A common inquiry from companies concerns the key steps they should follow to tackle a marketing and communication strategy. Many businesses hire marketing and communication services because they’ve heard these techniques will help them sell more or make themselves known to large audiences or clients. And they’re clear that they should allocate a portion of their budget to invest in this area.
The problem arises when you ask the corresponding managers what they need exactly. At this point, most confess that they’re not clear on what they want to do and are unaware that the options or scenarios they face are varied.
This is where the first obstacle emerges.
If the answer to this first and basic question isn’t clear, the investment could be a waste of money with no return.
That’s why I advise that before requesting the services of a consultant in this field or turning to a company that provides this service, it’s advisable to answer some basic internal questions that will help us know which direction we can take.
The first thing is to differentiate. Marketing focuses on customer acquisition, while communication seeks to win over the public, to gain an audience among profiles not necessarily familiar with the brand. Both departments are complementary and work from the same premises.
Now, let’s go through some questions:
- Do you have a clear brand image?
- Do you know your “buyer persona” or target customer?
- Do you know who you’re addressing, where your customer/audience is located (segment, geographical location, socio-economic profile…)?
- Have you created your own storytelling?
- Do you control your competition?
- Have you ever done a SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats) analysis of your company?
- What do you want to achieve and where do you want to go?
- Is your strategy clear?
This is a basic carousel of questions, a starting point. The answers, once analyzed, are what allow us to shape a necessary strategy.
If you have clear answers, you may already have a defined roadmap and only need to put it on paper to chart a path for future actions. Hopefully!
But if you’ve never considered these questions and ignore the answers, it means you’re working by shooting in the dark. That’s not operational. It’s time to sit down and think to lay the foundations of a solid project. This is, in summary, the strategy. The first outline of any business project.
After this initial self-analysis to know who you are and what you want to achieve, we take the next step. How do I do it?
Here, new unknowns open up:
- Am I going to use marketing or communication to achieve sales?
- Better for branding, that is, to generate brand awareness?
- When and in what time do I want to achieve results?
First, insist that campaigns aimed at sales are very different from actions aimed at achieving visibility. I insist because it’s an obvious truth that not everyone understands.
Selling requires a clear understanding of the market and commercialization options. Branding requires having a created content strategy and mastery of the channels where to launch our story.
Once again, the answers are multiple, and whether we opt for sales or visibility, we’ll need to narrow down spaces to create our conversion funnel. That is, to aim to hit as close as possible to the bullseye.
This part will allow us to define the best promotional actions. But beware! It’s important to know that it’s not possible to run a good promotional campaign (sales or brand) without a well-defined prior strategy.
As decisions are made, new questions arise:
- How much budget do I have for this promotion?
- Do I have audiovisual materials, images, content… that allow me to get the word out?
- Do I have a good website optimized to achieve what I need?
- Do I have social networks and manage them professionally?
- Am I going to invest in paid advertising (ads) offline or online?
- Do I have dossiers, flyers, presentations of my products adapted to suppliers or customers? …
Yes, okay, there are already too many questions. An endless list of questions of which, once again, you ignore several answers. That means you have a lot of work ahead of you. And you must understand that this marketing (applied to sales or brand) and communication is not random. They are two very complex legs of this great octopus that is a company or an ambitious project.
But if you don’t identify who you are, where your target audience is, and what messages you need to send for your potential customers to know you exist, recognize you, and choose your product, I predict a complex future for you.
A conclusion to end. Although at first all this may be frightening, this is actually an exciting journey that, if faced in good company, will surely change the way you see and understand your company. You just need a good travel companion, a trusted leader with whom to travel this long and motivating journey towards success.
