identified the areas where you and your business can ‘win’.

What you now need to do is to collate your thoughts and create a coherent plan that can be communicated ‘up the line’.

I suggest this is summarised as follows:

Current State Assessment

• Current market defined; Customer needs and wants
• Marketplace trends, alongside clearly articulated segments/sectors of attractiveness to your business
• Sales, retention, profit KPIs of your current business in the your current market context (and by sector of your marketplace wherever possible)
• Your current market position in terms of shares and other KPIs
• The importance of market segments to you
• Your overall value engineering picture and price position vs costs

Target State Assessment

• Your desired financial position: costs to target, value of business forecast and your price position
• Your target customers defined as deeply as you can
• How the target state fits with your overall long term business strategy
• How the brand essence articulates and supports your strategy (or in rare cases; conflicts)

Way-finding Guide (for your Exec Team/Board)

• Say how you plan to move from current state to target state
• The customer focus / tactics you will employ
• Articulate coherently the customer proposition or offer – what will drive take-up/use etc
• Identify what needs to change across your business to allow the strategy to succeed

The Plan

• Show a short summary of all of your conclusions from the 7 steps
• Show your objectives – qualitative and quantitative
• Show how you will measure success or failure – what are your tolerances?
• Show the strategies you will employ alongside tactics employed at a granular level
• Show your financial assessments and paint a payback picture over 3 years

Futurology

• Finally, using Step 7 show how the 3 year strategy is affected by / influences your 5 year strategy – short and sharp – but it lends huge credibility to your thinking.

So the only thing left to do is to agree the media and creative communications strategies and plans to bring this to life. I will, perhaps, share my thoughts on those activities in due course, but at this stage the important thing is to remember to do the following before you go for a congratulatory drink of tea/lovely lager beer/champagne/fruit juice*

*- please chose one or more !

1. Ask for agreement to the strategy
2. Draw up your Internal communication plan of the strategy
3. Start your formal stakeholder engagement around the business, your strategy team can help you, as not everyone will have been fully engaged, end to end, on your journey so you need to tell them the story to get their buy-in. Focus first of all on the Pagans – get them on board and the rest are ‘cheap dates’.
4. One thing I think that aids this stage is to drive out a mission statement or descriptor for your strategy. This should not disconnect to your wider long term vision for the business, but may describe a stage in achieving it … for example- after a ‘Foundation’ plan to stabilise a business you may enter a ‘growth phase’ – describing that in a simple engaging way for colleagues, which will be a great boon when determining communications strategies in due course.

I hope you have found this series of posts informative – I need to thank my influences again, Davidson, Fisk, McDonald, Kotler (“The Prof”) and all of the teams I have worked with to date. Thank you.

And remember – if in doubt during this process … use a boxy chart – they can be used to explain everything in my view/experience (I’m only half joking by the way !).

Paul
08 May 2013

Critiquing your current strategy, step 3 in developing a marketing strategy

Developing a marketing strategy in my view takes time, patience and effort.  It starts with thinking (I call this the Customer Review), and then moves into delivery.

We have covered the first two stages of the customer review; Customer insight and a review of the marketplace.

The next step in building these 7 concrete foundations is a critical review of your current strategy;

1. Customer insight ✓
2. The marketplace ✓
3. Critique the current strategy
4. Identify and critique your enemies
5. Critique your current/planned offer in detail: Product / Service / Channel
6. Pricing Review
7. Futurology

 (3) Critiquing your current strategy

Purpose:

• To identify if your current strategy is fit for purpose and is still relevant in the context of the other 6 elements of the Customer Review
• To show you if the strategies you have been employing are now more or less effective than they have been
• To give you a  focus on what your strategy for the upcoming period SHOULD be

Process:

In short, what you are trying to establish in this process step is whether the strategy is right and the execution needs attention or if the strategy you are currently employing is actually inappropriate.  Bear that in mind as you walk through these simple steps…

• Start with your brand iceberg;

• Make sure you are critical of the actual impressions customers have of your brand.  Use research and listen to customers and your colleagues
• Conduct a complete review of performance.  The metrics and KPIs you use will all be different, but make sure you are delivering to your expectations in as many areas as you (can) measure.

