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We have a back catalogue of over a decade of posts, almost all of which are still relevant and useful today.
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The real secrets of marketing excellence
A few weeks back we ran a webinar delving into the detail of our recently published research report. The topic of the session was how marketing leaders create strategic and operational excellence. In this blog we look at the four ways to do that.
Finding, employing and keeping the right people
Marketers are sometimes, but not always, involved in employer marketing – that is, finding, employing and keeping brilliant people. We’ve worked with clients who have successfully applied Watertight Thinking and used our tools to help them build a robust marketing plan to recruit the right people. Although it’s the HR team that’s lead, what the marketing team can bring to support them has been game-changing.
Developing a ‘journey brain’
Marketers are familiar with the customer journey. It’s the starting point for our thinking, strategies and plans. But what are the other ‘journeys’ in the business – employees, other stakeholders, growth? How can marketing contribute to and enhance these?
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The latest posts…
The real secrets of marketing excellence
A few weeks back we ran a webinar delving into the detail of our recently published research report. The topic of the session was how marketing leaders create strategic and operational excellence. In this blog we look at the four ways to do that.
Finding, employing and keeping the right people
Marketers are sometimes, but not always, involved in employer marketing – that is, finding, employing and keeping brilliant people. We’ve worked with clients who have successfully applied Watertight Thinking and used our tools to help them build a robust marketing plan to recruit the right people. Although it’s the HR team that’s lead, what the marketing team can bring to support them has been game-changing.
Developing a ‘journey brain’
Marketers are familiar with the customer journey. It’s the starting point for our thinking, strategies and plans. But what are the other ‘journeys’ in the business – employees, other stakeholders, growth? How can marketing contribute to and enhance these?
#WatertightWednesday Write-ups
Developing a ‘journey brain’
< Back to the Blog “Marketers are familiar with the customer journey. It’s the starting point for our thinking, strategies and plans. But what are the other ‘journeys’ in the business – employees, other stakeholders, growth? How can marketing contribute to and...
Recruiting & Resourcing a Stellar Marketing Team
< Back to the Blog “Whatever your size of business, recruiting and resourcing can be a tricky. What makes for a brilliant marketing team? What factors do you need to consider? In our roundtable this month we discussed the topic through three lenses - skills, roles...
Getting your FD onboard and loving marketing
< Back to the Blog “A marketer’s relationship with the FD is key. They can test your plan, help develop a metrics dashboard and facilitate budget conversations. However, it’s not a given that your FD will be on-board with marketing. So how can you gain their buy-in...
Find all of the write-ups here
Building a Marketing Team
The real secrets of marketing excellence
< Back to the Blog Join us in March for our conferenceA few weeks back we ran a webinar delving into the detail of our recently published research report. The title of the session was how marketing leaders create strategic and operational excellence. In this blog...
Finding, employing and keeping the right people
< Back to the Blog Join us in March for our conferenceMarketers are often, but not always, involved in employer marketing – that is, finding, employing and keeping brilliant people. We’ve worked with clients who have successfully applied Watertight Thinking and...
Developing a ‘journey brain’
< Back to the Blog “Marketers are familiar with the customer journey. It’s the starting point for our thinking, strategies and plans. But what are the other ‘journeys’ in the business – employees, other stakeholders, growth? How can marketing contribute to and...
Posts by Framework
Flow Foundations
Recruiting & Resourcing a Stellar Marketing Team
< Back to the Blog “Whatever your size of business, recruiting and resourcing can be a tricky. What makes for a brilliant marketing team? What factors do you need to consider? In our roundtable this month we discussed the topic through three lenses - skills, roles...
Getting your FD to love marketing
< Back to the Blog Join us in March for our conferenceHow close are you with your FD? Having a good relationship with finance is important. Getting them on-board and enthusiastically supporting your strategy and plan is often a key piece to get right. But all too...
The Rhythm of Resilience in Business
< Back to the Blog A new cohort has just started our 12-month marketing leadership programme. The first month focuses on the Flow Foundations (see Chapter 2, Watertight Marketing - 2nd Ed.). Every coaching session I had with our clients this month had a theme......
Touchpoint Leaks™
Growing business through increased volume
< Back to the Blog Join us in March for our conferenceIn Bryony’s original blog ‘Growth: Do you want lifetime value, margin or volume?’, she explained the different types of growth a business can achieve through putting the right kind of marketing in place across...
How marketing helps you find the right prospects
< Back to the Blog Join us in March for our conferenceIn a blog I wrote recently, I mentioned that one of the four growth strategies was looking for like-minded prospects. This is step two of the process we’d recommend to help you find, win and keep more of the...
Looking for treasure in your own back yard
< Back to the Blog Join us in March for our conferenceWe’ve come into contact with 1000’s of businesses over the years. Whichever sector they’re in, however large or small they are, however their marketing is organised, there’s one common theme. Forgotten...
