Posts Tagged ‘Marketing Planning’

Critical Success Factors for any Marketing Campaign

Wednesday, July 16th, 2008

For the last six months, I’ve been involved in organizing a national campaign called Entrepreneurship Week Canada with the Impact Entrepreneurship Group. This campaign falls under the umbrella of Global Entrepreneurship Week, partnering with over 65 countries to raise awareness of entrepreneurship among youth aged 18-25.

This campaign is the largest marketing project we’ve ever taken on, and it hasn’t been easy. Why? We’re attempting to reach a huge and diverse audience, not only teaching them about a cause, but asking them to take action.

My team began the initial campaign strategy by following these steps:

We thought that was enough, until we had meetings with several stakeholders and until I joined Mezzanine for my summer internship. I then realized the importance of marketing & consulting. What did I learn? In order to run a successful campaign, I needed to:

  • Conduct Market Research - Is there an entrepreneurship industry in Canada? Is youth an appropriate target market?
  • Develop Objectives & Tactics - Did we and are we setting realistic objectives? What strategies are we going to use to ensure we meet those objectives? Have we set hard deadlines?
  • Consider “Measurables” - How are we actually going to measure the success of this campaign? Are we actually changing the perspective of our audience? How?
  • 360 Reviews - Have we sat down and reviewed every corner and angle of the campaign or project on a regular basis?

Hmph, never thought of that before!

This not only applies to organizing campaigns, or mass media product launches, it really applies to any start up or new project that an individual, organization or corporation embarks on.

Look out for Entrepreneurship Week Canada (www.impact.org) taking place November 17th -23rd across Canada. Lisa Shepherd, CEO of Mezzanine Consulting is an advocate for the campaign.

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Posted in Marketing Strategy | No Comments »

5 Project Planning Basics

Friday, June 20th, 2008

I have, at what sometimes can be coined as an annoying habit - I like to plan. From the simple, to the most complex tasks I put a plan I place: ‘what to wear to work for the week’, ‘how my family should spend their Saturday’, ‘how to develop the requirements for a National branch desktop application’. I do not discriminate by size or complexity of the task. This simple habit has transcended every aspect of my life and is in turn one of the reasons, I believe, the multimillion dollar projects I’ve managed in my professional career have done well despite numerous obstacles. Because, at the heart of a good ‘strategy’, is great execution. Your plan is part of the foundation of execution and doesn’t eliminate obstacles but instead, allows you to manage them much more effectively.

For small to midsized businesses this concept is absolutely critical. Whether it be a new product launch or a customer relationship campaign, your plan and its execution is critical for its success.

5 Project Planning Basics:

  1. Create your plan - Identify list of tasks, their dependencies, required resources and applicable timeline
  2. Engage your audience - Communicate and validate your plan with both internal and external stakeholders (e.g. within your company, within the client’s company) to obtain buy in
  3. Track your progress – Have a disciplined approach to utilize and work within the plan
  4. Stay agile - Recognize that your plan is a work in progress and agility will allow your organization to respond to the changing environment that is business
  5. Institutionalize the learnings - after each project debrief with stakeholders to identify what went well and wrong, and then integrate the learning for subsequent planning.

This final step is critical help your organization become more proficient at creating, managing, and executing plans.

A final note of caution before you start planning, ensure that the level of detail within your plan fits the scope and complexity of the project. Sometimes bigger isn’t always better.

Happy Planning!

plan /plæn / noun, verb, planned, plan•ning. –noun
a scheme or method of acting, doing, proceeding, making, etc., developed in advance: battle plans.

Resources:
http://www.projectsmart.co.uk/


Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done
by Larry Bossidy, Ram Charan, Charles Burck

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Posted in Consulting, Marketing Execution and Tools | 1 Comment »

Outsource Marketing

Thursday, June 19th, 2008

For SMB’s it is often difficult to develop, plan and execute a marketing strategy for obvious reasons - lack of time, money and expertise. Why not outsource some or all of your marketing?

Would you install a new furnace in your home, or replace all the plumbing yourself? Probably not. This is best left for seasoned professionals who specialize in these areas. You can try to save money and cut corners by doing it yourself - but chances are you will end up with a small fire in the basement and a lot of wet household items (trust me on this one).

This analogy holds true for marketing functions - SMB’s often hire a junior marketing manager thinking that this will save money and increase marketing effectiveness in the short term. Unfortunately this is often not the case. By hiring inexperienced individuals, costs can easily sky-rocket and strategic campaigns become infrequent or disorganized. In addition to the lack of expertise, the overhead to employ an individual full-time can actually be quite costly - therefore negating the original intention of the hire.

Why not outsource? With the increasing number of tools available and the complexity of integrated campaigns - why not leave it to seasoned professionals? I have seen a number of companies go this route with tremendous success. Some of the benefits of outsource marketing are below:

1. Range of Expertise - outsource marketing firms are made up of seasoned professionals who understand strategy, tools and tactics in a variety of marketing areas. With dynamic changes in the marketing arena, a variety of expertise at your disposal is critical.

2. Lower Cost - it is amazing how many times I see SMB owners think they are saving money by hiring a sole full-time marketing manager. Often times a salaried employee is unnecessary and the overhead is significant. Quality outsource marketing firms can be placed on retainer at a fraction of the cost, with the benefit of more experience at your fingertips.

3. Strength in Numbers - rather than hire an individual, why not have a team of professionals at your service? This allows for more integrated campaigns, a greater number of tools to deploy and increased flexibility.

4. Increased Efficiency - a team of marketing professionals will be able to churn out high quality marketing campaigns at a much faster rate than an individual manager. This makes for increased quantity and quality of marketing materials for SMB’s.

Outsource marketing has moved beyond SMB’s as well. Corporations are beginning to recognize that large marketing departments can be drastically reduced - resulting in cost savings, greater expertise and increased efficiency. The old argument put forth by in-house marketers that outsourced professionals ‘don’t understand the brand’ well enough to execute campaigns is antiquated at this point. While executive level strategy can remain in-house, planning and execution can often be farmed out with great success. Specialized talent can then be allocated to address particular areas required for marketing. This is particularly relevant as new technology continues to provide opportunities for more effective marketing if deployed strategically.

Both SMB’s and large corporations should constantly be assessing their marketing requirements and plotting these requirments against current in-house staff. If the two don’t match - it’s time to outsource.