The fourth blog in our series on how to create a marketing strategy, details how a strategy goes from the page to actively build your brand.
Once you have written your strategy, you should have a clear vision for your brand and be able to communicate these ambitions with key stakeholders to secure approval.
Task list
An execution plan will turn your strategic ambitions into short-term actionable tasks. Start by assigning responsibility, budget and deadlines to specific activities that will perpetuate you towards your goals. You may already have identified key marketing projects to undertake in your strategy, which may include large one-off infrastructure pieces of work, such as a new website or an improved database.
Campaign planning
For ongoing streams of work, such as PR or content development for social media and blogs, break down activity into campaigns, which helps you to focus on specific topics or audience messages consistently across different communications platforms and make an impact. We’d recommend concentrating on a hero piece of content that tells a story and acts as a valuable resource for customers and prospects. This could take the form of a guide, research report or whitepaper that showcase your brand’s expert knowledge.
Asset development
Branded assets play a vital role to build visual recognition of your brand, your strategy or brand guidelines should detail colours, fonts and styles that will ensure everything you produce hangs together. Yet, these assets will also support you to tell a story and drive people to act. When creating assets, your strategy will identify the platforms they need to appear on, informing designers of the size and dimensions required.
Finally, be prepared to adapt
It’s vital to build flexibility into plans, if 2020 has taught us anything it is the importance of being able to adapt and redirect efforts to respond to market demands. It will also help you to evaluate the impact of each activity, so you can assess whether it is worth further investment.
Flexibility also enables you to respond to ad hoc opportunities as they appear. Your strategy will help you to determine whether they are worth pursuing and how they contribute to your overall brand building activity.
To discuss marketing and communications strategies, contact Caroline Walker or call 01732 779 087.