Make time for a marketing strategy

It’s a false economy to create marketing content (like a website or a brochure) without some kind of marketing strategy in place. It might be complicated but it also could be quite simple, depending on what you do.

Without a strategic rule book in place it’s easy to create content without understanding who it’s for, which results in materials taking ages to prepare and constantly being re-written. 

Have you ever been frustrated by trying to get something new finished where numerous people across the organisation have completely different opinions? We’ve all been there.

Clarity of audience

If you don’t know who you’re talking to, you won’t know how to craft your content. It might seem unlikely that different people across the same business have different views on audience. But they will. Once a big meaty piece of communications, like a website is on the table, all those views will bubble up.

Products and services 

Same as above. Different people across the organisation will have different views. Getting the whole team on the same page is a key component in delivering successful marketing. True, marketing is not everyone’s job. But all team members are brand ambassadors for your organisation. Bringing people together to understand your audience, service and ambitions will help you produce marketing content more efficiently.

Key messages

A marketing strategy will identify why your customers need you. When you understand this you can create a bank of key messages to form the bedrock of everything you write going forward. From your website to presentations, sales documents, brochures cases studies and much more.

Culture and values 

Understanding what’s important to your organisation and what the culture is like will help set the right tone for your marketing content going forward. Going through the marketing strategy process will help to tease out what matters to you, and how you should present yourself going forward.

Tone of voice

Strategic thinking will also help you find your voice. What’s the tone and style that best fits your sector and organisation? It’s weird to have marketing materials that don’t feel like they’re from the same family.

In summary, time spent on ‘thinking’ before ‘doing’ is time well spent. If you think you’d benefit from some strategic thinking, I’d love to help.