A Roadmap for Better Marketing
In a tough economy, companies are increasingly looking to marketing - either as a defensive play, to protect market and customer share - or as an offensive asset to win business from their competitors. Either way, this puts more pressure on marketing to deliver compelling offers with maximum efficiency. The good news is that this economy has been a catalyst for ever more innovative ways to go to market. The bad news, for marketers at least, is that this dramatically increases the number and complexity of the choices they face.
The key is to be able to prioritize. Certainly this means being able to make the right campaign and program investments. However, with one (hopeful) eye on an economic turnaround, marketers are also beginning to think about the capabilities that will be most critical to positioning them to accelerate out of the gates and past their competitors when the long-awaited recovery arrives. We have had a lot of success recently with our systematic "Roadmap" approach which helps marketers to sort through the maze of choices, identify and sequence the things they need to do sooner versus later, and then build a compelling business case and plan for change.
That may initially mean a focus on measurement, or process, or technology, or a combination of all three, or maybe even other capabilities such as developing actionable customer intelligence. The key is being able to assess where your needs are greatest and to focus your undoubtedly scarce resources there. We have developed a systematic way of doing just that based on our proven six dimensions of marketing performance model. Success in those initial focus areas will help to fund and sustain a longer-term improvement of the other marketing capabilities you need.
I will be sharing some examples in the coming weeks of how taking a structured roadmap approach can help you to build a plan for sustainable improvement in marketing performance and would also love to hear back from anybody struggling with these kinds of challenges or who has found other innovative approaches to addressing these kinds of issues.
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