The Essential Elements of a Marketing Plan

6 Essential Elements of an Effective Marketing Plan

  1. Define you Target
  2. Craft your Talking Points
  3. Outline you Tactics
  4. Choose you Tools
  5. Set your Timeline
  6. Select your Team

If you’re going on a journey, you need to be sure you’ve packed everything you need or have a plan to get what you need somewhere along the way. The same is true of your marketing. You can’t simply set out someday to decide you’re going to take your business to the heights of success without some idea of what you’ll need to take you there. You have to have a plan for your journey otherwise, you’ll run out of steam or run off course and end up nowhere near your intended destination.

Here at The Marketing Squad, we believe that your marketing is a journey. If you want your journey to be exciting and adventurous in a non-Clark Griswold/Frodo Baggins/King Arthur and The Knights of the Round Table Monty Python-style kind of way, then you’ll need to pack a bag that includes the six critical elements of a marketing plan.

I believe that every good marketing plan includes these six elements that answer the following questions:

  1. Target – What is the primary objective, and who is your target audience?
  2. Talking Points – What will you say to move your audience to action?
  3. Tactics – What strategy will you employ to reach your desired outcomes?
  4. Tools – What tools will help you save time and maximize your efforts?
  5. Timeline – What is a reasonable timeline to execute tactics and see results?
  6. Team – Who do you trust to carry out the work?

(No apologies for the alliteration. I’m a preacher’s kid. I come by it honestly.)

All of these elements should be outlined in a single document you can present to the powers that be. With enough detail organized in a logical format, you should be able to achieve buy-in and confidently lead your marketing toward the proverbial summit. 

But first things first…

1. Define Your Target

First and foremost, you must know where you’re going. What’s the old saying, “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step?” Let’s take that first step in the right direction, but knowing where we’re going is vital.

Your target consists of two elements:

  1. Objective
  2. Target Market

Objective

What is this marketing plan hoping to accomplish? Do you have a clearly defined goal for your efforts? This is where you lean on your abilities to create a SMART goal. Take the time to include language from the company's guiding vision. Include something measurable and time-bound to show that you’re willing to be held accountable for the success (or failure) of this strategy you’re about to outline.

Examples

  • To increase traffic to your website by 20% in 6 months.
  • To generate 1,000 new marketing-qualified leads before your new location opens.
  • To sell half a million brake pads before the company folds and the entire town is shuttered. (Okay, this might be more of a sales goal and an outdated movie reference, but it’s a good example of a SMART goal.)

Target Market

Who are you trying to reach? What does the audience for your message look like? What do they care about? It’s worth taking some time to develop a few personas here. Outline your target market by some common denominators of the people you’d like to do business with. Where do they live? How old are they? Where do they shop? What do they spend their time and money on? 

But take it a step further and outline what motivates them. Really get into the headspace of your target audience. Then, take some time to outline what they need. (Hint: What they need are the products or services that your organization provides, so outline them in a way that matches up with the things that motivate them.)

Example

If you’re an accounting consultant for government contractors, your motivations/needs outline might look like this:

  • Motivations: A long-term relationship serving a government agency and maximizing their profit and growth by keeping their business organized and avoiding paybacks and penalties to their contract holder.
  • Needs: An experienced team of accountants who can guide them through the often complex and tedious process of audit processes, including reviewing accounting systems, internal controls, and segregation of duties, as well as developing an indirect rate structure, drafting incurred cost submissions, and maintaining flexible price contracts year over year.

Your well-developed Target accomplishes one vital step of your journey – getting buy-in from the people who hope to come along with you. It’s likely you’re serving someone else in your marketing planning and preparations. Call them stakeholders, your boss, the board of directors, or your business partner, whoever it is that will be contributing to the success of the marketing efforts you’re about to outline, better be on the same page with you. 

If you’ve started with a target that’s too lofty or simply off track from the greater company objective, or if your target market doesn’t describe the kind of people your company wants to attract, then stakeholders will know that the rest of the marketing strategy can be cast aside as misguided or uninformed. Beginning your marketing plan pitch with a clearly stated objective and detailed target market will ensure you have buy-in before you take another step.

2. Craft your Talking Points

I’m a firm believer that people are moved to act by the words they hear and read. Don’t believe me? Think about those sad puppy faces you see on TV whenever Sarah McLachlan starts singing. Without a plea for viewers to call and start their monthly donations, you’d be left wondering what could possibly be done to prevent the inhumane treatment of animals. It’s a cliché example, but it’s clear. You might be moved by what you see, but you won’t act unless instructed how to do so.

This section of your marketing strategy could include the following components:

  • Positioning statement
  • Tagline
  • Key Messages

Positioning Statement

Can you craft a single sentence that could only be true of your company or organization? This helps to quickly distinguish what is unique about your mission and what makes your marketing efforts worthwhile. This sentence isn’t something your audience may ever hear or read, but they’ll catch pieces of it if you’re committed to developing your messaging.

I use this template when crafting a positioning statement

  • What: The only [category]
  • How: that [differentiation characteristic]
  • Who: for [customer]
  • Where: in [geographic location]
  • Why: who [need state]
  • When: during [underlying trend]

A positioning statement could end up sounding something like this:

The only primary care provider who offers healthcare outside of the traditional “fee-for-service” model insurance companies thrive on for cost-conscious employers and relationship-minded consumers in Anytown, USA, who want to have an enduring relationship with their healthcare provider in a time when provider-patient interaction is decreasing and costs are increasing.

There’s a lot going on in that statement, but if you break it down, it answers all the questions about what makes your organization unique.

Tagline

Just do it. 

You can do it. We can help.

Every kiss begins with Kay.

What marketer doesn’t love a clever or compelling tagline? If you’ve taken the time to craft one for your company or for a campaign, you’d better take the time to record it on your marketing strategy. We need to keep everyone on the same page with this document, so it doesn’t hurt to restate what might seem obvious.

Key messages

What are the main points you want your audience to walk away with? Is it a surprising stat? Do you have a benefit statement that cuts to the heart of the need for your product or service? Is there a differentiator from your positioning statement that would resonate particularly well with your audience? Make a list of 3-5 sentences that capture the main message you want to shine through in your marketing, and record them here.