• You must, though, look at the following: sales, loyalty/attrition, cost control, market shrinkage/expansion, P&L, capital position, demographic shifts, channel usage shifts, customer feedback and your colleagues feedback/staff surveys.  These are a good basic starting set.
• Next you need to start looking at the dynamics of your strategy in more detail;
  • Given your current and past experience and strategy what is it reasonable for you to plan to deliver in the coming year(s)?
    Start with the assumption of maintaining market share – you have to start somewhere after all !
  • Then look at what growth you can reasonably expect … use your past growth as a guide.
  • Examine what drove that growth – was it new products or services, competitor activity and so on.  This will lead you to the third part of this analysis:
  • What will your planned product development or service change/enhancement need to look like?
  • Then go back and look at what your 3 or 5 year forecast said last year, the year before and so on … to build up a sense of momentum and a sense of whether this is likely to be acceptable to your Board/Exec – and even more fundamentally is there a gap to what you forecast last year?  If so, is it positive or negative? either way, you must now complete a documented exercise to explain and understand what has changed
  • In an ideal world at this stage I would produce the following pictures:
    • Revenue and Profit for a steady state hold market share scenario (with a view of market size change)
    • Revenue and Profit for a reasonable market share growth scenario again within assumptions about market size
    • Revenue and Profit for a shortfall that negates the forecast increase in profit that you predicted in the past strategic plan i.e. if the market grows and you fail to grow as predicted what damage is done.  This will help inform your product, service and campaign plans in due course
• Set up a small team at this stage of your review with a single-minded task of ‘opportunity identification’.  By doing this at this stage the team will understand the strategic context and can start to look for opportunities such as unmet customer needs (from complaints data, Ombudsman reports etc) look for growing market segments where you do not compete currently and look for trends in the marketplace you could exploit.
• In “Offensive Marketing” Davidson argues you should ask the following questions about the wear out of your strategy:

1. Does your current strategy require you to be superior in at least one area to win?
2. Are you doing so?
3. Is your strategy underpinned by at least one significant advantage over your enemies or is it by a collection of small increments?
4. Do customers see you as appealing and/or differentiated or to stand for something?
5. Are you constant in following your strategy?
6. Are the basics of the strategy understood by the business from Exec down?
7. Are they implemented (well and consistently) by colleagues?
8. Is the brand seen as a weakening force or growing force by customers?
9. Do you regularly check your strategy with customers to reflect their changing needs, within your overall vision?

I like these questions – I have paraphrased them a little, but they are solid and sensible and very practical.

Pay-offs:

• This is a hard exercise, by its nature it is critical and the team will need to be open and honest and willing to accept a challenge.  If they do then you have a great foundation for your strategic development team to build on
• You will also be able to explain to your Exec or Board in-depth why you think you can achieve what you are forecasting
• You might even start to get a view on brand extension opportunities
• You will certainly have the bones of the product development and service enhancement plans
• But more fundamentally what you do not have is a subjective view of your strategy.  You have a reasoned view, with numbers and customers at its heart.  The value of this cannot be overstated.  It is crucial in building your own credibility and that of your marketing team… yours will not be a strategy based on whim or wish, it will be grounded in hard numbers and the actual views of customers and that gives you a far better chance of delivering it successfully!

I hope you continue to find my thoughts useful … let me know what you think as always, leave me a comment or two.

Part 4 on your “enemies” will  follow next week

Paul

06 April 2013

Effective marketing meetings and Co-op 99 tea

It was a very busy week in marketing last week.  I have also noticed a creeping tendency for meetings starting at 8.00 in the morning, which is fine for me as I am usually working away by 7.15, I do my best and most creative work early, so long as I have had my morning cup of Co-operative 99 tea of course.  I know this is the old packaging … I just love it and couldn’t resist using it.

My week is always meeting heavy, last week I had three full days of back to back meetings, our business is very collegiate and that commonly manifests itself in multiple meetings.

Imagine my delight then, when on LinkedIn last week, I saw a blog entry from Urban Airship   called “ 9, unusual, effective rules for successful meetings”.  I will leave you to read it yourself, it’s certainly thought provoking. Look at the number of comments it has generated. (I know the link says 8, they added a zero cunningly!)

http://venturebeat.com/2013/01/22/8-unusual-rules-for-meetings#pbfgw4GU4rzSbyEC.03

I also recently re-read the Larry Page approach to meetings that he introduced when taking over at Google.  It’s significantly less controversial:

1. Every meeting must have a clear decision maker – if there is no clear decision maker, or no decision to be made, then the meeting shouldn’t happen – there are other more efficacious means of communicating updates
2. No more than 10 people should attend
3. Every person should give input, otherwise they should not be in the meeting
4. No decision should ever wait for the next regular meeting.  If a decision needs making before the scheduled date … then arrange an earlier meeting

I do worry about stakeholder management with this approach though.

Thinking back to a Company I used to work for we had a somewhat strange, but actually quite efficient, approach to ensuring meetings were effective when launching Projects; it had three steps, let me explain further: –

• Step 1 – each meeting event was planned in advance … a short pre meeting (a pre-event event in fact!) to agree the purpose, attendees and outcomes.  These were all clarified on the agenda.
• Step 2 – the meeting event itself, which was managed to time and minutes taken/actions recorded by a nominated individual visibly on flip charts … so every one could see and sign-up to them at the end of the meeting
• Step 3 – an “in meeting” open review of the performance of the meeting in achieving it’s stated objective, and of the performance of the Chair … distinctly uncomfortable sometimes, but it made you improve your chairmanship – my team took no prisoners I recall.

