Marketing is vital to the success of any business as marketing is integral to growth. Therefore, in order to achieve the growth goals you need to seriously plan out your marketing with a detailed and comprehensive strategy.
Often, large companies have a lot of marketing talent within the organization. Ideally, there would be a high-level strategist, such as a marketing director of chief marketing officer, however, many businesses have not reached the size where these roles are entrenched in the marketing hierarchy. If your business does not have a marketer of this standard you have three options. Rely on either an unqualified marketer or CEO to design the marketing strategy, bring in a new full-time employee who meets this standard, but at a high price, or bring in a marketing consultant. Each business is different so there is by no means a one size fits all approach to who should be on your marketing team or how it is structured. However, many businesses often face similar challenges and there are similar solutions.
Designing the Marketing Strategy
If the task at hand is to draft up a marketing strategy and help get the ball rolling then my suggestion would be to bring in a contracted consultant who is an expert, has done it before, and has clear deliverables. By bringing in this expert is provides peace of mind for your CEO that the job that needs doing will be done right and to a high standard. It is by far the least risky option, both financially and operationally.
Hiring a marketing strategy consultant will ensure that your marketing strategy is formulated with the following in mind:
- A customer avatar – their desires, fears, etc.
- Knowledge of effective marketing campaigns in today’s market
- How to maximize your business’s assets for marketing campaigns.
These are the fundamentals of what your successful marketing strategy will be built on. They are the first checkpoint on your roadmap. Once this is created, your marketing campaigns will have direction and as a result of the well-designed strategy, your marketing campaigns will work in tandem with one another. This is the true testament of a good strategy.
Creating the strategy is, of course, very important. It is the foundation of your marketing efforts, therefore will determine the extent of your success. It must be noted, however, that an excellent strategy with poor implementation is, overall, poor marketing. The execution is just as important and formulating the strategy. They work in harmony with one another and one is nothing without the other.
Executing the Strategy
Your marketing strategy consultant should stress the importance of execution as much as this article does. The marketing strategy consultant can manage and direct your team in order to maximize their performance, and ultimately the performance of the campaigns. Your marketing strategy consultant will also help you realize where you need to add talent to your marketing department. For example, as a business owner, you may know that there is a need for more manpower in your team, however, you do not know exactly how it should be allocated. A marketing strategy consultant will know this and can make actionable recommendations. This could come in the form of bringing in certain experts, such as a Facebook ads specialist or PPC agency. Regardless of what experts and outside people or agencies need to be brought in, experience in your industry and with these required disciplines. That is definitely something to bear in mind when deciding which marketing strategy consultant you want to bring into your business.
Having a hands-on marketing strategy consultant, such as a Fractional CMO, is more beneficial to the operations of your business as their experience in the execution of the marketing strategy will help ensure its success. The management of the marketing department is a very important, but difficult task. This is where experienced marketing leaders shine. Having a chief marketing officer or marketing director within your organization is the best way to ensure this, however, if you are bringing in a marketing strategy consultant, often you will not have either of the CMO or marketing director.
Conclusion
To summarize, there are two main areas in which a marketing strategy consultant can help your business. The first is formulating the strategy and we know the importance of this as it is the foundation of any success in marketing. The second is the execution of the strategy, which is just as important as the first. A bad strategy well implemented is better than a good strategy poorly implemented.
Before bringing in a marketing strategy consultant you must give them a clear business goal. This is the destination the roadmap (the marketing strategy) will lead towards. If this end goal is clear, the strategy will be clear. The checkpoints along the roadmap will be clear and your marketing staff will be clear on what their goals are and what they have to do to achieve them. Ultimately, clarity plays a major role in the success of such marketing efforts. Head over to cmox.co to learn more about marketing strategy and if one of our team can help you achieve your business goals.
