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Your Customers Will Help You Build a Stronger Business
Observe-Analyze-Synthesis-Develop-Execute-Measure embodies our approach to Strategic Marketing Plans that build better businesses. This framework is the result of experience gained over dozens of client engagements during the past ten years. Because our approach is entrepreneurial at heart, we focus on identifying and fostering opportunity rather than constraining your options.
Unlike our peers, we place a huge emphasis up front on understanding and probing your situation. Execution is critical, but the strategic insights that will set you apart come from excellence in structuring the issues and understanding your specific situation. To build a better business we must reach far beyond familiarity with the status quo. Probing inquiries identify barriers and solutions, permitting us to propose strategies based on what could be. Investing early in a deeper discussion of the situation, objectives, issues and solutions results in a strategic marketing plan that is more practical while achieving more of your goals.
We do not reject popular frameworks such as the one to the right, but rather choose to highlight where we place greatest emphasis.
Our entire process is built around clear deliverables and transparency at every step. This way, once our role is complete you're able to step in and carry on.
OBSERVE & ANALYZE - Map Points of Interaction and Value
Establish a thorough understanding of how customers interact with your company and the value they seek.
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Employees, customers and partners represent a treasure-trove of underutilized knowledge, insights and perspective. In many cases, amazingly so. It's true they'll say things to us they won't say to you, but in a results-oriented environment there is always pressure to jump directly into strategy development. Our process framework ensures we engage the right issues, ask enough questions, and accumulate the raw ideas and insights needed to drive real impact.
Our role is to be part detective, part business anthropologist and part entrepreneur, always looking for opportunities to make you more valuable to your customers. We're listening for stories more than answers, so several people using the same words, but with different meaning, will catch our attention. Likewise, we know that how sales reps talk about current pricing communicates volumes more than their literal words.
Data, trends and analyst reports provide important context to fill out our understanding. However, bonds are built on stories and shared experiences, so knowing your customers' stories builds an integrated foundation for creating value for them.
SYNTHESIS - Identify Opportunities, Barriers and Solutions for Delivering Value
Name the issues limiting success and providing opportunity, identify realistic solutions, and agree on strategic priorities.
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Because we collect stories rather than statistics, we can speak to specific business misalignments and gaps in ways that connect with your entire company. Our process is the opposite of the abstracting approach used by most consultants. You benefit because every issue is associated with a solution already endorsed by the affected customer, creating internal alignment and credibility.
Just because there are potential solutions for each of the issues or gaps doesn't mean there aren't conflicts or resource limitations. If the decisions were easy and obvious, you wouldn't have called us. We support executives in making broad-reaching policy decisions by presenting the trade-offs transparently. A solution isn't an idea; a solution is an actionable plan.
DEVELOP - Address Opportunities for and Barriers to Creating Value
Document specific deliverables within a prioritized roadmap.
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Because we focus on synthesis and interpretation rather than mere information gathering, we enter into the development of the strategic marketing plan prepared to build a better business rather than merely promoting what you have today.
The completed Strategic Marketing Plan is a comprehensive plan built on strategic and operational objectives, documenting activities, programs and priorities, and reflecting actual or planned resources. We address all channels and media, and recommend specific best practices for implementation. Metrics ensure gains are documented. It is a plan that creates confidence and clarity of mission across your company. In those areas where the plan extends beyond the horizon of certainty, the emphasis is on guidance and prioritization, ensuring the flexibility needed in a changing market while maintaining alignment with the strategic plan.
EXECUTE & MEASURE - Execute to Drive Improved Results
Execute against a prioritized roadmap with the knowledge needed to remain flexible to market changes.
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While we can implement, it generally makes much more sense for clients to implement internally, with us providing guidance as needed. This approach is both cheaper and a much better way to internalize the Strategic Marketing Plan for long term results.
These days, change comes fast. Your marketing strategy needs to provide clear and consistent direction at the level of policies, initiatives and programs. Our approach results in tactics that are more effective and easier to manage.
To see how our process framework drives a typical project, please contact us.