People mocked this approach when it was initially introduced, but I found over time it was effective, it maintained focus and we were adult enough to bring people in and out of the meetings for specific elements and to openly challenge the actions as they were recorded.  It made RAID log production easy.

The number of meetings I had last week, these two articles and the prompted reminder about how a previous company used to make its meetings effective (and held only where necessary) have all come at a time when I need to be particularly well organised to deliver a significant workload to a tightly defined timeline.

As this will undoubtedly involve a significant amount of meetings, and as managing meetings is one variable I can control quite easily, I feel the need to make a few changes:

1. All meetings will have an agenda with stated objectives of the meeting …
2. … which will mean a short planning session/sense check with my team as to attendees.
3. Any pre-work / papers clearly stated and shared in advance for delegates
4. All meetings to have minutes or actions recorded by an individual and circulated (nominated beforehand).
5. All meetings to be timebound and managed to time… which given the amount of time I spend in lifts between the basement and 24^th Floor may mean I try and tighten meetings to 45 minutes.
6. Phones and blackberries off … this is deeply irritating and impolite, and it’s increasingly an issue as our world becomes so connected.
7. Actions to be summarised at the end of all meetings (something my Boss does very well).
8. A short post meeting assessment of attendee contribution. for future delegate/attendee planning.

Ideally I would like to carry out an effectiveness review as I used to – but that’s a step too far to start with I think.

These changes are just common good sense, and the Internet, as my two examples above show, is awash with advice on how to run effective meetings, so I might do a spot of Googling later as well.  Personally I think options like walking out of meetings are too extreme, but I do think the advice around ending meetings early, being punctual and mobiles off is sensible and easy to effect.

The 3 things I want to have in my mind are:

1. Planning and Preparation – which is hard to prioritise in the rush to get to the next meeting, I need to recognise that and make time.
2. Good Housekeeping is not just a popular magazine!
3. Learn what went well / be positively critical

Let me know what works well in managing your meetings … oh … and wish me luck!

Paul

26 January 2013

The power of nothingness in marketing

There was a project about 10 years ago called the “This page is intentionally left blank” project.

Surprisingly it was not an art project, it was part IT, part subversive reactionary and part recidivist.  At least that is my interpretation.  This is my blog after all.

It seems to have gained some significant traction but then lost its way as the ‘IT super-highway’, as it was called then, really took off.

In short it set out to recreate those blank pages that we all used to see, usually in training manuals, that said “this page is intentionally left blank”.  Pitched as being for your (doodles or) notes in most cases.

The project attempted to reintroduce these across web sites.  In order to offer ‘Internet wanderers’ I quote; “ … a place of quietness and simplicity on the over crowded world-wide web – a blank page for relaxing the restless mind.”  A noble thought.  By 2004 the project was unable to cope with the demand and had to delay its own website launch.  It seemed to strike a chord.

I have two related business challenges at present and this project came into my mind, and as often happens you find something else that has about it, a similar insight…

I re-read an inspiring direct mail case study that lives in this same space.  Zürich Insurance wished to reconnect with customers who had opted out of receiving marketing communications.  The challenge it set before its direct marketing agency was simply to get people to tick the little box that allows Zürich to talk to them again.

Zürich managed to achieve a stunning uptake … why … great direct marketing for sure, but it had at its heart the consumers love affair with simplicity and the blank space.

Customers were simply sent a blank letter.

No messages selling anything, no copy to convince them of the error of their ways, just a simple clean letter with a signature on it.  Attached to this blank letter was a card that said;

“Actually we have lots to tell you about.  But we can’t say anything until you tick this box”

And that was it.  Simple, but stunningly so.  The case study can be found here, I would recommend it.

http://www.marketreach.co.uk

One challenge I am working on is how can I, in 2013, improve my direct mail response rates and how can I challenge my Agencies to help me do just that.  I am reminded of customer research that tells me the way to improve the open rates on direct mail is to use a plain blank envelope.

So, does all this thinking about blanks help (no jokes about firing blanks please !)?

I think it tells me that I can take inspiration from others in the sense that if I do a few simple things well I may well achieve greater cut through by managing to provide that ‘quiet place’ in a world that is even more noisy than in 2003 when the project started.  Customers might just like that different approach.

My second challenge is different, but the same principles will see me through I think.

My new buzzwords then;

• Keep the outers clean and white
• Keep the messages short and simple
• Keep the objectives simple and make them very clear
• Try and let the customer proposition breathe and do the work for us.

I will let you know how I get on !

As ever I would love your comments, add a few if you get a minute

Paul

6 Dec 2012