Without wanting to sound overly dramatic, us marketeers have fought a long, hard battle for many years to get marketing seen as an integral and crucial cog in the business wheel, to ensure marketing gets a voice at the board table, and to dispel the myths around “painting pretty pictures”.
The battle certainly appears to be paying off, things have moved on immeasurably in the 20 years, but we still get calls from frustrated CEO’s whose sales are not going in the right direction and told “we just need to do some marketing, can you help?”
Our straightforward answer, of course, is yes. But we die a little bit inside when the next thing we hear is “Great, can we just turn on PPC to generate some leads?”
Let us explain why PPC is brilliant, but why no marketing channel used in isolation is going to give you the results you truly want.
Marketing Done Well
We hate to be the bearer of annoying news, but marketing done well, marketing that generates leads, marketing that drives change, growth and transformation takes time, effort, consistency and buy-in from the bottom to the very top.
Building a Brand
Does every single member of your business understand who you are, what you’re trying to achieve, what your values are, what makes you unique, what you are offering your customers and why anyone should choose you over your competitors? Have you presented that in a way that resonates with your staff and customers, that is simple and engaging, that sets you apart, that leaves a mark on your sector in a positive way? If so, this is the first big tick.
We must always start with brand and guard it like the crown jewels, every minute of every day across every single interaction, both internally and externally.
Creating A Marketing Strategy
What do you want your marketing to achieve? Growth? Great! Then write it down, write the target numbers down, make them realistic and think about the next 1, 2 3 and 5 years.
Now we have a brilliant brand that we’re guarding with our life, we have a plan of what we want marketing to deliver over the next 5 years, so now we can do some PPC right? Wrong!
Finding The Right Marketing Team
Your marketing will not be successful without a team who “gets it”, who is skilled and trained and who works harder than any other department in the business (yes, that will be up for debate, but come on, we have to stick up for my own and we DO graft!) Your team doesn’t have to be a huge internal department, it might be one person with the support of an agency, or it might be a team of 20. What’s important is that whoever is running and executing your marketing, you can say without a glimmer of doubt that they are the right people for YOUR business.
Delivering A Marketing Plan
Now we need a plan for the marketing team to deliver the strategy, whilst protecting the brand. And that means using all available marketing channels, using them effectively and being consistent with it.
This will mean creating a marketing plan that covers (as a minimum); Website, Social Media, PPC, Paid Social, Email, PR, Events, Internal Comms and Advertising.
The reason that we need this “full mix” marketing plan is to ensure we’re using all available methods of talking to our audience. And that is the key; TALKING to. We also need to talk to customers consistently wherever they are, and I’m afraid they’re not just sat looking at Google ads, so we can’t just expect to convert from that one simple tool.
Now you can do the PPC…
So now we have the foundations and everything in place to deliver a successful marketing campaign, to attract customers, to retain them and to grow your business.
In summary
In summary, can you turn on some PPC and get instant results? Sure, you can give it a go, but it won’t change and grow your business used in isolation. To really see results, you need foundations, structure, plans, great people and a full marketing mix of continuous, engaging, consistent communications.
For advice, support or to pick our brains on all things marketing, feel free to get in touch for a no-obligations chat at hello@wearefrankmarketing.com.