Other elements

Other elements to consider including, would be the plan you want to give your audience. Have you articulated how you hope to guide them from their current situation towards the life they want? What about your call to action? Do you want them to call, visit your website, or walk into your storefront? Again, the goal of putting all of this onto a single document is to get buy-in from the stakeholders within your organization.

3. Outline Your Tactics

This is where the ideas start flowing and will likely be the bulk of your strategy document. 

The tactics portion of your strategy document should include: 

  • Guiding Strategy
  • Tactics

Guiding Strategy

Start with a paragraph that outlines the guiding strategy at the highest level. This is your executive summary for the lengthy section of your strategy document.  

At The Marketing Squad, we are an inbound (content) marketing agency at our core, so our guiding strategy statements usually incorporate that language somehow. 

Example

If you’re an online influencer looking to get your subscription box service up and running, your guiding strategy might sound something like this:

  • To accomplish the stated objective, we recommend (online influencer) implementing a comprehensive content marketing strategy aligned with strategic one-to-one and one-to-many networking activity and targeted affiliate network building.

In a single statement, your stakeholders will know how you plan to achieve your objective. If you’ve built enough trust with them, they could choose to skip the rest of the tactics section. 

Tactics

It’s time to deliver. You’re the marketing leader/expert, and all eyes are on you to have the creative and strategic ideas to launch your company into the stratosphere, right? Feels that way sometimes. 

In this section, you’ll line out all the ideas you have for moving the needle toward the objective you articulated earlier. It’s helpful to categorize your ideas in a logical way. General categories like content marketing, email marketing, social media, digital ads, sales support, etc might be all that you need. Again, the goal with this document is to get buy-in, but it’s also to direct the efforts of the marketing team you lead. So, put enough detail to demonstrate each idea's relevance but not so much to overwhelm your audience.

When I’m putting a marketing plan together, I like to give a bit of direction on how to carry out the step. For example, if you’re advocating for a drip campaign to accompany a content offer, give a list of two or three content offer ideas and list the topics of the 3-to 4 emails that could follow after your new marketing-qualified lead has been generated. If you’re suggesting your organization participate in trade shows, list a few along with relevant details like expected attendance, hosting organization, etc. If you think a website overhaul including new content is needed, add a bit of keyword research to direct your copywriting efforts. Just give a taste to show the powers that be, the direction you want to go. Again, you’re looking for buy-in. (Did I mention that?)

4. Choose your Tools

Look, Batman doesn’t have superpowers. He’s just a resourceful guy with the determination to do the right thing (and a lot of money to pay for gadgets and git-ups, but that’s beside the point). You don’t have to have superpowers either. You just need the right tools.

So, it’s one thing to know what you’re going to do. It’s an entirely different thing to know how you’re going to do it. As a digital marketer, you likely have numerous tools in your digital toolbox. If you’re introducing new tactics with this marketing strategy (and it’s likely you are, otherwise you won’t be going through this exercise) you’re going to need to account for how you’ll get the work done.

Step back and think about your full landscape of marketing. What platform is your website built upon? What functionality does your website need to support your new marketing endeavors? Does your strategy call for email tactics that your current tools don’t support? If so, what will you need from a new email marketing tool? Do you need a CRM to better organize your database of contacts, categorize leads, and track deals in a pipeline? Will you begin engaging on a new social media platform or utilizing a social scheduling tool? Do you need new hardware to be able to produce podcasts or video content? Will you need sales collateral in the form of sales kits or tradeshow displays?

Take the time to scan through your entire list of tactics to ensure you have a plan for implementing them with the proper tools. Give notes about the functionality you need from each new tool or your vision for how they’ll be utilized.

5. Set your Timeline

You’re in the home stretch now. You know what you’re trying to accomplish, who you are trying to reach, and how you plan to reach them. Now, you need to set expectations for when you’ll be able to reach your milestones. 

No one simply hops in their car and decides to head to Nepal for their epic Mt. Everest summit the next day. The journey will happen in phases. It’s going to require more than one mode of transportation, and your body will take time to adjust to the conditions. Plus, you can’t possibly scale the world’s tallest mountain peak in one day. 

Slow down here. Think about what you can realistically achieve with the resources you have now and outline a plan to utilize the new resources you’ll pick up along the way.

Think in Phases

When I’m creating a marketing plan, I’m thinking about the next 6 to 12, maybe 18, months. I consider what the quick wins are and how we can get some momentum early in the process. What can we accomplish in the next 90 days? 

Then, I think about how to build on that momentum and strategically introduce new tactics. Your marketing team is going to need time to come up with new sales collateral, so you probably shouldn’t plan to have a trade show booth in the first phase of your plan. You can’t begin blogging if you haven’t done your keyword research or enhanced your website with the proper functionality. Think about how your efforts scale. In each phase of your strategy, you should be introducing a new tactic or going deeper into one you’ve already implemented. 

Take a minute to name or label each phase to help your stakeholders quickly understand what you’re trying to accomplish in each phase. 

Example

If you’re trying to introduce a new service to your well-established professional services B2B brand, your phases could look like this:

  • Q1 – Launch Phase
  • Q2-Q3 – Engage Your Target Audience
  • Q4-Q1 Next Year – Establish Your Customer Base
  • Q2 Next Year and Beyond – Grow Your Customer Base

The goal in fleshing out the timeline portion of your marketing plan is to both set expectations and invite accountability. You want to win for your organization, but you also want to have balance. Getting agreement on the timeline will be critical to your long-term success.

6. Select your Team

The plan is in place! You’ve set your sights on a target, and you know how you’re going to get there.

Well, almost. Another old adage comes to mind here. “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.” You’re going to need a team around you. I’m not advocating for a Jerry Maguire-style “Who’s coming with me?” scene, but you will want to know who’s going to be by your side for the journey.

Now, maybe you are the marketing department. If so, great! You’ve got the trust of your team to carry out the plan, but it’s likely you don’t have all the skills needed to execute on each tactic. If so, do you need to outsource some of the deliverables? Will you hire a contractor or an agency? Present your plan on this document. 

Maybe you’re ready to hire fresh talent. What will their title and roles be? Spell that out here. To whom will they report? Will they be full-time, part-time, contractor, etc? Make your pitch for how a new team member will help you reach your goals and ultimately support the company’s greater vision.

