Last updated: Your marketing program reveals and drives the health of your org

Your marketing program reveals and drives the health of your org

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If you’ve been in business for more than a day, you know how important it is to develop and implement the right type of marketing program for achieving your organizational goals.

Everyone knows that effective marketing is essential for any organization to grow, thrive, and compete in the dynamic experience economy, which is driven by digital transformation and delivering exceptional customer experiences.

Coordinate targeted, strategic campaigns and objectives within your overall marketing program.

Build your brand.

Boost sales.

Grow your business.

Simple, right?

Making it work: Marketing programs are the secret of top-performing businesses

Many organizations struggle to put the pieces together. While top marketing challenges include lead generation and figuring out what technology is the best fit for their business, other challenges come from within the organization, such as securing buy-in and budget, as well as the marketer’s perpetual mandate to prove the value and ROI of their marketing spend.

So it goes with marketing in any given organization. In many ways, the state of your marketing program is a good indicator of the health of your organization.

The importance of a well-balanced marketing program should come as no surprise. Digital marketing solutions are all the rage right now, and will continue to garner attention for a long time. Of top-performing businesses, 79% have been using marketing automation technologies for at least three years.

🎼It’s okay, he already in my DMs 🎼

Even if you’re a local business, foregoing mobile marketing is no longer an option. With most consumers using their mobile devices for over five hours a day, you can’t afford to miss the opportunities when 82% of them conduct searches for nearby businesses – essentially asking “Where can I spend my money?”

On average, marketers spend over half of their budget on mobile ads. However, that’s not to say more traditional analog marketing methods are suddenly worthless. Just be smart about it.

Allocating half of your marketing budget to the phonebook that no one uses is only slightly wiser than spending that on permanent markers for scribbling DIY ads on bathroom stalls. But there are plenty of other methods that still haul in decent ROI.

The point is that your marketing program includes a range of marketing activities in any form, depending on what is most likely to boost sales for you, such as the following:

  • Mobile
  • Account-based marketing (ABM)
  • Social media
  • SEO
  • Email
  • Guest appearances on blogs and podcasts
  • Paid advertising
  • logo design and branding
  • sales
  • Websites
  • Fliers and brochures
  • Swag
  • packaging
  • trade shows
  • conferences and other events

Marketing program strategies that work

The best marketing tools for you will be determined by your business, your goals, and your customers. Time is always at a premium, but spend it up front to strategize your marketing plan.

  • Study what your competition is doing – what works and what doesn’t – and do it better while also doing it your way.
  • Create marketing content with purpose, more than just adding to the noise.
  • Determine your KPIs and benchmark to set a baseline for measuring your performance metrics against industry best practices and identify opportunities for improvement and growth.
  • Leverage data analytics to adapt and optimize your dynamic marketing efforts.

Knowing that you need to design and implement a customized marketing program that aligns with your business goals is easy. Then comes the blood, sweat, and board meetings, when you’re deciding what’s best for your business, securing organizational buy-in, and negotiating the necessary alignment of business functions, agendas, and priorities to make your marketing program a reality.

This assumes, of course, that you’ve developed an expert marketing strategy. Obtaining and orchestrating the talent, processes, and tools to keep the moving parts of your marketing program smoothly operating often proves to be another monumental task. As has previously cited, “According to Econsultancy’s Skills of the Modern Marketer report, only 10% of respondents rated themselves as an ‘expert’ in strategic thinking.”

Sound strategic thinking will vary in detail from one organization to the next. However, some basic foundational perspectives drive any successful marketing strategy. Two great imperatives are to know yourself and know your customers.

Knowing your customers and understanding their needs, attitudes, and behaviors enables you to engage them with empathy and to create great end-to-end customer experiences throughout their entire journey.

Developing a comprehensive understanding based on a single, unified 360-view of the customer that is responsive and adaptive to each customer’s changing attitudes and expectations allows you to not only respond to but also to anticipate your customers’ needs and expectations on a personalized and even individualized basis.

The gold standard is now standard

As a result of digital transformation, leading companies leverage the power of machine learning, AI, and the Internet of Things to drive and govern their integrated and comprehensive marketing programs as well as deliver the exceptional customer experiences that are now the standard expectation.

Building and developing customer relationships based on trust and transparency has become the foundation on which to nurture and increase customer loyalty and brand influence that spreads organically.

The best marketing programs use all of this to drive sales, maximize ROI, and increase revenue while winning the experience economy.

Every digital moment matters.
Are you making the most of them?

1,000 business leaders dish on how to stand out from the crowd with a great CX. Get the details HERE. 

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