Marketing consultancy
If you’re looking for marketing consultancies in London, you’ve come to the right place. That’s why we follow a consistent process in the creation of marketing plans and marketing strategies. We have found that this is the best way to deliver successful work for all our clients. Everything we do is informed by the structured approach we take towards the strategic marketing planning process.
Marketing Planning
And that’s why planning lies at the very heart of everything we do. It’s a systematic process that allows us to create a highly effective marketing strategy for your business, one that will deliver the results you are looking for – as effectively and efficiently as possible.
Marketing Strategy
It is important to remember that any strategy is defined as the best use of scarce resource to achieve a specific goal. In business, scarce resource means time and money. The best way to use your time and money as effectively as possible is to have a good marketing plan in place, and that is why we always followed a structured process in order to achieve this goal.
Marketing Solutions
That is what marketing consultancy is all about. Putting the best plans and strategies in place. We are a passionate team of experienced marketing consultants, and we love working in close partnership with all our clients to deliver the best possible solutions for their businesses.
A successful marketing strategy is built on the foundation stones of a strong marketing plan.
And a strong marketing plan is based upon our comprehensive understanding of your business plan, one that is supported by a clearly-defined financial proposition in terms of revenue, investment, costs and budgets.
These are the sorts of questions we will answer during our strategic marketing planning process…
- Do you have a business plan and financial goals in place, and do all the key people in your organisation understand and agree with it?
- Do you know what your brand proposition is, in terms of your vision, values and views, so you are able to clearly define a desired corporate position in your marketplace?
- Have you got a clear understanding of the features and benefits of the products and services you sell, and do you know the messaging that will appeal to potential customers to overcome the problems and challenges they are facing?
- Have you defined who your customer segments and personas are in terms of demographic and psychographic characteristics – and can you cross-reference their needs against the products and services you sell?
- Do you know who your competitors are, do you know how they market themselves to prospective customers – is there anything we can learn from what they are doing that we can use to improve your sales and marketing efforts?
- Do you have the systems and processes in place to optimise your sales pipeline?
- Do your staff understand what you are trying to achieve, and are they both supported and supportive?
Once you know the answers to these questions, we are then able to create a marketing plan, and this will lead to the creation and delivery of successful marketing strategy. It will provide the basis of your strategic brand proposition. It will allow you to develop a list of all the sales collateral and marketing materials your organisation needs to have in place before lead generation activities begin. It will allow you to establish if there is a need to invest in systems and processes to improve the performance of your sales pipeline. It will allow you to identify all the different digital and non-digital media to invest in to generate leads, and the strategies and tactics to use for each one. It will allow you to create an environment where all your marketing campaigns can be measured, analysed and improved on an ongoing basis.
Although we have explained this process in the context of a complete marketing plan and an overall marketing strategy, we follow the same basic rules when applying ourselves to the delivery of a specific marketing need – such as the creation of a new brand proposition or a fresh website, or when devising a digital advertising strategy or an integrated advertising campaign – so we always deliver an element of marketing consultancy in everything we do. Why? Because this will always deliver better results for your organisation.
We start with in-depth research
Before we are able to create a successful marketing plan and any related marketing strategies for your organisation, we first of all need to carry out a comprehensive review of your business and the marketplace it operates in.
We need to get to know you and your colleagues, and what makes your business tick. Here are some of the typical types of activity we are likely to undertake during this critical first stage in the marketing planning process.
- A face-to-face discussion to review your brief, and to discuss your marketing needs in more detail, so that we are all agreed on the scope of work that is required, the timetable and the budget.