Maybe you could accomplish what you need by outsourcing or hiring in-house. Present the pros and cons of each path. Many roads may lead to the same destination. Help your stakeholders see the best path.

Other Elements to Consider

While the six elements detailed above are critical to developing an effective marketing plan and to getting buy-in from decision-makers, you could consider some additional components to help expedite the approval process.

I like to include an executive summary at the beginning of any marketing plan. This hits the highlights of each part of the plan and gives decision-makers a chance to see what they’re getting into before taking a deep dive. Keep this section to one-page max. Highlight some points. Make it skimmable. Your superiors will thank you.

Create a go-to-market checklist that helps you and your team think about all the elements they need to have in place before you roll out your campaign. Categorize different points if it’s helpful. While you’re still in the strategizing headspace, take advantage of the time to think about everything you need before you begin your journey, because once you walk out that front door, the world is going to come at you fast, and you’ll be in react-respond mode. You’ll thank your past self for sharing their clear-headed thoughts.

If it helps to make your case, show what your competition is doing and how your strategy aligns with successful trends in the marketplace. This could look like screenshots of websites, social media, and emails, or it could be facts and stats demonstrating the proven effectiveness of the strategy you want to employ.

Now, at this point, you might be thinking I’m missing the seventh “T” in my list of essential elements of a marketing plan – T’budget. Well, you make a great point. Money is tricky. Often you know how much you have to work with before setting out to create a plan. Other times, as is often the case for us on a consulting basis, your business leaders just want to know what they should be doing to get ahead and will work to figure out the costs based on their predetermined, albeit loose, budget later. Each portion of your marketing plan is going to need finer points. Again, if the goal is to get buy-in, following the six T’s should get you where you need to be.

Are You Going Places?

No one wants to go through life on autopilot. We all want to be going somewhere exciting and living a great adventure. It’s true in our personal lives as well as our professional pursuits. The key is to know how you’re going to get there. 

With a well-crafted plan, you can go places, but it’s going to take buy-in. So commit to making the effort to fleshing out a marketing strategy that helps your organization, and you get to where you want to go. Include the elements I’ve shared and pitch your plan with confidence, knowing that you’ve accounted for the challenges that you’ll inevitably face on the road ahead.

If you’d like help developing a marketing plan for your business, we’re here to help. We’ve been guiding businesses towards sustained growth for more than 16 years and have seen what works and doesn’t. 

Ready to talk? Let’s connect.

5 Key Functions of Marketing

  1. Amplify Your Brand
  2. Grow Your Audience
  3. Empower Your Sales
  4. Sharpen Your Tools
  5. Build Your Team

At The Marketing Squad, we stress outcomes over activity. It’s a part of our Strategic Doer core value. Sure, what you do is important, but in life, it matters far less what kept you busy and far more what you accomplished.

Case in point, no one seems to care how many laps a long-armed, lanky kid from Baltimore swam in his life, but they sure are impressed by all the Olympic medals and world records he set when we learned his name was Michael Phelps. How about in the world of children’s literature? I don’t recall ever hearing anyone talk about the countless napkin sketches and doodles Theodor Geisel created, but we all talk about the timeless books he authored and illustrated under his pen name Dr. Seuss. It’s about accomplishments.

If the ultimate goal of marketing is to bridge the gap between customers’ problems and companies’ solutions, then we haven’t accomplished anything by simply marketing – that is, declaring the virtues of a product or service to a target audience. We have to have something to show for our efforts.

For this reason, we like to think about our marketing efforts through the lens of accomplishments. We’ve identified five things that marketing should be accomplishing for your business. If you’re hitting all five, then it’s likely that you’re solving your customer’s problems which means your business is growing.

1. Amplify Your Brand

This is where most people start when they think about marketing, and so will we. Amplifying your brand has everything to do with what your brand looks and sounds like. In this post-modern age, your brand isn’t your logo stamped on a box, it’s everything about how your brand feels. It’s what people think of when they hear the name of your company or see your product. It’s the experience people have when interacting with your brand.

Marketing’s job is to elevate your brand above all others…or at least your direct competition…in the eyes of your target audience. In this regard, you have numerous considerations when seeking to Amplify Your Brand.

Logo Design

What does your logo design communicate? Is it time for an update? Does your 30-year-old logo scream outdated and behind the times or well-established and trustworthy? Maybe your company is a start-up, and your logo shouts, “I tinkered in Canva for hours on end, and this is the best I could come up with!” Your logo might be your first impression with your potential customers. Does it feel the way you want it to feel?

Brand Messaging

If people are moved to act by the words they hear or read, does your brand sound the way it should? Does it speak directly to your customer’s felt needs? Does your brand give your audience a sense of competence and confidence, or do the words you use simply confuse the very people you’re trying to help? Brand messaging starts with your slogan and extends into every piece of marketing your company will ever do.

Photo and Video

Second to your logo, the visuals you use might be the quickest way someone recognizes your brand. Have you curated a specific aesthetic with your photography? Do your videos lean on consistent editing techniques, animations, and graphics? Are you mindful of how your brand colors are incorporated into your imagery? Great photography and videography speak volumes about how you want to make a connection with your audience, especially in this digital, always online age.

Website Design

If the solution to everything is to “google it,” then what you look like online is of paramount importance. Everyone knows our attention spans are continuing to shorten, to the point now where research has shown that you have no more than 15 seconds to capture your website visitors before they make the decision to stay or go. (I think that number is generous and will only continue to go down.) Great website design brings together all the above elements into one cohesive experience and points your visitors to a clear call-to-action.

Advertising

While we are an inbound marketing agency first, we see great value in strategically using advertising dollars to gain brand awareness, but that is never the end goal. We want to see lead forms completed and deals closed. Regardless, sometimes the quickest way to Amplify Your Brand to a new audience is through the judicious use of an advertising budget. Digital ads, billboards, streaming tv ads, etc – they can all get the job done – when used in support of other strategic marketing efforts.

2. Grow Your Audience

If you’re gonna sell anything, you must have a captive audience. The guys in the mall or big box stores trying to sell you a new phone service or cable subscription know this better than anyone. Their challenge is getting you to stop and take notice. Digital marketing, specifically inbound marketing, works differently. Our goal isn’t to interrupt you while you’re focused on something else – “Sorry buddy, I came to Costco today to buy a 32-pack of undershirts and a bucket of mayonnaise, not to switch mobile carriers on a whim.” – it’s to be found when you’re seeking a solution to your problem.

