1) Audience and market intelligence at the core – It can be easy in campaign development to get wrapped up in the internal proposition, but the foundation of any living marketing framework should be audience insights and data. Watch the market, listen to audiences, and build living personas. Leave room for live insights and trends on a programme or campaign level.
2) Ongoing education of the strategy – The CMO will always take the time to educate and rationalise the marketing framework and investment plan to the C-Suite, but it’s the wider team that need to use this framework day-to-day to drive awareness with stakeholders and showcase the importance of the ‘critical middle’ – preventing distraction or displacement of this activity for more solution focused tactics. By grounding decision-making in customer insights, marketing leaders can strike a balance between internal requirements and external demands, ultimately driving more customer-obsessed meaningful and impactful campaigns.
3) Storytelling across the buyer journey – Test your brand and campaign narratives across the buyer journey to ensure they have the depth needed to nurture and engage audiences across multiple content formats and touchpoints. Prioritise development of content monthly, make sure content is aligned to where the buyer is in their journey and avoid message overload in single content pieces.
4) A consistent inspiring experience – To satisfy wants and needs, create personalised, original, and highly relevant content and context. Be bold with creativity, experiment with content formats, and build on what works. Be ready to showcase and champion this internally to make sure the ‘critical middle’ activity is seen to be engaging the audience in the right way. Review and align success measures and KPIs that promote activity to drive long-term value. Engagement in top or mid-funnel content lays the foundations for a long-term connected strategy that lets the audience self-serve throughout the journey – exchange value to build brand credibility.
5) And my top tip…simplify and reset – Your value story should be simplified to a plan on a page. At a minimum, a three-layer approach to segment the narratives and hot topics for your brand, solution, and critical middle activities. If you have gaps, this is where you know you need to focus efforts. Aligning your team’s resource and budgets across this framework can also highlight areas for improvement and support the team's (and wider business’) understanding of the marketing plan.