The 5 Rings of B2B Marketing Strategy
Harrison Gerard, Art Director
The Summer Olympics are upon us! As athletes from around the world prepare to perform on the world stage, I’m reminded of the finesse and strategy that goes into preparation. Let’s take a page out of their playbook to examine how we can apply the athlete’s mindset to our own marketing strategies. In honor of the Olympic rings, we’ve compiled the top five learnings that you should apply to your business.
Ring 1: Training & Preparation
We’re halfway through the year, which means it’s time to start thinking about 2025. UGH. I know, right? Time just keeps timing it up. But as I was saying, give yourself and your team plenty of time to develop a plan for the year ahead.
Review available data to gain a clear understanding of where your brand currently stands and clarify areas of opportunity. Your marketing efforts are the connective tissue between the needs of the market and your ever-evolving offerings. Questions to ask:
Are there any new product launches coming up?
Is there an untapped audience segment that needs attention?
Are there any surprises from the past year that uncover new opportunities?
These are the types of questions you want to ask yourself as you evaluate your brand and begin planning for the next year.
Ring 2: Know Your Competition
Knowing your brand’s business is only half the battle. Understanding the full market landscape is when the real magic happens. Spend time outlining your competitive set, reviewing their social media presence and website content, product offerings and more.
This will help you discover where the white space exists in the marketplace.
From here, you can identify what makes your brand different by leaning on the unique value proposition you offer to customers.
How do you best serve your customers and what problem does your product help them solve? What are the various benefits that customers receive when they buy from your brand? Answering these questions will help uncover whether your brand’s north star is on point or if it needs an update.
Harrison Gerard, Art Director
Ring 3: Go for the Gold
As you identify key points of your strategy, be sure to develop a measurement plan that allows you to accurately evaluate the success of your efforts with key milestones identified. This can take shape in defining a specific number of leads generated or percentage increase of sales dollars.
What does your gold medal look like?
Simultaneously, be open to optimizing your plan as you learn more information. Is the new audience segment proving to be more engaged than previously expected? Shift spend to continue supporting these customers and growing that audience. Is a new tactic becoming too expensive to maintain? Look to create efficiencies by focusing on the channels that maximize your spend.
Set your team and your brand up for success by defining what success looks like, then routinely monitor progress.
Ring 4: Identify Key Plays
You’ve gathered information on the current state of your business, along with intel on your competitors. It’s time to create a plan that addresses any gaps in your current efforts and incorporates the key plays your brand has mastered.
Is there a key product that serves as a “hook” to capture new customers? A specific trade show that typically yields the strongest engagement and buzz?
Leaning into what has worked well is a great place to start, but don’t forget to create space for testing opportunities. This may look like a new audience segment to target, exploring an entirely new channel to reach customers and prospects, or new messaging and visuals to determine what resonates most with customers.
These tests will help you continue to calibrate your brand, garner stronger engagement and continue to move through the funnel.
Ring 5: Fill Your Cheering Section
Whether you’re a team of one or a department of 10, it’s critical to have the buy-in and support of the entire organization. Strategy should not exist in a vacuum, so identify how the business as a whole will benefit.
How can your plan help to connect the dots between departments and goals?
Can your strategy support sales, HR and recruitment?
Understanding how your strategic planning can positively impact multiple stakeholders and counterparts will increase the organization’s overall investment and belief in the work.
Ready to talk strategy? At Ivor Andrew, we have an expert team and a strong playbook that has been tested and proven over the years around the world. Reach out today!