Great marketing takes a consistent, steady approach to attracting a larger audience, so you can engage more customers and delight them until they are your raving fans. A few considerations must be made if you’re in a growth mindset.

Strategy Development

Again, we have to begin with the end in mind. Do you have a marketing strategy developed based on measurable objectives that directly support the goals and vision of your business? Does the marketing strategy account for everything it should, like identifying a narrow target audience, the timing of approaches and campaigns, or the tactics you will commit to consistently employing? We really shouldn’t set our hands to work on any marketing activity until we have an agreement with the powers that be on a strategy.

Research and Content Planning

The goal is to be found when people are searching for solutions to the problems you solve. This starts with knowing what people are searching for – keyword research – and determining a plan for being found – content planning. Inbound marketing is rooted in the concept that creating content that answers questions and provides value converts visitors into customers. This doesn't happen by accident. It takes a methodical approach with a bias toward hitting publish.

Content Publishing

Publishing content takes many forms, but in terms of digital marketing, we’re talking about things like blogs, case studies, content offers (free stuff you give to your website visitors in exchange for an email address), videos, emails…the list goes on. What kind of content can you publish to your website and other channels that will address your audience’s questions?

Social Media

This is where you extend the reach of your newly published content. Do you know which platforms your audience engages? Does your marketing team know how to engage those platforms? Is using the right hashtags all it takes, or do you need to do something more creative to get in front of more eyeballs? Do you need to create a profile on the new social platform that was just released, or will it fade into the background just as quickly as it appeared?

3. Empower Your Sales

At the end of the day, who is closing the deal? Who is held accountable for moving the needle and helping to achieve topline results? It’s the sales team. Effective marketing works hand-in-hand with the sales function of a thriving business. Where marketing is responsible for capturing the lead and cultivating it toward a sale, the sales team should still be able to lean on the marketing team to help create, close, and ultimately capitalize on the deal.

Marketing has a few very tangible responsibilities toward empowering sales reps to hit the streets and make the sale. These duties center around the tools a sales team needs to succeed.

CRM

If your marketing is succeeding at the first two points – Amplifying Your Brand and Growing Your Audience – then you’ll be producing leads for your sales team. Where do you file all those website lead form fills or phone calls you’ve achieved? A well-organized CRM (customer relationship management tool) is critical. Marketing should take great concern and care for what information is captured in your CRM and how that information is organized. This enables informed decisions to be made about what kind of marketing efforts will help capitalize on new opportunities or achieve critical sales goals.

Sales Kit

Does your sales team walk out the door to an initial connection meeting or that final touch point to help close the deal feeling confident and empowered? Are they ready to answer any questions or objections from the prospective client they’ve been working for months to land? A good set of printed materials that speak to your company's capabilities, product offerings, and differentiators makes all the difference. These can take many forms, but the key is that the messaging is consistent with all the other marketing a prospect has interacted with. That is the marketing team’s concern.

Email Marketing and Automation

Maintaining a connection with a prospect until they become a customer can be done in many ways. While nothing can quite compare to direct human interaction in the form of a phone call or face-to-face meeting, offering valuable information in the form of an email can help keep a lead warm until it’s ready to close. Is your marketing team offering automated follow-ups to lead form fills and drip campaigns to contacts made at in-person events to help keep prospects connected to your brand in a meaningful way?

4. Sharpen Your Tools

In the 90s, Ron Popiel made his rotisserie oven famous with the phrase “Set it and forget it!” It was a great mantra if your goal is to cook a delicious 5-pound bird with minimal effort. But the set-it-and-forget-it method doesn’t cut it in the fast-paced world of digital marketing. New tools and techniques are constantly introduced, and an organization that stands idly by resting on the laurels of last decade’s hard work will get passed by.

You need to commit to regularly sharpening your digital tools, ensuring they are up to the task of meeting the demands of supporting a dynamic business. When we talk about sharpening your tools, below are the considerations.

Website Development

Maybe you had your website built three years ago. Does it still speak to your current growth strategy? Are users able to interact with it in a way that makes sense to them and leads to the outcomes you have in mind? Do you need to add pages and functionality to respond to customer demand, changing industry compliance standards, or other factors outside your control?

SEO

Does your website check all of the boxes for SEO? Perhaps you optimized it inside and out – both for technical and on-page SEO best practices – a few years ago. Is it current with the latest SEO trends and algorithm factors? Does your website actually rank for the keywords for which you want to be found? What about page load speed? Google cares about this factor, and research shows that a mobile visitor will bounce if it takes more than 3 seconds for your website to load.

Digital Ads

While we primarily think of advertising in the Amplify Your Brand bucket, we think the sharpening your tools (read optimizing) mindset is worth noting here. Many companies have made use of the growing number of digital advertising platforms to reach new eyes. They have set aside a monthly budget for digital ads and put the time into setting up a solid AdWords campaign or something similar, but then they walked away. Leads continue to come in directly from these ads, but chances are they are paying more per click than they should or missing opportunities with other keywords. Taking the time to refine their blade – i.e., optimize their ad budget, keywords, bid strategy, etc. – will result in the same or even better outcome with less energy expended – i.e., money spent. Are you wasting resources on an outdated or completely forgotten ad strategy?

Marketing Technology Tools

Often referred to as MarTech, the ever-expanding world of digital marketing tools offers new ways to automate your marketing, engage customers in novel ways, and generally simplify your life…if you know how to wield them. Having a team that is competent in the tools in your arsenal is key. We all love technology, but the minute there is an interruption in service or an expected malfunction or error, temperatures begin to rise. Does your marketing team understand how your tools are connected, and do they have the resources to resolve issues should – strike that – when they arise?

5. Build Your Team

This is the most overlooked area of a business, but one that likely has the greatest impact on the overall health of an organization and your happiness as a business leader – workplace culture. Most people think workforce health is an HR problem to solve, but the influence marketing can have on recruitment, retention, and organizational success cannot be overstated.

Marketing can make significant contributions to your company’s bottom line but shoring up some of the following considerations.