Logic Sandwich
Marketing In Action: Receipt Bank turns happy customers into a sales engine
< Back to the Blog Mobilising the goodwill of happy customers is so powerful. I've recently started using Receipt Bank, and there's a little thing they do that I thought I'd share with you. Now, we have nothing to do with this bit of marketing cleverness, but it...
How to structure a marketing case study
< Back to the Blog The marketing case study is an essential part of your toolkit . They have an essential role in proving your credentials and overcoming any concerns that a potential buyer might have. So, I've asked Certified Practitioner, Cheryl Crichton, to give...
What are the real triggers in a sales process?
< Back to the Blog As buyers we are exposed to more and more messages that fight for our time. As marketers, it’s often tempting to emphasise the unique features and logical prowess of an offering. But, the mind doesn’t work like that. There’s more to engaging the...
The Time Triangle
Three ways to pay (not what you think!)
< Back to the Blog I'm not talking about PayPal or invoices here, I'm talking about what people exchange with you in return for value at different stages of a buying decision. If you can crack this, your marketing will almost always deliver for you. As someone goes...
Is your content formatted for how your customers’ brains are wired?
< Back to the Blog Yesterday, I zoomed in on the power of visual content in your mix of materials. Today, I want to zoom back out to give you a way of planning a mix of content in different formats to ensure that you grab the attention of people who might be...
The only 5 things you should be doing in social media
< Back to the Blog Social media marketing can seem like a bit of a minefield. It can also seem like there’s a dizzying amount to learn before you can even get started. But, it really breaks down into four activities and one core skill – which are common across...
Influencer Icecream
Is it time to Validate Concerns rather than Overcome Objections?
< Back to the Blog It’s received wisdom amongst many sales professionals that a key part of their role is to overcome the objections that people may have to buying what they have on offer. Indeed, many a training session and book can be found on the skills involved...
How to choose a CRM system for small business
< Back to the Blog I am continually asked how to choose CRM for small business. Our clients are typically step-up businesses. That is, they are onto some thing and they now want to scale it up. At some point in this journey their data needs and automation desires...
How to overcome the third party veto in a complex sale
< Back to the Blog Following a strategy workshop that I ran with Watertight Marketing Certified Practitioner, Joshua Morse, there was some disagreement. Going through the Touchpoint Leak™ Assessment, Joshua rated – Leak 5: No Critical Approval – as Red, whilst the...
Profit Purpose Matrix
What skills does a marketing director need?
< Back to the Blog If you’re aiming for the most senior marketing position or are already there, what skills make this role a success? Our roundtable discussion this month looked at this topic through three lenses: bridging business strategy into marketing...
What makes marketing work?
< Back to the Blog This post is also available over on our PodBlogI often start workshops by offering to write up on the board in red or green pen. Red for something they hate about marketing, and green for something they love about marketing. Without fail there...
Growth: Do you want lifetime value, margin or volume?
< Back to the Blog This post is also available over on our PodBlogJoin us in March for our conferenceI was chatting with one of our clients last week. This is a £20m+ b2b service provider. They have a core service that's low margin, but gives them a platform to...
Posts by Touchpoint Leak™
The Touchpoint Leaks™ framework is introduced in Chapter 2 of the Watertight Marketing book. You can use this to create a Touchpoint Leak™ Traffic Light Report to find your focus Leak. Then please use Part Three of the book, and these posts to #tweakyourleaks
"Watertight has made a massive difference to me and our business... I’m a sales person but knew we needed the support of marketing to further our growth. We’ve achieved 500% growth in 4 years; I attribute a lot of that success to working with Watertight."
Leak 1: Forgotten Customers
Looking for treasure in your own back yard
< Back to the Blog Join us in March for our conferenceWe’ve come into contact with 1000’s of businesses over the years. Whichever sector they’re in, however large or small they are, however their marketing is organised, there’s one common theme. Forgotten...
Marketing In Action: Receipt Bank turns happy customers into a sales engine
< Back to the Blog Mobilising the goodwill of happy customers is so powerful. I've recently started using Receipt Bank, and there's a little thing they do that I thought I'd share with you. Now, we have nothing to do with this bit of marketing cleverness, but it...
10 ways to build great customer loyalty
< Back to the Blog We've talked before about the importance of building customer loyalty, and it's no accident that the first of the 13 Touchpoint Leaks is "Forgotten Customers". It's been said before, and it will be said again. But actually cultivating loyalty in...
Leak 2: Poor On-Boarding
How Inside Travel Group got their marketing stars aligned
← Back to Case Studies Inside Travel Group engaged Watertight Marketing to undertake a Marketing Team Alignment, Benchmark and Plan, and then have gone on to apply the results“The Watertight Marketing Team Alignment and Benchmark did two powerful jobs for us...
