The GPS (Global Positioning System) is a revolutionary device and a lifesaver for those looking to get from point A to B, but don’t know how. And while all roads may lead to Rome, there’s always a faster and less complicated way with less twists, turns, road bumps, stops — or anything else you would like to avoid.
An effective marketing plan does just that. Bridging the gap from where the business currently is to where it wants to be, it plays the essential role of grid lining the overall marketing efforts, triggering alarms when deviation from the intended route occurs. But most of all, it lays out your organisation’s coordinates at point blank — where you currently are and where you want to be.
Out-and-out honesty helps immensely, because you can’t drive your organisation to someplace unless you know where it is that you want to go, let alone how you’ll get there.
A clear definition of your brand values sets the course for every marketing effort and greases the wheels of the overall machinery — enabling the other departments within the organisation to be in sync and complement every effort made to achieve set objectives.
Once a well-defined marketing plan is laid out, communicating it in an effective manner is the next step. Often in-house marketing and communications departments take it upon themselves to creatively strategise and even execute the proposed plan. The usual argument for this erroneous overstepping of boundaries is that if they “birthed” the strategy, then it’s best they incubate and execute it.
The bringing in of an outside entity — an advertising agency — can give the strategy its wings, clipping off what works and what doesn’t, and objectively accomplish set objectives without bias. Such detachment could very well be an agency’s trump card, and the reason why many campaigns fare better than others.
It is the ability of marketing to pass the baton to the agency, following which the creative tenure must be adhered to with absolutely no interference, allowing them to do what they do best. Because that’s what advertising agencies do — they provide creative solutions that are tailored to boost brand value.
Without a clear strategy, even the best agencies money can buy are blind, groping in the dark with their in-house marketing counterparts, usually being set up to take the blame when all falls through. Without proper definition of jurisdiction in the communications process, agency-client relationships often sour.
The end result — both sides are at a loss, and a lot of marketing dollars get squandered in achieving little.
Marketing isn’t gimmickry. Success depends on the marketing department’s supervisory competence to wholly adhere to the objective at hand no matter how bleak the outcome is in the beginning phases and its execution ked by a professional advertising agency, who usually prefer minimal interference once the objectives are mutually agreed upon.
However, there is another ingredient crucial to marketing success. It is often the first thing that marketers shy away from giving a direct answer — a budget. Marketers like to work forwards here, to spend only as much as is absolutely vital in achieving the intended objectives, with the agency expected to propose a strategy that covers every aspect of a comprehensive campaign.
The budget will remain in a ‘to-be-decided’ status depending on the agency’s ability to convince the client of its undeniable benefits. Agencies, on the other hand prefer to work backwards, suggesting the right action plan based on a ballpark figure, at least, so as to pinpoint a probable starting point for creative suggestions.
This gives a very real picture of what can and can’t be achieved. What marketers see as optimism and a matter of stretching the budget to get maximum bang for their buck, the agency often views it as delusions of grandeur.
Execution finesse depends on a sound budget. Squeezing the budget to achieve more quality may have a short-term gains, but will have long term consequences often hard to shake off. Among the most detrimental are poor brand image, lack of customer patronage, and a bad taste in the mouth of its intended audience.
Clients and agencies part ways uncongenially, with the ensuing phase often involving slander from both sides, and an avowal to never partner again in the future.
Every communication malfunction is the consequence of a poorly written marketing plan, or the absolute defiance to even writing one. Marketers nowadays find it sufficient to verbally communicate them, simply because it ‘doesn’t really need a brief’, or a slew of reasons ranging from the unavoidable to the frivolous.
Successful marketers go the extra mile to meticulously specify and clarify the organisation’s wishlist, and there is no detail that is too little or too unimportant.
Clarity is the trump card of a flawless marketing campaign … ambiguity is its ruin.
The writer is the CEO of Venture Communications FZ-LLC.
