Mindful Marketing – A Strategic Approach
In thinking about focus and strategy, I’m reminded of an experience told by my dear friend Ed of something that happened to him in his youth. He grew up in New York City, where his grandfather owned a restaurant. Ed worked there to help out his grandpa and to make a little extra money. One day Ed was rushing about clearing tables and sweeping floors. At one point he bumped a glass, knocking it off the table and onto the floor where it shattered into thousands of pieces. Ed’s grandpa called him over, put his arm around his shoulder and said, “Slow down Eddy, you’ll get there faster.”
Slow down? It seems counterintuitive for the fast-paced world of B2B marketing, however, slowing down means to be more mindful, more thoughtful and purposeful of the work. The constant pressures of marketing can easily be addressed by taking a more meaningful approach to the work. It is tempting to try and address every issue or answer every opportunity with a new or different tactic, and it if often said that gains can be made by casting a wider net and doing more stuff. However, to achieve maximum impact, a strategic focus is mandatory.
How to become more mindful in marketing? Starting with the desired outcomes in mind will keep your marketing efforts focused on the right things. Of course, for this to be effective a tremendous amount of work must have been done previously to understand buyers and their decision process, centering strategies around proven marketing key performance indicators (KPIs).
At ANNUITAS we focus measurement on six critical areas:
- Engagement Performance
- Content Offer Performance
- Nurture Email Performance
- Lead Management Performance
- Revenue Performance
- Marketing ROI Performance
You’re probably wondering if there is relevance in the order of this list. Well, there most certainly is. ABut to measure lead progression, you must know how leads are engaging with your communications and content.
Here is a view of how the ANNUITAS team looks at Engagement Performance:
This graphic shows how being able to deliver insights around the engagement of your prospects can inform key areas like channel budgeting and content strategies. If you don’t understand what is driving engagement, how your leads are converting into opportunities and then revenue, you need to slow down before you spend more budget on tactics that are ineffective. You can’t skip the work it takes to get there, but these methods are highly focused and measureable, and drive a strategic approach to marketing that delivers revenue and results.
Author: Tracy Thayne @TracyThayne is SVP, Strategy for ANNUITAS.