Internal Communication

Your workforce is your sales team. What they say about their employer and workplace outside of the four walls of your business echoes throughout the community. Team members who are included and informed will be your most positive and vocal advocates in the communities you want to serve. Does your marketing team take an active interest in the communication that your employees receive? Does the messaging of your internal communication align with your overall organizational goals and core values?

Core Values

Has your company taken the time to decipher what makes it tick? What are the shared values that hold your company together? What are the non-negotiables when hiring new team members or choosing to let go of existing ones? If your industry dried up overnight and you had to completely reinvent your company, what are the standards you would hold onto and ensure they were carried forward into your new business venture? Your marketing team should help craft the language used in your core value development process. That same language, when appropriate, should make its way into your efforts to Grow Your Audience.

Office Signage and Aesthetic

One of the primary ways to drive home your core values – other than actually living them out in your day-to-day business operations – is to adorn your walls with them. Your marketing team should take the lead on the overall aesthetic of your workspace, not only for the sake of the clients and customers you’ll welcome through your doors but also for your team members who spend 40+ hours per week there. Everything from the color you paint your walls to the restroom signage should coincide with the feeling your brand is trying to elicit from your customers. Have you asked your marketing team what they think about your workspace?

Recruiting

Any growing business is going to be concerned about bringing on fresh talent. Many of the same tactics implemented to reach new customers can be used to reach new employees. Seeing recruitment as a function of your HR department solely is a disservice to them and your company as a whole. Include your marketing team in this process. Have them treat your HR team like a client and let the creativity run wild. Your HR team will have a lot of fun with it, and the marketing team will be reinvigorated in the process.

What have you done for me lately?

So, the question remains, what has your marketing done for you lately? Do you feel as though your company’s marketing has checked any of these boxes?

When was the last time you stepped back from your logo to ask, “Is this serving our brand?

How often are you producing new content to reach a new audience?

Is your marketing team proactively finding ways to support your sales team?

Do they have a Faithful Steward mindset toward your digital footprint, or do they take the set-it-and-forget-it approach to your marketing tools like your website?

Does your marketing team live up to your core values?

Great marketing always begins with the end in mind. That requires a commitment to outcomes. That’s our mindset here at The Marketing Squad. If that’s yours too, then we should talk.

Ways Marketing Should Support Your Sales Team

  1. Capture the Lead
  2. Cultivate the Lead
  3. Create the Deal
  4. Close the Deal
  5. Capitalize on the Deal

Marketing and Sales. Sales and Marketing. Are they two sides of the same coin? Or are these two core business functions better understood through another paradigm?

Perhaps the age-old debate of the chicken and the egg is more fitting here? Which comes first after all? Does Marketing precede Sales or is it the other way around?

Or how about the horse and cart analogy? Would the cart be placed before the horse if Marketing drove business development decisions rather than Sales? Does Marketing follow the guidance and urges of Sales or does Sales trust the leading and insights of Marketing? 

Maybe Sales and Marketing are just cogs in a machine or phases on a flywheel that move in harmony with Operations to produce the kind of products and services their customers love.

*takes a deep breath*

Either way you look at it, if your organization is to succeed, it’s likely that your sales and marketing teams must operate in lockstep. They should be striving for the same goal, following the same path, and speaking the same language along the way.

Empower Your Sales Team

As a marketing agency that likes to see ourselves as an outsourced marketing team to our partner clients, it is very clear that Sales leads the way in our context. Marketing serves in support of Sales. 

We listen to our clients to glean insights into their industry and understand the types of opportunities they want to pursue. Often we work with business owners, general managers, or senior sales leaders who are well-positioned to have the perspective necessary to lead their companies toward growth. We do well to trust their leading while bringing our unique vantage point to bear for the sole purpose of growing their business. Often the primary driver of that growth is Sales.

As such, we see one of the central roles of any marketing team is to empower the sales team. Plain and simple, if the sales team feels that the marketing team has their back and is supporting their efforts, the organization will win.

From Leads to Deals to Dollars

In the spirit of speaking the same language, marketing should embrace the terminology of the sales team. 

In anglers’ terms, leads are bites and nibbles, deals are fish on the line, and dollars are fish in the boat. 

Marketing is gonna generate the leads. Sales is gonna close the deal. But a lot happens between those two steps and a good marketing team plays a critical role every step of the way.

How Marketing Supports Your Sales Team

It’s self-evident that the marketing team is executing a strategy to get your brand in front of as many of the right sets of eyeballs as possible. They’re growing your audience through things like content marketing and social media and amplifying your brand with impressive visuals and messaging. So our focus here is simply the relationship between Sales and Marketing.

We have identified five ways that Marketing supports Sales in their quest to grow their business. If your marketing team embraces these five responsibilities, it’s likely your sales team will see the results your company needs to achieve your goals.

I got alliterative here, so please take a moment to appreciate this concise, yet comprehensive collection of constructive commands for conquering cooperation in your company. 

Here are the Five Cs of Empowering Your Sales Team. Ready? Here we go!

1. Capture the Lead

The flashiest website in the world is a worthless collection of code if it doesn’t lead visitors to a clear call to action that converts them from a window shopper into a lead. This can be done through things like compelling copy that leads to unique landing pages for specific sales initiatives. Marketing could also create landing pages for individual sales team members with bios, intro videos, contact info, and helpful links. Anything that would serve a sales pro out in the field meeting with prospects.

Another overlooked opportunity is with establishing a CRM database (customer relationship management) that integrates with your website to capture leads directly into a pipeline that can be reviewed by the sales team. The information gleaned from a CRM that has been intentionally constructed and constantly updated is priceless. This information serves all areas of the business.

2. Cultivate the Lead

Now that you have a lead, what do you do with it? Certainly, your sales team will be following up to qualify the lead, but marketing has a role to play in the meantime. Here we talk about things like email marketing and automation. Do you have a content plan for your email marketing and does it speak to the types of leads you are capturing?

Good email marketing is focused first and foremost on offering value. Every email should give away something to the reader. Link to a recent blog you published, share a case study highlighting how you helped one of your clients succeed, link to a video testimonial of a satisfied customer who overcame a problem many of your leads may be facing.

