The most important internal AND external planning, tactical, people and process factors today to assure accelerated business success through optimized marketing.

GOAL SETTING
1. Brilliant creative no longer is enough. Your entire marketing journey must be based on how you define, and who defines, your marketing problems and opportunities – – and their priorities.

Be open but rigorous, analytical and disciplined so that you are assured of getting it right from the start. Competition is too keen and the pace too fast to afford getting it wrong at the outset.

PROCESSES, PEOPLE AND STRUCTURE
2. Identifying the most important goals and priorities depends on your internal processes, people and organization.

Both insight and innovation spring from involving the right people, inside and outside of marketing, in a focused team with shared passion – – a team that crosses internal silos, functions and barriers. All must come together to define and agree on a consistent view of goals, priorities and the marketing strategies to realize success.

Internally, how the goals, priorities and strategies are communicated and who communicates them can stop you dead in your tracks, slow you down or speed you up.

POSITIONING AND BRANDING
3. Uncover the one enduring thing or competency your business (company/division/product/service) has that really sets you apart and makes you unique.

Work hard and dig deep to find this. Resist the obvious or conventional. This is your invisible asset that can accelerate your marketplace and financial success and energize your workforce.

POSITIONING AND BRANDING (Continued)
4. What’s unique about your operation must be the consistent foundation for everything you say and do and how your entire organization behaves.

This is how you leverage your asset – – turning an invisible, abstract ability into real and concrete marketplace advantage and value.

Make it, consistently, the centerpiece not only of the ideas your business expresses, but also the activities everyone undertakes – – from ads to sales letters and calls, to meetings, web communications, seminars, speeches, publicity, etc.- – as well as the behaviors everyone exhibits so that all stakeholders come away with a consistent experience with the company that truly reflects the strength of your brand.

POSITIONING AND BRANDING (Continued)
5. Influence matters, a lot, today – – marketing acceleration and success today require the nuanced ability to identify, map and leverage the unseen networks of influence and trust.

Today, silos are dead and networks of managed relationships have taken over. Everybody seems connected to everyone, but those who are trusted have the influence. They serve as the new “control rods” of 21st century marketing and are the new hidden persuaders. They have altered how targeting priorities are set for marketing. Who you know, or could know, counts as never before today. The “new physics” in communications today means that the shortest distance between two points is not always a straight line.

MARKETING AND IMPLEMENTATION TACTICS
6. Generate 30%-50% more result in your marketing and boost your ROI by combining and optimizing your portfolio of marketing tactics in new ways.

Managed communications systems – – that integrate only the most powerful combinations of tactics against people’s needs and roles – – now can quickly penetrate and incite-to- action today’s marketplace of interlocking networks of managed relationships. Discard conventional marketing implementation and tactics and embrace the new matrix!