Watch Out for Cracks in Your Marketing Foundations

Cracks spread and they spread fast.

If you’re a founder or seasoned CMO, you need to keep an eye out for cracks forming in your marketing foundations. Why? Because cracks spread and they spread fast. In the world of B2B marketing, they often appear as minor mistakes. Maybe you just haven’t been feeling that good buzz lately when your campaigns launch. Or perhaps you find yourself revising more and more content.

It starts slowly at first, but watch out, ‘cause a storm is coming.

Before you know it, the exec team is reviewing content, sales reps are going off script to “try something new,” and you suddenly see posts about Taco Tuesday on your social feeds. (BTW, Taco Tuesday usually has diddly-squat to do with your brand. Or your message. Or, well, anything at all).

This, my friends, is what happens as a company grows. The team stops using their messaging framework. No one talks about the target market personas anymore. Nobody can even find the original logo files. So, everyone’s been repurposing a low-res jpeg in presentation decks for the past year.

Can you tell we’re all too familiar with this scenario?

What’s at stake if your marketing is starting to crack?

It might sound like trivial pet peeves. I mean, is a low-res image in a slide deck going to make or break the sale? Probably not. But when you multiply that small fracture with other issues, your crack gets exponentially bigger. Pretty soon the costs become too real to ignore.

Consider…

• The extra time it takes for multiple rounds of revisions–for every single piece of content created–when one round should suffice.
• The wasted effort of campaigns created on a whim without checking if they’re aligned with your brand positioning.
• The marketing efforts that you’ve been doing for years (I’m looking at you, social media) that haven’t produced anything. Yet, you keep posting for the sake of posting because…well…no one knows what else to do. You shrug and think, might as well keep on keepin’ on.
• The retainer you have with that PR agency. Never mind you’ve forgotten what your message is. But, hey! You’re getting press! Who cares if it’s on-message or not? You’re in Forbes!

Why should you care about your marketing foundations?

We believe marketing is absolutely magical when everyone is in alignment and on the same team. It’s more fun. It’s more profitable. It’s more creative. And it’s damn-right more efficient.

Check out the 5 cracks we see the most. Do any of them resonate with you or your team? We’ve even included some tips on how to start patching the holes to keep the cracks from spreading. And, of course, if you hit more than one, well, we’re just a call or email away. Our program is designed to make sure everything is in place so you can live your best marketing life starting with your foundation.