And don’t overlook your automated email campaigns. Do you have drip campaigns set to trigger anytime a content offer is downloaded on your site or when someone fills out a sales-qualified lead form? 

What about your social media? Your leads are still online seeing messages from you and your competition. Be mindful of the content you share on various social channels and keep a healthy balance of offering value while making bold calls to action.

Marketing’s job is to keep the lead connected to your brand and reduce any friction until the moment they become a customer…and beyond, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

3. Create the Deal

This is where things start to take off. Once Sales have made a connection with the lead, Marketing’s job is far from over. The Marketing Team has an important role to play in supporting the in-person interactions a sales rep will have with a prospective client.

At The Marketing Sq uad, we often have two key meetings with prospects – a connect meeting and discovery meeting. In the former, we are qualifying the lead to see if they are a fit. (Often this is over coffee, but sometimes it’s a 10-minute phone call.) The discovery meeting follows and is the opportunity to build a plan for the prospective client. In both interactions, having polished and professional print materials is huge. A sales rep walking into a meeting with some well-planned and produced collateral will feel confident in his or her ability to close the deal. Imagine a sales kit with a company overview, value statements, details about product or service offerings, information about your team, and more. Surely that would move the needle for you.

Sometimes a sales meeting calls for a presentation. Having a solid template for a sales pitch is a great starting point, but also a marketing team that’s poised to produce specific presentations for the right opportunities is a big win for a sales-driven organization.

4. Close the Deal

This step is likely the most overlooked. Every salesperson’s greatest frustration is when a deal goes cold. You met with the prospect, built some rapport, scoped some work, and put time and energy into building a custom proposal, only to not hear back on the deal for days, or week, or even months. Ugh. 

Marketing can help create opportunities for a sales rep to follow up in a way that offers value and doesn’t come across as pushy or desperate. This comes in the form of portfolio pieces, case studies, and testimonials. Imagine how much better that “Hey, are you still interested?” email could be if it started with, “Our company recently had success serving a company like yours. Here’s how we did it.” Then link to some relevant examples of your work posted to your website or YouTube account.

Marketing should be creating reasons for Sales to reconnect with deals so more proposals are signed rather than expired.

5. Captilize on the Deal

This step helps to close the loop and hopefully turns new customers into repeat business. What company doesn’t love repeat business?

Here, Marketing has the opportunity to gauge client satisfaction to see if the messages you’re sending in your marketing are being backed up by your operations. By sending surveys soliciting feedback from your clients your sales team may learn about opportunities to go deeper with a client. But more than that, the feedback you receive will let you know how you can improve and make your offering that much more remarkable in the marketplace.

Additionally, by establishing a robust CRM integrated with your email tools, your marketing team will be able to target certain clients with messages to inform them of products and services they may not yet have enjoyed from your company. This philosophy was made famous by founder of Temple University Russell Conwell many years ago in his speech turned booked titled “Acres of Diamonds.” The opportunity to grow your business likely starts with people in your own backyard.

Watch this video with me and Bryce Raley, our founder and sales leader, talking about this very topic. Watch it on 2x speed. You’ll thank yourself afterward.

This stuff makes us tick. We love talking about it, but more than that, we love doing it. If you’ve got a sales team in need of support, please consider connecting with us. We’d love to have the opportunity to hear how you hope to grow your business and identify the obstacles standing in the way. It may just be that some support from an outsourced marketing agency is just want you need.

A recent search of the internet told me that when watching a video people absorb 95% of the intended message. I also learned that 84% of people who watched an explainer video made a purchasing decision afterward. I even discovered that videos in ad campaigns increased sales by 34%. So while 64% of all statistics may be made up, I tend to believe the numbers I saw based upon personal experience.

It’s clear, video content gets results. But simply setting up a camera and capturing some audio and video won’t guarantee you get the results you’re seeking. You need to have an outcome in mind and let that desired outcome carry you through the production process.

Defining your outcome

When you set out to create a video the best place to start is to decide what outcome you are trying to achieve. A defined purpose for your video will translate into a clear message for your audience. A clear message in turn leads to the action you want your audience to take and action equals results.

Defined Purpose > Clear Message > Specific Call-to-Action > Desired Outcome

So let’s say it together… “Lights, camera, ACTION!” 

(Sorry, cheesy, I know. I’m a dad. What do you want from me?)

Four Outcomes of Video Content

We want all of our videos to get results, right?

More sales…a more equipped staff...a jovial audience ready to hear from a keynote speaker…a well-informed customer base who understands the changes coming to the services you provide. You get the picture. Video content can serve a number of purposes.

It’s helpful to categorize these outcomes to give our videos a very clear purpose from the earliest stages of planning through to their premier. 

Here are the four outcomes your video content can accomplish for your audience:

Entertain

Everyone loves a riveting story, a good laugh, or a particularly skillful, artistic expression. These are some of the things that entertain us and videos can do a great job of delivering those outcomes. 

As a business, when your goal is to entertain your audience you aren’t so much looking for them to take specific action as much as you are looking to forge a bond between them and yourself. Think of the countless YouTubers who have made a living off of simply entertaining an audience. They have built up a brand based on their ability to make their audience feel good. The more people you share a positive emotion with, the more your audience, and ultimately, your brand grows.

Examples of videos in a business setting that entertain: A JibJab-style video of the C-suite as dancing elves at your office Christmas party; An employee attempting a silly stunt to promote a product launch

Educate

In some cases you need to impart new skills or understanding to your audience. Perhaps your workforce needs to adopt a new process to help increase efficiency or your distributors need to learn how to price your new product line to streamline the order fulfillment process. Maybe your customers need to know how to operate your product to minimize the number of support calls you receive or you want to attract new customers by offering your industry insights or tips on performing your craft.

Educating your audience elevates you and your brand and positions you as knowledgeable and trustworthy. Educating your audience also helps them to feel empowered and supported which are emotions we all want to experience. 

Examples of educational videos: A live seminar about a new process captured on video to share with new hires; a how-to video linked from a QR code on your product packaging

Inform

Often the goal is simply to let your audience know some new information. This could be a transition in your company ownership or leadership structure, changes to your product line or services menu, or details about an upcoming event. 

