Author Warns Marketers To Get A Head Start On 09 Campaign Plans, Due To Soft Economy

“In times of economic concern, you have to go back to the primary objectives,” says Mike Gospe, co-founder and principal of KickStart Alliance, a virtual team of marketing and sales executives focused on BtoB technology companies. “As marketers, we have such a tendency to think short-term because the sales folks are always driven by the current quarter. Think about what long-term marketing objective your company is trying to reach and then determine what programs and budget are required to reach that objective.”

Gospe, author of “Marketing Campaign Development,” says taking one step at a time in a formal planning process to allow each member of the marketing team to share ideas and synchronize activities will reduce the risk of press release re-writes or executing items that are not cohesive to the marketing objectives at hand.

Gospe and Eloqua’s CTO Steve Woods shared insights during a recent webcast titled, “Marketing Blueprints: The Key to Planning and Executing Global Integrated Marketing Campaigns,” which was presented by BtoB Online and sponsored Eloqua.

Gospe says companies can enjoy great benefits like improved time to market, increased ROI, and less internal frustration, with a campaign planning system in place.

“When you plan your marketing, you cannot plan in isolation of what’s going on in the world around you,” Gospe says. “There should be some purposeful investigation—find out what your competitors are doing and what kind of information your prospects are looking for, and how they are using it to make their business decisions.” Gospe says a lack of awareness can result in “marketing popcorn,” which he describes as directly siloed thinking that makes marketers stay with what’s familiar and, perhaps, miss out on open opportunities.

Taking surveys of customers and prospects and aligning your sales and marketing teams will allow your company to leave a “trail of breadcrumbs” that will lead prospects from their initial knowledge of your company all the way through your sales cycle.

Gospe says the following key players should be involved in the campaign planning process for small to medium-sized companies:

• Marketing leaders (CMO, vice president, and/or senior director of marketing)


• Director of inside sales


• Vice president of sales


• Public relations manager/coordinator(s)


• Anyone running channel organization and/or marketing programming

Gospe says this should be an annual process, but recognizes the existing challenge for smaller companies to make the time annually. This blueprint process should ask and address they key objectives for the next year/quarter, what offers and information are relevant for prospects, and most importantly, coming to an agreement on the definition of a qualified sales lead, and what actions to take once qualified leads are acquired. “Companies can proceed with much more confidence,” Gospe says.

The planning process should look different for larger companies, Gospe says. He points to the following key steps for implementing an annual planning process for a Fortune 500 company:

1. Kickoff Meeting- this works best during September for an annual planning cycle. Anyone and everyone who plays a role in the planning process should attend, in addition to sales teams. The CMO can lay out a hypothesis for the upcoming year and discuss the business drivers, market conditions, target market audience to prioritize, and primary marketing objectives.


2. Synchronization- each member can share their ideas and recommendations to address the objectives. All concerns about market conditions are part of this conversation, including budget and prioritized items.


3. Decision- a steering committee or executive staff who meet routinely can present summarized marketing plans for approval to go forth and execute. This is where conflicting goals are addressed.

“There is never enough money to do what everyone wants to do,” Gospe says. “This [and other concerns] can be formalized in the decision making process.”

TECH TOOLS
Separating strategy from tactics helps streamline the campaign process. Marketers often try to short-circuit the planning process by thinking a marketing automation tool will solve strategy problems. “Companies invest a lot of money and people to set up the mechanics and metrics to track, but they haven’t determined the strategy,” Gospe says. “They could be automating the wrong strategy or a non-strategy…What works best is when technology solutions come in at the end of the process, at least from a strategy standpoint.”

Gospe says companies should remember “back to basics.” “It’s okay to take 30 minutes out of your day to ask some of these disciplined back to basics questions: ‘what are we really trying to accomplish and why? ‘When we’re successful, how will we know it?’”
“With all the budget cuts and shrinking of marketing staff that have gone on; with marketers being tasked to do multiple jobs, the one thing that gets cut is the ability to ask some of these really basic marketing questions,” he says.