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MiMfg Magazine May 2017
A Tale of Two Marketing Systems
By Ben Jessup • The Whole Brain Group
Circle up! It’s storytime! Today
we’re going to share a familiar tale—
the story of two very different ap-
proaches to marketing. Spot the
differences between company A and
company B, and decide which market-
ing system you think would best benefit
your organization.
Company A: StuffCorp
First, let’s talk about company A
— we’ll call them StuffCorp. So, the
higher-ups at StuffCorp have heard
that successful companies have an active
marketing department, so they hire a few
marketing grads to start one of their own.
The CEO of StuffCorp doesn’t really
understand the whole point of marketing,
so the marketing team gets a tiny
budget and orders to make some magic.
The marketing team has lots of great
ideas, but not a lot of direction, which
leads to a scattershot approach to
marketing. They’re posting sporadically
on every social media platform available,
they send e-mails or blog when they feel
like it. Key performance indicators (KPIs)
are all but ignored, and chaos reigns.
There’s no clearly defined or measurable
goal for any of their activities, and the
results speak for themselves.
Additionally, StuffCorp’s marketing
wonders have no connection with other
departments and they’re subjected to
the whims of whatever conference the
CEO has most recently attended.
(“Have you heard of Snapchat? Is there
anything to it?”) When sales remain
stagnant, all fingers point back at the
marketing team. What’s wrong with
this picture?
Company B: ThingsRUs
Ok, now let’s move to company B
— ThingsRUs. The marketing team at
ThingsRUs has been well established,
and they’ve crafted a calibrated plan
with a clearly defined path to their
business goals. In fact, that path looks a
lot like our old friend the marketing
funnel. There’s a direct line from visitors
to leads to opportunities to customers,
and everything they do is targeted to a
specific stage within the funnel.
Let’s look at two very different
approaches to marketing.
Spot the differences...and
decide which marketing
system you think would best
benefit your organization.
The ThingsRUs marketing team
works closely with the sales team,
handing off qualified leads and making
it easier than ever for the sales team to
convert customers. Every member of
the team has a ready answer when
they’re asked, “Why are we doing this?”
and every piece of content created has a
designated purpose. While StuffCorp’s
team is easily derailed from their plan by
input from their higher-ups, the seasoned
ThingsRUs team stands their ground,
confident in their expertise, refusing to
be distracted from the details that
impact KPIs.
Which team do you want your team
to resemble? (Psssst — ThingsRUs.)
There are specific actions you can
take to model your team after the
rockstars at ThingsRUs:
• Know your buyers — Direct your
content to what your buyers are
looking to learn rather than what
you want your buyers to know.
Remember, you’re working for
them, not vice-versa.
• Choose your social media channels
wisely — Manufacturing companies
probably don’t have a lot of use for
Snapchat. However, a platform like
LinkedIn could be a great way to
get your information in front of
the people who would see it and
benefit from it.
• Convert through content — Create
content with an eye toward the
value it offers your client; use it to
reinforce your relationship with
the buyer, and create a venue for
increasing engagement throughout
the consideration process.
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Ben Jessup is senior strategist for
The Whole Brain Group. He can
be reached at 734-929-0431 or
[email protected].