We’ve already established that marketing and prospecting, although intrinsically linked, are not the same thing.
Marketing is about raising awareness of your business and educating people on what you’re all about. Key to this, is creating the best impression of your company, while staying true to your brand.
What is vital to marketing is that a business knows exactly what it stands for. What is your overall company proposition and how can you live and breathe this through marketing?
Most of us go through the laborious process of creating marketing plans, yet do we structure them in such a way that give real focus, or a lens through which all marketing communications will be filtered? Or in reality is it a box-ticking exercise which gets shoved in a drawer, never (with any luck) to be seen again?
We’ve never been more spoiled for choice than today with where we can be seen or talk about ourselves, given the sheer number of marketing channels available to us.
So it’s incredibly tempting to take a gung-ho attitude and try to be everywhere, talking to everyone, all the time.
And you’ve got to be on social media because it’s cool, right? And, not to mention, free.
But does that attitude truly demonstrate that we know our audience? This isn’t really about us, it’s about them. What are they reading? What events are they attending?
It may be that you want to talk to Marketing Directors about your latest work for example, or to graduates about vacancies in the business, so it is fundamental that you have a robust enough proposition that will stand up to being naturally flexed to different audiences.
Staying true to your proposition and being more discerning in your choice of marketing channels could pay dividends.
If you think it’s time for you to dust off you marketing plan and see some smart thinking in action – join us on 27th Feb.
Amy Robinson – Jan 2014