In a recent marketing coaching conversation, I spoke to a man who has been assigned to head up marketing for a B2B software company with revenue of under $100 million. He had never been in this position before and wanted some marketing counsel from someone who has been in his shoes. He has a presentation he had to give to the executive team running the company and wasn’t exactly sure where to start. I offered him this advice that might be helpful for you and the business you work in too. My suggestion was that he start by understanding what problem his executive team colleagues think marketing solve?
Before his meeting, I suggested that he ask each person who will attend the meeting to send him one sentence that answers the following question:
“Let’s start at the beginning. What problem do you want marketing to help solve?”
I urged him to start here first so that he could see if there was consensus on what problem needed help. Before getting into the tactics of hiring a PR agency, a lead generation company or a direct mail firm, first get clear what the problem is and sees if you can get some insight in how you know if you are successful. By asking for one sentence, you force each participant to focus on the most pressing issue not a laundry list of things to do. Without knowing what problem marketing can solve, you may end up throwing money at the wrong issue that isn’t top of mind to your stakeholders.
For example, if there is consensus that the company needs to be established as a thought-leader in the industry so that the brand will be recognized as the authority on their subject, then how will you know you have achieved this goal? The Number of articles published that shine a positive light on you? The Number of leads generated from events you participate in? What is the metric of success?
Or, if there is agreement that the quality of leads generated is poor and you need to increase both volume and value of leads, that’s a very different problem you have to solve. Imagine a math test where you aren’t sure if you should use subtraction, division or advanced algebra? Begin with a clear statement of your problem. Get alignment from all that agrees with a measurement of success.
For example, the problem we are trying to solve with a marketing approach is to improve the quality of our leads. Now we get 10 per day and close 2. If we could increase the number of leads closed, from 20% to 25%, that would be an indicator of a successful marketing effort.
Specific. Clear. Easy to measure.
What Problem Can Marketing Solve?
“I need about 10 lbs. of marketing” A senior VP I know used to joke that he would be asked by people in his organization giving them “a few pounds of marketing” as if it was a brisket you’d buy at the butcher. So often others don’t understand what marketing is and it gets conflated with advertising all the time or lumped together with other tactical approaches. To me it is simple.
Marketing helps you get noticed by the people you want to reach.
Marketing can take lots of different forms – from promotions, direct communications, advertising, product positioning, placement, distribution choices and on and on. Marketing can be the way customer service is designed to surprise and delight your customers. Marketing might be the way you create unusual events that no one else in the industry can do quite like you.
The marketing professional I am coaching is starting at the right place by getting alignment from the executive team. He may come back with two or three key goals that could require different tactics. But starting at the beginning is always a good idea since you have to understand what problem you are solving. Tactics follow strategy, not the other way around.
Are you clear and aligned with what problem your business wants to solve through marketing efforts?
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