- A workshop-style meeting attended by key people within your organisation to review the overall business plan, which will enable us to get a better feel for your customers, the products and services you offer, and the competitors operating within your marketplace
- One-to-one interviews with relevant people within your organisation – this approach allows individual members of staff to say things that they might feel uncomfortable sharing in front of colleagues; we find it invariably leads to interesting insights that help to guide our plans
- A one-day visit to your office to spend quality time with your staff – this also allows us to gain a much better and deeper understanding of the culture and atmosphere of your organisation as quickly and efficiently as possible
- A review of the current sales and marketing systems and processes you have in place, so we can see how effective they are, and determine whether any changes need to be considered
- Market research to identify your competitor’s marketing activities, in order to see if there are any ideas we can emulate – we do this both manually and technically
- Discussions with customers to find out what they like about your organisation and any areas where they would like to see an improvement, such as additional services or better support
These activities, which are always tailored to the unique needs of your own business, help us to identify the strengths and weaknesses of your competitors, the demographics and psychographics of your customers, and the features and benefits of your products and services.
It helps us to fast-track our understanding of your business, its people and its aspirations. This means we will achieve – in a relatively short period of time – a really good feel for your organisation, and this will allow us to put together an effective marketing plan.
Creating an effective marketing plan
Here are some of the key elements which we are likely to include with a strategic marketing plan:
- A review of your business proposition and any suggestions about refining your business plans that come to light during the research process
- Defining your key audiences by customer segments and customer personas to ensure we meet their demographic and psychographic needs and understand their pain points
- Creating key messages to highlight the primary features and benefits of your products and services and the desired proposition and positioning of your business within its marketplace
- Establishing the marketing materials and sales collateral your business needs to have in place to ensure a professional customer experience is delivered at every single customer touchpoint
- Identifying any technologies you need to invest in to improve your sales pipeline systems and processes, such as a CRM system or marketing automation software
- Determining the best mix of marketing activities to generate high quality leads to fill up your sales pipeline with a constant flow of new suspects and prospects
- Establishing any opportunities to maximise customer lifetime value
- Anything else relevant to the specific needs of your business
Building a successful sales pipeline
Turning leads into customers is essential to create revenue, and we’ll make sure this happens – building a healthy and robust sales pipeline from which your business can thrive.
At all touchpoints along this cycle, we’ll aim to generate sales conversions, improve retention and encourage loyalty. It’s not just about CRM, data-crunching and marketing automation. We’ll look at the human side too; generating reviews, asking for referrals, and creating brand ambassadors who spread the word on your behalf.
This approach optimises performance of the sales pipeline before the sale by minimising churn and maximising conversion, and after the sale by increasing customer lifetime value (CLV). We call this approach bowtie marketing – delivered well, it can generate huge value for your business.
A focus on audience profiling
Are you talking to the right people? Whether you’re operating in a traditional B2B or B2C marketplace, or working within a more complex sales channel distribution network, we’ll get right under the skin of your target audience and create detailed profiles to make sure we’re communicating with them in the best possible way.
People make decisions based on both rational needs and emotional drivers, so we have to bear this in mind when creating messages that influence their behaviour. We need to understand each customer segment’s pain points too, which means we need to stand in their shoes and be able to empathise when considering how best to explain the features and benefits of your products and services to them in a way which makes sense to them as individuals – and we need to create customer personas to make sure that marketing messages are as hard-hitting as possible.
Don’t forget the internal review
We like to take a good look inside your business to get a full 360 degree view of your organisation. An internal review ensures that external efforts are working as effectively as possible, that all staff involved both directly and indirectly in the sales and marketing process are aware of their responsibilities, and that they have the skills, support and systems in place to do their job as well as possible. Your people really are one of the most important ingredients to bear in mind when it comes to the delivery of a successful marketing plan and associated marketing strategies. So, let’s make sure we get them fired up and fully supportive of all your sales and marketing efforts form the word go!
The bottom line…
The bottom line is that we will always work in close partnership with you from start to finish to find a marketing solution that will help your organisation to achieve its corporate ambitions, whatever they may be – such as increasing sales leads, improving conversion rates or optimising customer lifetime value.
RECENT MARKETING CONSULTANCY PROJECTS
Marketing consultancies in London
Looking for marketing consultancies in London? Please get in touch if you would like to find out more about who we are and how we can help. We offer a two-hour marketing consultation without cost or obligation at a venue of your choice to discuss any marketing challenges you are facing.
Please call us on 020 3858 7868
Please email stephen@abacusmarketing.co.uk
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