Marketing & Marketing Consulting

 

Marketing is so much more than digital marketing, SEM and SEO. You need an overarching strategy that helps build and communicate your brand. Even if all of your marketing dollars are spent on the internet, you need to be confident that you are communicating the right message to your target audience.

 

I see marketing as a process of:

a. better understanding your customer/business and

b. better communicating your brand/business/product in order to generate more leads and ultimately sales.

 

Marketing Consulting can be:

1. A strategic way to view your business.

 

2. A fresh set of “outside” eyes to give you a different perspective

 

3. A new or renewed focus on your business strategy, your customers, your communication needs and planning

 

4. Assistance with tactical plan execution

 

Often, a marketing consultant can form valuable first impressions, similar to a prospective customer and provide excellent insight into the communication process.

 

When I do a project I like to start with the basics: a strategic framework to understand the drivers of your business including the 5 P’s: Product, Positioning, Price, Promotion, Place.

 

I like to ask a long list of questions to get at the issues and opportunities.Some of these questions include:

 

What is your positioning in the market? How do your customers and potential customers view you? What perceptions do people have or should people have of you?

 

Who is your target? What is the size of the target market?

 

What is your niche? What can you own?

 

What is your category position?

 

What level of awareness do you have?

 

What benefits do you deliver?

 

What attributes should you be marketing more clearly?

 

What needs and wants do you fill?

 

What is your key point of difference?

 

How are you generating leads today?

 

Where are the bottlenecks in the marketing and sales funnel?

Lead generation, conversion, repeat sales?

 

When I do a consulting project I like to start with:

  Objectives

  Measurable goals

  Budget

 

And do a Marketing Review. Often this becomes as much a strategic review of what you are doing to generate new business.

 

What are you currently doing for marketing?

 

What is working/not working? Return on Investment

 

What is your communication strategy?

 

What is your messaging?

 

What is your positioning?

 

What should you be doing, testing, communicating?

 

 

THE KEYS TO SUCCESSFUL PROJECTS

1. Keep projects actionable.

 

2. Focus on deliverables.

 

3. Provide insights and strategies but avoid pie-in-the-sky thoughts or recommendations.