The Bridge to Growth by Jude Rake

Author:Jude Rake
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Skyhorse
Published: 2017-03-14T16:00:00+00:00

You now have a brand strategy to guide creative development of marketing and sales materials and anything else that touches consumers and customers. Now, instead of evaluating proposals based on subjective opinions and the opinions of the players in the room with the most clout, you have a fact-based road map to help guide decision-making. Of course, the only strategy the consumer sees is execution, which brings us to the how. The how is the actual articulation and delivery of the key elements of your brand/product/service to your target consumers in the most relevant and compelling way. Quite simply, it’s how you deliver the message.

This brand-building architecture has not changed substantively in many, many years. It still works just as well today as it did fifty years ago. However, what has changed and is changing evermore rapidly are all the methods or vehicles marketers have at their disposal to reach their target consumers. Omni-channel marketing is the rage, and the explosion of digital marketing and analytical tools is opening ever-changing possibilities. But despite this, strategy still matters most. Regardless of how you reach out to your consumers, everything should emanate from this architecture to drive synergies. When marketing and sales efforts are integrated and consistent strategically, the sum is greater than the parts. When everything the consumer sees and experiences hangs together relevantly and persuasively, your efforts to build your brand and your business will achieve a more attractive ROI than if your go-to-market approach is littered with one-off and inconsistent messages, regardless of how creative they might be.

So what should leaders do to make sure their company is building a strong brand or brands? If you regularly approve or evaluate anything that your end users or consumers might see, ask to review the brand strategy or brief from which the materials were created to make sure everyone is assessing the execution from the same song sheet. From there, ask the following four simple questions to help you assess if the execution delivers the brand strategy in a way that will be memorable and persuasive to the consumer (and not necessarily to the people in the room), and is therefore worthy of your precious marketing dollars:

1. Is it on strategy?

2. Does it meet ACT criteria?

• Is the idea About the key benefit or consumer promise?

• Is the idea Credible?

• Is the idea Thought-provoking?

3. Is it easily integrated with other executions to produce synergy?

4. Does it persuade your target to take action?

To some, my push to focus more time and energy on consumers will sound obvious, or even pedantic. But over the years I’ve seen many leaders lose sight of this core principle as they ascend into bigger, more demanding roles. They gradually succumb to the suction of internal forces, the temptations of instant gratification, or the escape from the daily grind offered by the executive suite. Over time, they lose sight of what is most important, and they leave this important work to others. And perhaps most concerning, they quietly send a subtle yet clear message to the troops that consumers and customers matter less.

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