Successful Marketing Is Not Just About Key Selling Points
By: Jay Osterholm, founder and CEO of The ODM Group
About 12 years ago, I thought any marketing company worth its salt would offer their clients a strategic marketing plan prior to rolling out a branding initiative. After all, it makes sense. I had seen companies who wanted a new campaign, but had not fully thought through the campaign strategy. Furthermore, I often found myself selling Strategic Marketing Plans on top of trying to get the creative business. Even if the client said ‘no’ to the planning process, we still needed to do our homework on the side to be sure that: marketing differentiators were accurately qualified, key selling points were clearly defined and articulated, target audiences were confirmed, and the competitive landscape was outlined – among many, many other strategic anchors. A battle-plan if you will.
Far too often agencies were asked to simply take orders, and not challenge assumptions with thoughtful insight. After all, the CEOs or Marketing VPs knew what they wanted and if you wanted the business, your job was to execute – period. Imagine creating 12 different campaign options because the client’s marketing team said they can’t give you any more strategic insights and instead saying, ‘Look, just show me some creative – I’m a visual person and I’ll know it when I see it.’ I really dislike that expression. It serves neither client nor agency.
Agencies were expected to know what to do and create something brilliant, often in a short time frame. You get the idea. Strategic Marketing Plans found their place in allowing agencies time to get it right, do their homework and oh yes – did I mention that agencies need to charge for that immersion process? A Strategic Marketing Plan is a milestone and a physical product in the end. A client could take the plan, say ‘thanks so much’ and give the creative business to someone else. Having written my share of Strategic Marketing Plans, the amount of time and effort is almost covered by the amount an agency can charge for it.
Strategic Marketing Plans still have an important spot in the agency/client relationship. While it immediately appears that the prospective client’s investment in the Strategic Marketing Plan is all too agency-self-serving, very few experienced businesses can argue against the value of the business intelligence and the planning process. The client invests in the agency, and the agency builds a relationship with the client and learns their business inside and out. So now having sold that idea, we are just negotiating scope, scale and timing to get the creative results.
The key take away is “always do your homework.” And if marketing agencies are going to get it right, somewhere, somehow, questions must be asked and facts must be distilled to yield an “a-ha!”
