The 2nd Most Powerful Weapon in Your Company's Arsenal.

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It's a smart bomb, but most companies aren't using it correctly. 

This month I'm talking about the second most powerful weapon that you have in your company's arsenal: 

Marketing. 

It's one of the most underrated and misunderstood disciplines. And I can't tell you why that is, but I can tell you two things: 

1_ Your rivals are praying that you don't figure it out. 

2_ It's the subject of this month's "Lesson From The Trenches". 

INCOMING >>> 

Also, check out the assessment offered at the bottom of this article. 20th Dec only.

Newsletter #2 - Lessons From The Trenches

The Marketing Smart Bomb. 

In 2015, when building a brand new CRM practice, I hired marketing first. 

At the time, it was a controversial move, and nobody in the ecosystem would've done it. One of our competitors even told Microsoft: 

"With decisions like that, they'll be bankrupt in 6 months." 

Boy, were they wrong. 

On second thought, maybe they were right. If we treated marketing like most of our competition did, we probably would've been out of business in 6 months. 

"Marketing? That's just for events, golf days, banners, fluff and frivolous spending. A blind tortoise in sales could do a better job of spotting leads."

 That's an actual quote from a meeting I observed.

But that's not how we saw marketing. It would transform how we would generate leads and acquire customers, and later on, it would also play a strategic role in customer retention.

We knew that changing consumer behaviour meant marketing would traverse much deeper into the sales funnel than ever before. A fact that remains true today. 

So we built it into the corporate DNA from day one. And we called it Intelligent Marketing. 

Intelligent Marketing. 

It's not a name I came up with, but I wanted the team to know they were different. More of "Ye Same Ole Marketing" wasn't going to cut it.

To be classified as intelligent, marketing would need to leverage data, which meant being primarily digital in the approach.

This approach required three things: 

1. A dedicated, insourced marketing team.
2. Patience. 
3. Platform control.

Except for insourcing, these are non-negotiable requirements for setting up a modern marketing team. It is possible to outsource components of your marketing effort, but the dedicated focus is a must-have for the core team.

Before we dig in on these three points, let's make sure that the marketing teams mission is clear:

The Mission. 

Marketing's Primary Mission is:  

Attract prospective customers.  

That's it. 

Everything else is a distant second—even customer retention. 

That might sound harsh, but that's the way it is. You'll need to listen to me rant for an hour if you want to know precisely why. So, for now, let's just say that the "Customer Retention" classification is often the excuse for lazy marketing efforts and missed business objectives. 

It's important to note that I didn't say the mission was to "Generate leads". The byproduct of a successful marketing effort is lead generation. 

Let me say that a different way: 

Lead generation and subsequent conversion (or lack thereof) are a byproduct of the marketing efforts. It seems like the same thing at a superficial level, but this subtle difference changes where the team focus their energy.

For the marketeers reading this: That is not an excuse to neglect the lead performance measures you should be monitoring anyway.

For everyone else reading this: That means you should be asking your marketing team questions like:

• "How will this help us attract prospective customers?" 
• "What tools do you need to engage prospective customers more effectively?"
• "What has this campaign taught us about our prospective customers?"

Etc. 

Now that the mission is clear. Let's get back on track:

I mentioned that the Intelligent Marketing approach required three things: 

1. Dedicated team.
2. Patience. 
3. Platform control.

Let's dig in >>

Dedicated Team.

Why dedicated? 

The marketing team needs a holistic and detailed understanding of the business strategy, current and future products and services, and current customer revenue performance and satisfaction levels by associated products and services. Etc. 

It requires time and attention.

This understanding shapes marketing strategy and tactics. More importantly, it begins to shape the performance data that marketing seeks out and monitors. 

The data tells marketing whom to target for maximum impact, and it allows them to look for similar prospective customers that might behave in the same way. 

The marketing team needs time to monitor the feedback loop and constantly iterate and adjust. It isn't a part-time, once-in-a-while job. 

Other attributes of the ideal marketing team: 

Content consumers - Must enjoy consuming information. 

Content creators - Must be able to generate content that's valuable for prospective customers. 

Data lovers - Must have the ability to read, question and interpret data for what it is. 