The goal of this kind of message is for your audience to feel included. (No one likes to be in the dark about something in which they have a vested interest.) But ultimately you want your audience to take some sort of action, whether direct or indirect. Direct…buy the new product or sign up for the event. Indirect…feel reassured about the direction of the company and share those positive thoughts with others.

Examples of informational videos: An internal video sent to employees about important upcoming events and milestones; A message about changes to a service agreement with existing customers

Inspire

A stirring message or particularly compelling testimony can tug at people’s heartstrings and open up them up to be receptive to a meaningful call to action. Whether you want your video to drive donations, enlist volunteer help, or encourage your workforce to go the extra mile, the key is to strike the right tone. 

Hope and optimism go a long way in an inspirational video. Desperation and dread can turn an audience off quickly, but in the right instances may be appropriate. The key is to find the right balance. 

Also noteworthy is the importance of the visuals. Inspirational videos rely just as much if not more so on the visuals than the words being used. If the goal is to elicit an emotion it will take both sight and sound to do it.

Examples of inspirational videos: An internal training video designed to compel new hires to show empathy towards company guests like this video from Chick-Fil-A.

Mixing video styles

Think of these categories of video content as colors on your palette. You could mix two or maybe three of these colors together to get a beautiful new color. But let’s face it, none of us are Bob Ross. If we go mixing Phthalo Green, Alizarin Crimson, and Yellow Ochre all willy nilly on our palette it’s gonna come out looking like something else appealing than Van Dyke Brown, to say the least.

It can be done however. Here are some examples of brands that effectively blended outcomes into a single video.

Entertaining + Educational – Squatty Potty

Informative + Inspiring – Operation Christmas Child

A talented video producer, but maybe even more so, experienced on-camera talent can help you achieve more than one outcome effectively. But it requires a good bit of planning, scripting, possibly rehearsal, and maybe even casting of professional talent to do it. This is starting to sound costly and time-consuming, isn’t it? In some cases, all this effort is what the message calls for, but often you can communicate your message clearly by leaning into just one of the categories.

Know your limits

The key is to know your limitations and to set out to accomplish just one – two at most – of the stated outcomes. 

Maybe you have some production equipment and a quiet room. When your CEO asks for a quick announcement video about an impactful retirement within your company – inform – you know you can produce a quality video with a clear message. But when she wants to include a parody of a funny moment from this summer’s company picnic – entertain – and now you fear the message getting lost. It’s time to seek some assistance or coach your CEO towards a more manageable production to ensure the desired outcome.

Remember, the key is clarity. Don’t try to do too much. 

Bob Ross spent countless years honing his craft before taking to public television to whip up 30-minute masterpieces. Don’t rush into mixing colors if you don’t need to.

Determine the purpose of your video, define the message you want to convey, consider the action you want your audience to take, then, and only then, should you set out to produce your video. The result will be an outcome that supports your mission and goals.

If you’ve got a message you’re eager to share, let us know. We love telling stories across various media, but especially through visual media like video. Check out some of our recent video work and give us a shout if you’re ready to get started.

Creating a Delightful Client Experience From A to Z

Kevin Peterson has recently taken on the role of Vice President of Client Experience at The Marketing Squad. In this role, Kevin utilizes his gifts of creativity and leadership to better equip our team to delight our clients throughout their experience with The Squad.

Everything I need to know about the client experience I learned when I was 17 years old. My second foray into the workforce, after a brief stint as a food bar runner at a buffet restaurant, was as a hardware store clerk in my hometown of Junction City, KS. Between mornings of reorganizing pipe fittings and afternoons of inventorying endless stacks of 2x4s, I often found myself alone in the break room with nothing to keep me company but a Totino’s pizza and the retail-centric motivation posters on the panel walls. The message of one particular poster has resonated with me in the 20+ years since I first read it.

"A customer who has had a good experience will tell 2 people, but a customer who has a bad experience will tell 12 or more people."

Now, to be honest, I don’t remember the exact phrasing of the poster or the statistics it quoted, but I certainly remember the impression it left. The sting of a bad customer experience lasts longer and elicits a greater response than the delight of a good one.

I think the fact that I don’t remember the exact statistic further illustrates my point. The impression that little poster left me with has endured more than 20 years. A dissatisfied client may not remember exactly what was said or the chain of events that led to their dissatisfaction, but they will remember how it made them feel.

Now maybe it’s my inner cynic talking, but, for me, the reverse of that adage ingrained in me during my youth is now true. I’m surprised by excellent customer service these days, because I’ve come to expect the opposite – minimal effort and disregard for the customer’s needs. If a company goes out of their way to do the right thing and offer excellence service, I’m delighted – and, chances are, I’ll talk about it.

That’s my goal as VP of Client Experience at The Marketing Squad. I want to create an environment where clients are delighted. Every interaction with our people and every engagement with our product should exceed expectations.

Ultimately, the client experience comes down to two key factors: our people and our product.

OUR PEOPLE

At The Marketing Squad, we’ve built a team of people who work tirelessly to meet our clients' needs. They do that by listening to our clients, responding with solutions, resolving the issue, and following up to ensure we hit the mark. These four steps define all of our client interactions, big and small.

1. We Listen

It starts with making ourselves available to hear from and meet with our clients. Our partner clients experience this through regular monthly strategic meetings and as many touch points as it takes to maintain unity and agreement throughout the month. Project clients are heard through kickoff meetings, follow up emails, phone calls to update project status, and more.

But we do more than listen. We’re invested in our client relationships, bringing our whole selves to the task at hand. We take a genuine interest in our clients’ development and are intrigued by the innovation and advances they seek to bring to their organization and industry.

2. We Respond

Hearing is one thing, responding is another. We want to be Trusted Allies with our clients, putting their needs first. Emails are followed up with; phone calls are answered; time and attention are given where it is needed, when it is needed. We want to be relied upon and we position ourselves week-in and week-out do just that.

3. We Resolve

What good is a response if it doesn’t resolve the issue at hand? As Creative Problem Solvers we are dedicated to finding the right solution for the challenges our clients face. If it’s as simple as fixing formatting quirks on an email campaign that must go out or developing a strategy to break into a challenging demographic with a new product or service, our team is committed to finding the best solution. We’re about competent execution and results. Period.

