From Strategy to Execution: Tying Marketing Plans Together

It’s time to tie the marketing strategy we've been discussing the last few weeks into execution, and the key is to build with the end in mind. The work leading up to this created your strategic foundation.

It’s important that you not get lost in tactical details but instead structure your execution in a way that maintains strategic integrity. Having a consistent approach will help everyone stay on the same page and align on the topic of ROI.

Historically, a marketer’s performance is gauged through marketing metrics, which focus on tactics, instead of financial metrics, which focus on impact.

To understand marketing impact and make the best decisions regarding revenue growth, you must align marketing success with the financial language of the business.

With the right framework, you can see where your biggest problems lie, prioritize their solutions to drive both short-term and long-term growth, and execute your plans with finesse.

"Vision without execution is hallucination"

—Thomas Edison

So where do you begin?

With the end in mind, of course, which requires a shift in how you’re looking at your marketing plan.

Your marketing plan should be structured to support the buyer’s journey. It’s tempting to want to build out campaigns and headlines to get people’s attention first, but what happens when it works?

You’ll have people curious and interested, but you won’t have anything in place to convert their interest into inquiry. Talk about wasted money and opportunity that you can’t get back. Instead, I believe outstanding execution follows an ABC framework:

1. Align your message and brand with your strategic plan and goals.
2. Build the brand collateral, campaigns, and calls to action to convert interest into inquiry to help prospects more efficiently proceed through their decision-making process.
3. Champion your message and confidently invest in promotion knowing that you have mapped out the prospect’s experience of interacting with your marketing.

If you cannot convert interest into inquiry, it doesn’t matter how brilliant or wide-reaching your promotion is.

You must start with the assets, where your messaging and branding convert interest into inquiry and inquiry into sales. Once you have stacked these cards in your favor, then it’s time to distribute your message to the masses.

Converting Interest to Inquiry

We’ve talked a considerable amount about how both the buyer and the seller progress through the decision-making process, but a huge bottleneck in the buyer’s journey happens when the next step isn’t clear.

Calls to action or CTAs, provide cues to potential buyers about what they need in order to proceed. CTAs are what you suggest to your buyer personas to assist them in solving their problem or achieving their goal.

One of the most common mistakes I see in B2B marketing is the neglect or misuse of CTAs. Often, there simply won’t be a clear CTA in the collateral, trade show booth, ad, or web page. And when there is a CTA, it’s almost always “Contact us.”

This is like asking someone to marry you on the first date.

It reeks of desperation, and it rarely works.

Previously, we discussed the three exchanges: (1) attention, (2) time, and (3) money. Your CTAs align with the exchanges, providing progress for the buyer and communicating where the prospect is in the buyer’s journey.

Think of your CTA as an ATM. There is an exchange for attention, time, or money based on the value a prospect can withdraw from you. In the attention exchange, your ask is something that can be accomplished quickly and requires little to no commitment.

Examples include watching a video, visiting a specific landing page through an ad or post, clicking a second page on a website, hovering one’s phone over an ad, or following on social media.

One additional CTA is implicit: you’re asking people to remember you. This is why B2C companies use mnemonic devices like rhymes, mascots, celebrities, and endless amounts of repetition. These are best practices underutilized in the B2B world.

CTAs in the time exchange might include attending a webinar or event; downloading a guide, checklist, or other resource; subscribing to a channel, podcast, or email series; and taking the free assessment. These tools help to educate prospects.

As prospects move in to close the deal, where they know they are going to make a purchase, the marketing CTAs include things like contacting the company, scheduling a free consultation, getting a quote, and setting up a demo.

While this sounds simple...

Many B2 marketers don’t have great CTAs because their creation requires a lot of time and attention from subject-matter experts.

Guides, checklists, videos, white papers, articles, and any other high-value content require input from the operations team. Most B2B organizations don’t prioritize this because they don’t see marketing as a customer-focused activity, and the projects wither on the vine.

But if you truly desire an aligned organization that lives your mission every day, servant leadership in your business-development communication is critical, and a cross-functional team must give attention to these activities.

If you are not getting the results you want from your marketing, take a close look at what value you are offering to prospects before they buy from you.

If your value is given only after an invoice, it becomes incredibly difficult in this busy, fast, and competitive world to convince people to invest their time and attention in you unless they have referrals from existing customers.

Once you have your marketing strategy, plan, messaging, and branding in place, review the sales map and consider what the prospect wants and needs in order to proceed. What questions does your prospect ask?

What and where are common misunderstandings inherent in the prospect’s choices? What immediate insight can you provide that leads to your differentiator?

Prioritize your topics using these types of questions.

Your CTAs provide the progress that will help both you and your buyer personas progress through the decision-making process openly and respectfully.