Designers - Must craft assets and processes that are aesthetically appealing. 

Detail - Must care deeply about the small things. They matter. 

Creative - Must seek better ways to achieve the mission. 

Aggressive - Must have a relentless drive to accomplish the mission.

Collaborative - Must nurture relationships throughout the business and customer base. Otherwise, they won't ever get anything done.

When it comes to the actual structure of the marketing team, it depends entirely on the hires you make to fulfil the attributes listed above

Side Rant: 

Beware of hiring self-professed "Storytellers" and "Growth Hackers" without actual, highly referencable, proof. And, please, check the references out for yourself.

Patience.

Without patience, there will be no productivity.

This Intelligent Marketing approach isn't the quick fix, but it is the BIG fix. 

It took eight months before our marketing efforts began to pay off. In that time, I had to protect marketing and deflect incoming attacks constantly. Some of the attacks got through the defences and either sidetracked marketing efforts for a while or impacted morale. But that's par for the course and a reason why good leadership is required (see Newsletter #1). 

But once the Intelligent Marketing approach started to find its mark, it got more consistent with every campaign. 

Creativity also requires patience. 

Read what Alfred Hitchcock says or listen to John Cleese speak about creativity, and you'll see that patience is a virtue in the creative process.

I'm not saying that deadlines don't matter. Deadlines are essential in the execution process. 

John Cleese refers to these as the open vs closed states.

Platform Control. 

None of the above matters if we lose control of the underlying platform.

Imagine the entire marketing strategy depended on Instagram, only to be shadowbanned or banned outright for offending a sensitive community member or because a malicious competitor keeps reporting posts. 

Which platforms can you control? 

Your company website and CRM system are the most obvious.

The company website and associated CRM solution are at the heart of an Intelligent Marketing approach. They can live in the cloud or in data centres you trust or own; regardless of the chosen option, the backup and disaster recovery plans should be something you know well. 

When Jocko Willink and Leif Babin went on 94.7 to promote the Extreme Ownership event we were hosting in South Africa, tens of thousands of people hit our website at the same time. A site that we thought we'd tested for every eventuality, but we were wrong. The site crashed. 

My marketing team managed to get it up and running again within an hour, but imagine how many ticket sales we lost. Worse still, imagine how many people had a terrible experience of my business. 

We updated our backup and disaster plans the following week, and it never happened again. 

Don't think, "It won't happen to us". I would go so far as to test a complete failover once a quarter. 

Social Media. 

But what about social media and the other platforms we don't control? 

Use them, squeeze every ounce of value out of the platforms. But always make sure you're pushing people to your site and the platforms you own. 

Note: It's not without a great sense of irony that I'm using LinkedIn to distribute this newsletter. But there is a method in that apparent madness. ;-)

Training. 

Another form of platform control is training. 

i.e. Can the team use the platform to full effect? 

It was a high priority to train our marketing team on using the platforms to best effect. At a minimum, there should be no feature they were not aware of so that, at worst, a quick search on Google or YouTube could act as a reminder of a step or process. 

My teams' proficiency in using their platforms directly correlated to the effectiveness of their efforts. And it showed.

Website updates would roll out in minutes, not days, weeks or months. The team refined automated processes and workflow on the fly, and reporting was instantaneous.

We could watch an anonymous person arrive on a specific landing page from a Google search, interact with multiple pieces of content, and get segmented into a new audience grouping based on those interactions. 

Later we would see that same anonymous person return to the site, download content after completing a form, and click the "Get In Touch" button. 

The entire journey was crystal clear. 

Try to do that on Facebook, Instagram, or even LinkedIn (Who won't even tell me who reads this newsletter unless they've clicked a like or share button - Hint hint). 

Bottom line: 

OWN. YOUR. CORE PLATFORM. 

Wrapping It Up.

Based on the lessons I've learnt on the front lines, these are the elements required to build a robust and effective Marketing team whose efforts constantly add the right customers to your business. 

Wondering if your marketing team is ready? Check this out...

Before the year wraps up, I will run a basic marketing readiness assessment of four small/medium-sized businesses that are worrying about their ability to execute in 2022. 

Here's the deal:

 <<OFFER CLOSED>>