Over the last fifteen years I’ve been privileged to work with a multitude of brilliant businesses and truly great leaders up close. From developing and implementing business strategies and marketing plans for multinational organisations to industry associations, start-ups, family businesses, B2Bs, SMEs and for-purpose organisations, here are my 15 top tips for success…
- Always start with strategy. As the saying goes, “if you don’t know where you’re going, you might wind up someplace else.” Make sure your strategy is clear, well-resourced and embedded at every point in your business to set yourself up for success.
- The difference between a small local business and a successful multinational? Confidence! Take every opportunity to work on your business (not in it), think bigger and back yourself.
- Engage experts & subject matter specialists and treat them as true partners. While it may be tempting to always put on a shiny display, the only way to tap into their knowledge and expertise is by being open about your challenges and working together to find the best way forward.
- By the time a campaign goes to market, we’ve often spent weeks or months working on it before running it for a relatively short time in market, but people have to see a message a number of times before it’s effective. In fact, data shows that advertising wear-out is overstated. Invest in truly great comms… and keep running them!
- Get out of your own way. Far too often businesses miss their opportunity to own a first mover advantage or lose their competitive edge because they’re tweaking the details or not quite confident enough to go BIG. Don’t give your competitors a head start, be clear about your position and key messages and find opportunities to amplify them.
- Walk in your customer’s shoes. Spend time on the platforms they’re on, browse the retailers they love, ask lots of questions, look for insights in the data, take every opportunity to connect and better understand the market, category and brand experience from their view point.
- Repurpose content. Work it! Consider how you can run an article, quote, comms, interview, award wins, events etc across multiple channels over a period of time. Keep content fresh by taking a different angle, cutting it down into ‘snack size’ messages or freshening up the headline and imagery.
- Don’t put all your eggs in one (social media) basket. With small business owners locked out of accounts, pages shut down and consumer behaviour & attitudes shifting, make sure you have a backup of assets, client contacts and messages and focus on the platform/s where your consumers are.
- Progress over perfection. When it comes to a new website, program or service, it will never be quite ready. Plan to launch when you’re 90% ready and then you can monitor, finesse and optimise while it’s live.
- Test and learn, test and learn, test and learn.
- Fish rots from the head. If you’re working for an organisation where the CEO isn’t living the organisation’s stated values, or if
muppets and bulliesare being promoted into senior leadership roles, then run, don’t walk to an organisation and leadership team that lives its values. - Which reminds me… prolonged high staff turnover is ALWAYS a red flag. Start by making sure you have a happy team with a clear shared purpose before setting your business up to attract and retain customers. Happy staff make the best brand advocates. Include a staff satisfaction metric in all your reporting, and tap into their knowledge and ideas as you build your plans.
- There are lots of brilliant people out there – and I’ve been privileged to work and learn from many. Get the basics right: invest in talent and generously reward the behaviours and the work you want to see more of.
- Stay curious. Ask questions, dig deeper, read widely, be open to new opportunities.
- Above all else, do what you love… it shows!
Want some help? We’d love to develop and implement a marketing strategy for your next 15 years! With our unique blend of big-brand experience and small business know-how, we’ll deliver fantastic, cost effective results for your business, big or small. Contact [email protected] today to see how we can help.