4. We Follow Up

We’re not on to the next thing. We are committed to our client’s success. When we launch a new website, we want to ensure it met the client’s needs. We seek feedback on our process and product, ready to hear honest feedback and committed to making it better.

It’s a cycle. Our team members consistently position themselves to hear from clients and offer solutions and execution that gets results, ready to receive feedback that will make all of us better.

client experience

OUR PRODUCT

We stand behind our tag line "Tell Your Story. Grow Your Business." It’s what we do and how we do it. If we’re doing the first part well, we believe the second part naturally follows. It’s what we’ve done for our clients from the start and what we want to be known for.

Tell Your Story

Your story is your company’s story. Everyone wants to be the hero of their own story, but when you’ve got your CEO or business owner hat on, you’re not the hero in the story, you’re the trusted guide. Our job at The Marketing Squad is to make you the Mr. Miyagi to your customer’s Daniel LaRusso. You’ve got to be the Yoda to your client’s Luke Skywalker. We want your customer base to trust you implicitly and it’s only through telling a compelling story that we can do that.

Your story should do two things. First, it should set you apart within your industry or geography. Your target audience should resonate with your story in such a way that they know they’ve found the folks who can help them solve their problems. Second, your story should give your target audience a plan they can follow that will lead them to the kind of life they’ve always wanted. Our client experience is built around telling this kind of story.

We’re Passionate Storytellers. We love to dig in with our clients and understand what it will take to tell that kind of story. If we’re helping you do those two things you’re going to realize the second part of our tag line.

Grow Your Business

What does it really mean for a marketing company to help you grow your business? Ultimately, it’s to do what any good marketing strategy would do, bring leads to your door step. We’re not satisfied as a team if we aren’t generating leads for your team to close. That requires strategic thought and execution on our part, which is why we want to be know as Strategic Doers. We don’t create for creativity’s sake and we don’t strategize for the sake of brainstorming and dreaming. We’re committed to increasing your bottom line, and for us, that means leads.

Beyond delivering leads, we want to also empower your sales team with resources to close new business. This looks like a lot of different things for our partner clients, but the goal is the same – increase revenue. Additionally, we see the value in helping your team attract new talent and encourage your current talent base. All of these efforts contribute to sustained growth, which is why you’ll find our team members going above and beyond to embed themselves with our clients and exceed your expectations in terms of client experience.

What feeling has your recent business interactions left you with? Are you satisfied with the product you’re receiving or has it left you wanting more? Do you get the sense that the people you interact with genuinely care about your story and want to see you succeed? If you're ready to experience authentic, intentional, and growth-driven partnership in your marketing, let's get coffee.

It's estimated that more than 30,000 new consumer products are introduced to the marketplace every year. Platforms like Kickstarter and Indiegogo are popping up left and right to help entrepreneurs fund their fresh ideas. The opportunities to succeed in the marketplace are there, but if you want to break through the noise, you have to be able to tell your story well. There's no better way to do that than with a killer product launch video.

Creating an Effective Product Launch Video

Recently we had the opportunity to help Jay Stewart, Founder of RazorKeep, produce a video for his Kickstarter campaign. Jay has set out to solve a problem the majority of adults face – constantly replacing expensive razor cartridges because they deteriorate and become ineffective after only a handful of shaves. Jay's razor maintenance system has been proven to be effective and he was eager to ramp up production by rolling out a new canister design that will be manufactured in America.

When Jay approached us about producing the feature video on his Kickstarter page we knew we needed to take a methodical approach to deliver an effective product video. It required plenty of time in discovery with Jay and a good bit of collaboration in the planning phase. We had to pay very careful attention to detail on each shoot and ensure the final edit brought all of the necessary components together.

From our perspective, a product launch video needs three key components to be effective.

1. A Strong, Concise Script

Everything begins with a solid script. Simply start with an outline. At The Marketing Squad, this happens in our project kickoff meeting. Once we've asked enough questions to gain a full understanding of the product's features, benefits, and differentiators we'll move to a whiteboard and begin framing up the script.

What are the major points we need to communicate? What is the exact problem this product seeks to solve? Is there a story to tell? Does the inventor have a deeper "why" that motivates them? What are the benefits that we need to drive home?

With an agreed-upon outline in place, the collaboration continues as we begin fleshing out the script. We take several passes at editing the script, giving the client plenty of opportunities to inject their unique voice into the messaging. With a final approved script, the real fun begins.

2. A Comprehensive Storyboard

STORYBOARD

There's a temptation to jump directly from the approved script to shooting the video, but you'd be missing a crucial step. Take time to storyboard every scene of your product video. Begin by chopping your script up into sections and pieces, considering the visuals that will support each point. Give as much detail and notes on each sketch as is necessary to inform your shoot day. Are you including text on the screen? Is the camera going to pan, push, or pull? Is the audio coming from a voiceover or the onscreen talent?

A thorough storyboard review process should give a good impression of the overall flow and tone of the video. It is also helpful in this step to agree upon the design style for any lower thirds or full-screen graphics. What fonts, colors, textures, etc. fit the product and brand you are promoting?

3. Experienced Onscreen and Voiceover Talent

Not to be underestimated is the value of experienced onscreen talent. Friends and family may serve you well as extras, but if your video calls for someone to demonstrate your product or drive home your value proposition, then it's worth the extra effort to find experienced talent. For Jay's RazorKeep video we worked with a local actor with stage and television experience. He took time before the shoot to review the script and internalize the message we wanted to communicate. He also understood the importance of continuity between shots and helped to ensure that we would not run into issues in the editing phase.

The same is true for voiceover talent. While it's great to have someone local who you can coach through the read, you can also find professionals with experience online. Capturing quality audio in a controlled environment with voice talent who appreciates pacing, inflection, and tone will go a long way to bringing your product video to life.

Attention to detail is key. Checking these three boxes is essential to breaking through the noise of the crowd and appealing to your potential customer base. Jay was proud of the video we produced for him and he had these kind words for us.

"I felt really good about their whole creation process but I was amazed at how they were able to take the vision that I had for my Kickstarter video and make it real. The Squad was able nail my story and message better than I imagined." - Jay Stewart, RazorKeep

Do you have a product you're eager to bring to market? We'd love to help Tell Your Story. We can help craft your branding, design and develop your website, produce your product video, and even give you some marketing pointers. Connect with us today!

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