Why doesn’t marketing activity work?

It’s one of the most common questions I hear business owners ask. And the answer is often because they don’t spend enough time on the most important part of the process.

Some years ago, I read an article about Quality, and although the author was referring to manufacturing, it struck me that one of the most important points he was making was just as relevant to marketing. His assertion was that 80% of quality failures were due to poor briefing. In a nutshell, if everyone involved in creating something isn’t completely clear what it is they are trying to achieve, then it is highly likely that something will go wrong.

It’s just the same in marketing activity – anything short of complete clarity amongst the team who are creating and implementing marketing activity is risking the ultimate success, and the financial returns on the marketing investment.

So, how can we ensure that we get the briefing process right? At Aardvark Marketing Consultants we suggest a 3 step process to briefing marketing activity and allow business owners to focus more of their time and energy elsewhere.

Of course, it also helps to have a robust marketing strategy and clear marketing objectives which provide a framework for individual activities.  Aardvark Marketing Consultants specializes in helping clients build strategies that are affordable, effective and measurable; and then turning these into easy to implement plans.

Comments

[John Willams]

Very interesting article Chris. You're observations are obviously well founded. I run a project management consultancy (www.projexc.com) and we are often put in a position where we have to help people understand that the old adage "failing to plan is planning to fail" is painfully true. With 70% of UK projects failing to meet their objectives, we are only too aware that the main causes for these failures are lack of planning and poor communication of goals! Again we see that marketing campaigns are projects in their own right! How refreshing to see you taking a structured approach to marketing.