3 tips for customer retention marketing that any small business can achieve
< Back to the Blog Welcoming your new customers on board is a critical factor in the overall success of your marketing, and indeed of your business sustainability. Customer retention is often as important a marketing task as customer acquisition. As the old saying...
Hard-sell only works once
< Back to the Blog This post was written in 2012 and approved at the time of writing. KashFlow (www.kashflow.com), providers of online accounting software for small businesses, exhibited at business events in their early days. I interviewed them to appear as an...
Leak 3: No Emotional Connection
Josef Elliott: “Half of our customers didn’t know half the stuff we did”
← Back to Case Studies Josef Elliott, co-founder and MD of Oyster IMS, talks about how they've used Watertight Marketing to tweak their marketing operation and win more business at the Confidence & Clarity Conference 2018. Transcript: Steve Bustin: "Our first...
Critical ways brands can improve the quality of their customer interactions
Typically, the businesses we work with are in the £2-20m turnover bracket. But, the Watertight approach was borne out of my previous life working with much larger brands, like Microsoft, Lloyds TSB, and Experian. It doesn't matter how big or small your business is......
You can’t logic someone out of love
< Back to the Blog How many people do you think will be getting a Valentine card this year, who don't really deserve it? Looking beyond a person's failings could be said to be the very definition of love. And, this is one of the reasons why – as a business – having...
Leak 4: No Gateway
How marketing helps you find the right prospects
< Back to the Blog Join us in March for our conferenceIn a blog I wrote recently, I mentioned that one of the four growth strategies was looking for like-minded prospects. This is step two of the process we’d recommend to help you find, win and keep more of the...
Why should you invest in marketing when sales are soaring anyway?
< Back to the Blog This post is also available over on our PodBlogMost of the businesses that we work with on a marketing transformation have a sales team. In fact, most have an excellent sales team on whom the growth to that point can be credited. Further to this,...
Can your potential buyers picture your products?
One to the key tasks of your marketing is to help your customers to get a sense of what it would be like to work with you, or own your products, before they become a customer. In the Watertight Marketing methodology, we talk about this specifically as part of the...
Leak 5: No Critical Approval
How marketing helps you find the right prospects
< Back to the Blog Join us in March for our conferenceIn a blog I wrote recently, I mentioned that one of the four growth strategies was looking for like-minded prospects. This is step two of the process we’d recommend to help you find, win and keep more of the...
How Inside Travel Group got their marketing stars aligned
← Back to Case Studies Inside Travel Group engaged Watertight Marketing to undertake a Marketing Team Alignment, Benchmark and Plan, and then have gone on to apply the results“The Watertight Marketing Team Alignment and Benchmark did two powerful jobs for us...
Is it time to Validate Concerns rather than Overcome Objections?
< Back to the Blog It’s received wisdom amongst many sales professionals that a key part of their role is to overcome the objections that people may have to buying what they have on offer. Indeed, many a training session and book can be found on the skills involved...
Leak 6: No Proof
How marketing helps you find the right prospects
< Back to the Blog Join us in March for our conferenceIn a blog I wrote recently, I mentioned that one of the four growth strategies was looking for like-minded prospects. This is step two of the process we’d recommend to help you find, win and keep more of the...
Critical ways brands can improve the quality of their customer interactions
Typically, the businesses we work with are in the £2-20m turnover bracket. But, the Watertight approach was borne out of my previous life working with much larger brands, like Microsoft, Lloyds TSB, and Experian. It doesn't matter how big or small your business is......
How to structure a marketing case study
< Back to the Blog The marketing case study is an essential part of your toolkit . They have an essential role in proving your credentials and overcoming any concerns that a potential buyer might have. So, I've asked Certified Practitioner, Cheryl Crichton, to give...
Leak 7: Information Overload
Growing business through increased volume
< Back to the Blog Join us in March for our conferenceIn Bryony’s original blog ‘Growth: Do you want lifetime value, margin or volume?’, she explained the different types of growth a business can achieve through putting the right kind of marketing in place across...
Three ways to pay (not what you think!)
< Back to the Blog I'm not talking about PayPal or invoices here, I'm talking about what people exchange with you in return for value at different stages of a buying decision. If you can crack this, your marketing will almost always deliver for you. As someone goes...
Three sales-boosting tips for your business blog
This is the fourth in a series of five blogs on blogging this week. A business blog is one of the simplest ways of overcoming Leak #7 (Information Overload) of the Thirteen Touchpoint Leaks. It acts as invitation information and a stepping stone between...
