Time to Walk The Line

Now that you’ve unravelled the ‘Glob’ and have it in an understandable structure, we’re about to begin the process of creating your new high-performance Marketing Machine. (If you’ve not already read the articles in this series, it’s definitely worth reading from the start! You’ll find the first article here: What Marketing is About…).

But first, here are some important ground rules and mind-set principles for how to set about the process of transforming your ‘Glob’ into a high-performance Marketing Machine…

Keeping it Upbeat

So that you don’t personalise this and get your marketing team becoming defensive and on the back foot, it’s important to recognise the great bits as well.

And to make it clear, that you are putting your marketing under the microscope together – together you are asking awkward questions.

That way you can be tough on the marketing (rather than any team or individual) whilst keeping individual spirits high.

Good to Great

Another good mindset to have, is that this is about going from ‘good to great’ (a phrase I love, from the title of the book by Jim Collins).

Remind yourself and your team that what you have is good, after all your current marketing and sales collateral is responsible for 100% of today’s sales and for your growth.

The reason that you are putting it under the microscope, asking the tough (awkward) questions and putting yourself in the prospect’s shoes – is that you want more, you’re ambitious, you want to be the best.

You want to go from good to great!

Getting into the head of your prospect, your customer

Walking the line and trying to understand all this works best when you can get into the head of your prospect and your customer.

Ideally you want to understand what it’s like to be a ‘victim’ of your marketing and sales process, your collateral, your customer journey.

First, be clear about your typical ‘Sweet Spot’ customer – be clear who you aiming to impact.

It can be helpful to write the names of your 10 best ‘ideal’ customers down (companies for B2B or individuals for B2C). You’ll want to make sure that you reference this list from time to time so that you can have their needs, desires, issues, fears and reservations in mind.

1. ______________________________________________
2. ______________________________________________
3. ______________________________________________
4. ______________________________________________
5. ______________________________________________
6. ______________________________________________
7. ______________________________________________
8. ______________________________________________
9. ______________________________________________
10. ______________________________________________

That will help you get into the head of the right people.

MBWA

I don’t know what qualifications you have earned so far in your lifetime and what letters you are entitled to put after your name, but I’d like to invite you to award yourself an MBWA.

I first came across the term MBWA when it was used by authors Tom Peters and Robert Waterman in their 1982 bestseller In Search of Excellence – they used it to describe how founders Bill Hewlett and David Packard ran their business and is short for Management By Walking About.

The idea of having an MBWA is self-explanatory, but when it comes to designing a Marketing Machine you can take this idea, this quality, this skill and put it to use in a very special way…

Lay it out on the table – ‘Walking the Line’

This concept is easy to understand if you own or run a manufacturing business, and there are many times when I have been invited to walk the line with clients as they explain their business to me.

However, any business can ‘walk the line’ when it comes to understanding how their marketing works (or doesn’t).

One of my favourite exercises is to get people to collect every piece of marketing collateral that they have, and lay it out on the boardroom table, in the sequence that a prospect and customer experiences your marketing and sales processes.

You can use the Marketing Machine model as your template for how you arrange this on your boardroom table. When you do, it will look something like this…

Here are a few tips for laying it out…

Lead Generation System

• Lay out your Brochures and Flyers
• Print out your Marketing Emails
• Open up your Website
• Have your Social Media pages open on separate browser tabs
• Put copies of your print Ads on the table
• Print copies of your Direct Mail Letters and Enclosures
• Lay out some photos of your Exhibition Stand
• Print some examples of your most popular Google Ads
• Print copies of your key Landing Pages
• Print the Wireframe of your Automated Follow Up campaigns and sequences

Sales Process

• Print your ‘more information’ emails out
• Print any PDF attachments that you use
• Print examples of typical Sales Emails
• Grab copies of all your sales Brochures
• Print a copy of your Sales Presentation (or have it ready to view easily)
• Print out copies of your last 4 or 5 Quotes/Proposals
• Print examples of typical Follow Up Emails
• Print copies of 5 prospects details and follow up actions from your CRM
• Include all the collateral that is used during the sales process

Prospect Nurturing System

• Print copies of your Newsletters
• Print copies of Offer/Sales emails
• Include any Catalogues or Direct Mail that you send to prospects
• Print a schedule of communications to prospects over the last 12 months
• Have examples of information promoting events for prospects
• Make sure you have a copy of everything that goes to prospects

Client Nurturing System

• Copies of your Welcome letters/pack
• Print copies of your Newsletters
• Print copies of Offer/Sales emails
• Include any Catalogues or Direct Mail that you send to customers
• Print a schedule of communications to clients over the last 12 months
• Detail your Referral System
• Have your Review Scores and examples of typical Reviews to hand
• Lay out examples of information promoting events for customers
• Show examples of your last few Christmas Cards
• You should have a copy of everything that goes to clients that is not operations related.

By laying everything out and putting yourself in your prospects and customers shoes, by asking the awkward questions – you’re going to discover how to create something amazing.

You’ll identify…

• the opportunities you have to rapidly improve results by doing more of what already works
• how to step-change the performance of your marketing and sales by adding the crucial missing steps (plugging the leaks)
• and you’ll discover how to release money, time and resource by intelligently cutting the marketing activities that just aren’t working and never will

There’s something magical about this process.

It gets you thinking. It provokes you (and your team). It helps you to see glaring gaps and opportunities, that were right under your nose, but hidden in the obscurity of the ‘Glob’. It gives you clarity. In gives you insight.

And it helps you make some great decisions that will lead to a massive and permanent improvement in the performance of your marketing, the way marketing and sales work together and crucially the growth and profitability of your business.