What do you need?

I have found that B2B and B2C teams have a variety of requirements when it comes to marketing, depending on their goals, their vision, and how far along the path they are to getting there.

Companies who have just closed seed funding need one set of strategies and tactics. Companies who have closed Series A, B or C, have their first customers, and are poised to ramp growth or mature their messaging and outreach, may need a different set. Or a similar set with a different flavor.

I have listed below the areas where I add most value. Not all are appropriate to all companies at a particular point in time.

My job is to help you define what you need, when, and get on with helping you make it happen.

This is important: this list is organized in a way that’s fairly clear to understand. But there are problems with this. A social strategy, for example, could be part of every list. We could, for example, organise the list by the excellent inbound marketing theme of attract, convert, close and delight. So, bear this in mind.

Go To Market Plans

A Go To Market plan doesn’t always come at the very beginning. Oftentimes, a company will have built and executed on a plan somewhat informally, but find they need a Go To Market plan to target a new, or more focused, set of customers based on first learnings.

I’ve lately been thinking about this as a “Go To Customer” plan, acknowledging the customer-centered world that we live in. Read more about this theme on the ever-awesome Forrester blog.

Guiding principles:

  • Nothing happens before (1) consolidated, agreed brand messaging happens, and (2) measurable organizational goals are set
  • Establish audience targets — usually described as buyer personas — with as much information as can be gathered about that target
  • Be data driven — both the data owned already — even if small — and with the data resulting from marketing initiatives
  • Build in stages — you don’t have to do it all at once; in fact, testing small to start is often well advised
  • Be clear and consistent in what you are, and most particularly in what you are not
  • Acknowledge product/company/service/team strengths, and weaknesses
  • Acknowledge organizational capacity and budget
  • Learn from competitive, and complementary / adjacent, activities and best practices
  • Leverage partnerships — particularly for companies looking to punch above their weight. Building mutually co-operative partnerships with other companies can be tremendously valuable.

Brand & Awareness Building (“I’ve Heard of You!”)

  • Consolidate messaging banks, mantra, vision, pitches — who are you, why are you here, what makes you “you”?
  • Select, hire, train, brief PR agencies
  • Social media strategy — what, where, and to what purpose
  • Deliver targeted, actionable, data-driven stories and press articles. Tell the story; tie it to a behavioral trend, technology trend, and sometimes to an important news story (‘news-jacking’), and answer ‘why now?’ Timing is everything. A journalist is interested if it’s relevant and new. And readers are only interested if it’s relevant, useful, educational, and is not just there to sell your product or service
  • Mine business partnerships for everything they can offer — Draft off their budget, reach, salespeople — whatever they have that you need
  • Influencer marketing — Who matters in your industry? Who do your customers listen to? How do you reach them? Where can they be found? What would pique their interest? Can you delight them, and get get them to talk about you?
  • Thought-leadership — Ghost written articles, events, speaking, and similar
  • Sponsored speaker and industry events — with a warning — these can get expensive; if you’ve got a great network, and you’re good at events, build one of your own.
  • Websites — from first “official” website, through complete overhaul, and major or minor upgrades

Get Found (“I Came Across You”)

There are many ways, and many places, that a potential customer can come across your product or service, and those ways are increasingly fractured, across media and devices. All the more reason to keep the messages consistent and measured.

In considering the ‘awareness’ phase of getting customers to find out about you, some of the areas to consider:

  • Content developed to power lead gen and customer acquisition activities y delivering educational, interesting, problem solving content that appeals to your buyer personas
  • Growthacking and all it entails
  • SEO, SEM
  • Social sharing stategy
  • Industry marketing — listings, platform vendors and similar
  • Industry newsletters, webinars, events
  • Regional events, roadshows

Nurture and ‘Delight’ Me

  • User onboarding
  • Email marketing, customers, leads, prospects
  • White papers, case studies, reports, e-Books
  • Social presence — promotions, tools, and measurement
  • Webinars, resources, documentation
  • Showcases (Slideshare, LinkedIn, Facebook, Vimeo, and others)

Close

Tactics to consolidate, upsell, and turn your customers into your salespeople. Some of these are relevant in B2B marketing and others not.

  • Sales support materials and playbook
  • Post-purchase relationship nurturing
  • Materials that build successful, happy customers
  • Ongoing customer communications and social nurturing

Product Management/Marketing

Product management and product marketing is where I cut my baby teeth. I have joined companies where this area needs to be shored up before “pure” marketing can really begin. And, with enthusiasm, I jump right in. Over my career I have successfully launched hundreds, maybe even thousands, of software and Web products, companies, and product releases.

I have managed product managers and product marketing managers, and have done (and love to do) the work myself. I have worked with teams to spec roadmaps, debate features, and test releases with target customers. I have wireframed ideas and worked closely with UX designers and front end developers.

Guiding principles:

  • Dogfooding rules (throughout the organization)
  • Planning rules
  • Process rules (but not to the point where you cannot be nimble, responsive and adaptive)
  • Communication rules — give teams the tools they need to find out for themselves, and keep the teams talking — be an excellent communicator

Engineers and developers are my favourite people. Engineers and developers teach. They have insights no one else has. And frequently, they come up with the best ideas for how to understand and communicate what makes a product or service shine.  Working closely with those teams simply improves my work product. I am completely comfortable working on technical teams, testing software, filing bugs, participating in Scrum processes, supporting QA teams (onshore and offshore), wire-framing / brainstorming UX, design, and proposing feature solutions. A developer I worked with once gave an honorary propeller beanie hat.

To contact me, connect with me on LinkedIn.

Alice Lankester (far right) with the winners of the 2015 Women In Technology International award winners. The highlight of my year is to MC this inspiring event.
Alice Lankester (far right) with the winners of the 2015 Women In Technology International award winners. Aside from returning home to London that year, the highlight of 2015 was being MC of the Woman In Technology Awards and meeting Lt Uhura — Nichelle Nicols — particularly important for a trekkie like me.

Always Keep Learning