Leak 8: How (format)
Growing business through increased volume
< Back to the Blog Join us in March for our conferenceIn Bryony’s original blog ‘Growth: Do you want lifetime value, margin or volume?’, she explained the different types of growth a business can achieve through putting the right kind of marketing in place across...
3 examples of effective video marketing from zero budget upwards
Video is quickly moving into the 'must-have' category for even the smallest of businesses. In Touchpoint Leak 8 - How detailed in my book, Watertight Marketing - we talk about a six part matrix for ensuring your content is presented for the way people's brain's are...
One piece of content. 20 ways to use it.
In my last post, I gave you some ideas for creating key marketing content, and roughly how long it might take. Today, I wanted to make crystal clear that each iteration does not have to have unique content. In fact, repurposing, cutting up, re-using, and...
Leak 9: Where (channel)
Growing business through increased volume
< Back to the Blog Join us in March for our conferenceIn Bryony’s original blog ‘Growth: Do you want lifetime value, margin or volume?’, she explained the different types of growth a business can achieve through putting the right kind of marketing in place across...
Where does telemarketing sit in your toolkit?
< Back to the Blog Telemarketing is a hotly debated topic in both sales and marketing circles. It's a bit of a love/hate relationship. Anyone who knows the Watertight Marketing methodology will know that we're advocates of gentle permission-led marketing. But, that...
A day in the life of a small business tweet
< Back to the Blog Or, how Twitter can join the dots between people, products and profit Tweeting has been commonplace in the small business marketing landscape for some time now. With the right strategy and tools in place, and along side other activity, Twitter...
Leak 10: When (timing)
Growing business through increased volume
< Back to the Blog Join us in March for our conferenceIn Bryony’s original blog ‘Growth: Do you want lifetime value, margin or volume?’, she explained the different types of growth a business can achieve through putting the right kind of marketing in place across...
How often do you repeat yourself in your marketing?
Are you worried about repetition in marketing? We often encounter an uneasiness and sense of mounting pressure in businesses where marketing includes putting out high quality content. Perhaps they've made a commitment to a baseline of weekly blogs, monthly videos,...
Marketing Timing: How to make sure that you show up at the right time
I was recently asked, by the fabulous Valuable Content duo, what our most successful content of 2015 had been and why. The answer was clear. It was our simply, useful and timely Christmas Marketing Checklist. Getting your marketing timing right is so critical to...
Leak 11: Who (Influencers)
How marketing helps you find the right prospects
< Back to the Blog Join us in March for our conferenceIn a blog I wrote recently, I mentioned that one of the four growth strategies was looking for like-minded prospects. This is step two of the process we’d recommend to help you find, win and keep more of the...
How Inside Travel Group got their marketing stars aligned
← Back to Case Studies Inside Travel Group engaged Watertight Marketing to undertake a Marketing Team Alignment, Benchmark and Plan, and then have gone on to apply the results“The Watertight Marketing Team Alignment and Benchmark did two powerful jobs for us...
Is it time to Validate Concerns rather than Overcome Objections?
< Back to the Blog It’s received wisdom amongst many sales professionals that a key part of their role is to overcome the objections that people may have to buying what they have on offer. Indeed, many a training session and book can be found on the skills involved...
Leak 12: What
Growing business through increased volume
< Back to the Blog Join us in March for our conferenceIn Bryony’s original blog ‘Growth: Do you want lifetime value, margin or volume?’, she explained the different types of growth a business can achieve through putting the right kind of marketing in place across...
Josef Elliott: “Half of our customers didn’t know half the stuff we did”
← Back to Case Studies Josef Elliott, co-founder and MD of Oyster IMS, talks about how they've used Watertight Marketing to tweak their marketing operation and win more business at the Confidence & Clarity Conference 2018. Transcript: Steve Bustin: "Our first...
How do you find clients that sustain you energetically and financially?
< Back to the BlogThis post is also available over on our PodBlogFor many of our clients, it's not necessarily that they need more clients, it's that they need more of the right clients. And, in many more cases, once this has been clearly defined and a strategy put...
Leak 13: No Emotional Impact
Growing business through increased volume
< Back to the Blog Join us in March for our conferenceIn Bryony’s original blog ‘Growth: Do you want lifetime value, margin or volume?’, she explained the different types of growth a business can achieve through putting the right kind of marketing in place across...
Critical ways brands can improve the quality of their customer interactions
Typically, the businesses we work with are in the £2-20m turnover bracket. But, the Watertight approach was borne out of my previous life working with much larger brands, like Microsoft, Lloyds TSB, and Experian. It doesn't matter how big or small your business is......
Marketing messages are often meaningless. Scenarios almost always make sense.
We're not going to be the first or last to say that you need to focus on emotional marketing messages to get a response. In using our Logic Sandwich™ messaging framework, we ask clients to focus on on 'away-from' emotional triggers to get a...