Marketing and brand strategy

How easy is it for your sales people to get in front of key decision-makers? Are they knocking on the right doors?

Ensuring that your expensive marketing and sales resources are focused on the activities that will give you the greatest returns starts with strategy and planning. This way, even before the first cold call is made, your company’s reputation can be smoothing the path to a shorter sales cycle and healthy pipeline.

Planning ensures that the right kind of strategic thinking happens up-front:

• Who are your customers and what do they actually want?
• What are you great at delivering?
• How is your marketplace changing?
• What are your competitors doing?
• What other services might you start selling to grow market share and revenues?
• What are the Unique Selling Points (USPs) that differentiate you from your competitors?
• What worked last year in growing your business?
• Where should the strategic focus be in the short to medium term?
• Which target audience is likely to be your best potential customer base?
• What is the potential for up-selling and cross selling to your existing customers versus winning new ones?

Strategic planning of this type means we need to get to know you well, and quickly. We’ll find out about the competitive landscape; the strength and weaknesses of your solutions; who your customers are and what they really think. This insight, together with our knowledge of the market will determine the most appropriate go-to-market strategy for your company.

As part of this process, we’ll articulate your proposition and define the messaging that will resonate with your target audiences. We’ll recommend developments to your product/services and pricing strategy that will align your portfolio with market demand. We’ll build a communications plan to carry your message to market, realising the full potential of new digital channels (using the latest social marketing and web 2.0 tools) as well as proven traditional routes. We’ll suggest how you can make best use of loyalty programmes, CSAT surveys and focus groups to build profitable long term relationships with your customers. And we’ll continue to work as part of your team to implement strategies that meet your objectives.

Of course, you may not want to create a full strategic plan in one go. Our expertise can be directed to a specific aspect of your strategic planning process or a vital project to deliver discrete, but none-the-less tangible results. Activities include:

• Market assessment – research and data synthesis to identify the short- and long-term trends and drivers of market growth
• Competitive positioning – clearly articulate and communicate what differentiates your products/services from those of your competitors including SWOT analysis
• The marketing plan – based on a clear understanding of the highest impact customer priorities, market dynamics, growth drivers and revenue objectives
• Customer segmentation – tailored to your specific organisational objectives
• Customer understanding – holistic view of your customers' needs and their relative priority across the entire purchase and use cycle
• Experience management – evaluating the most critical elements of your customers’ experience and trigger programmes in response to revenue shortfalls
• Brand development – effectively leveraging and extending your brand to maximise revenue and profit and strengthen the core brand over the long-term
• Brand alignment – ensuring the brand is consistently and effectively used across your business to drive your medium-term strategy and all sub-branding is clearly aligned with your overall brand
• Brand management – articulate your brand’s differentiating attributes, which we express in simple-to-explain terms, to ensure these attributes can then be understood throughout your organisation and by your customers, partners and employees
• Company image – clearly define the company values that accentuate your strengths and capabilities, and embed these values into all functions across your organisation