Posts on the Flow Foundations
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First Flow Foundation – The Right Work
What skills does a marketing director need?
Getting the backing of your board for the marketing budget you need to do a good job is a key skill of a client-side marketer. If you’re getting push back on your budget requests, here are three key ways to get better buy-in by distinguishing the three marketing budgets, index-linking your requests, and using Visual Budgeting to express your rationale.
What makes marketing work?
What most people see of marketing is what goes out into the world. By definition, the visible marketing is what businesses are putting out the get noticed and get people interested. This is Taps in the Watertight Marketing core metaphor (See Chapter 2 & 8). The thing is, if you’re not a marketer, it can be easy to assume that what you see is all there is. If you only actually do the stuff that’s visible, it won’t work! There are underpinning foundation activities under the radar that are essential to seeing a return.
Growth: Do you want lifetime value, margin or volume?
So, you want marketing to grow your business? The first think we’d need to do is work out what kind of growth you want. Do you want to increase customer lifetime value, margin, or the volume of customers. Different marketing will achieve different types of growth, and there’s a specific sequence that can compound the benefit.
Why your direct competitors are often the least important
If I say ‘competitors’ to you, I’m willing to bet that you think of people that offer similar things to you. So, Burger King would be a competitor to McDonalds, and Pepsi a competitor to Coke… right? Absolutely, these are direct competitors. If you want a take away burger, these will come to mind. But, what if you just want a take away, there are many more competitors there. And, what about cooking yourself? Or skipping dinner altogether?
Will this new client energise your business?
3-Minute Read: Saying no to new clients is one of the most important things you need to do to grow a healthy business. There’s a lot written about creating a profile for your ‘ideal customer’. We think it’s as important to truly understand, and have the discipline to avoid, the ‘wrong customer’ for your growing business.
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 in place to reflect it, they...
Second Flow Foundation – Balanced Routine
What skills does a marketing director need?
Getting the backing of your board for the marketing budget you need to do a good job is a key skill of a client-side marketer. If you’re getting push back on your budget requests, here are three key ways to get better buy-in by distinguishing the three marketing budgets, index-linking your requests, and using Visual Budgeting to express your rationale.
The questions to ask when interviewing a Marketing Manager
You can use the Watertight Marketing book to plan your activity, and decide on the tweaky ou need to your marketing leaks – but who will you get to do the work? We regularly support in recruiting marketers into their teams. In this post, Cheryl Crichton picks out here two favourite interview questions from amongst a handy list of things you could ask.
What makes marketing work?
What most people see of marketing is what goes out into the world. By definition, the visible marketing is what businesses are putting out the get noticed and get people interested. This is Taps in the Watertight Marketing core metaphor (See Chapter 2 & 8). The thing is, if you’re not a marketer, it can be easy to assume that what you see is all there is. If you only actually do the stuff that’s visible, it won’t work! There are underpinning foundation activities under the radar that are essential to seeing a return.
Do you have the tools to match your skills?
You can grow a business on sales skills alone, but why would you make your life harder than it needs to be. Investing in tools to match your skills will get you further faster. In this post, Bryony looks at the difference between tools and skills and why a scaling business needs both.
Is it time to Validate Concerns rather than Overcome Objections?
If we take the perspective that 1) Most third parties who have an opinion about a purchase decision at this stage in the process have the best interests of the buyer in mind; 2)Their opinion makes complete sense from their perspective; and that, 3)Nobody likes being told that they’re wrong… then looking again at the wisdom of Objection Handling can turn your thinking inside out.
Third Flow Foundation – Baseline Rhythm
What skills does a marketing director need?
Getting the backing of your board for the marketing budget you need to do a good job is a key skill of a client-side marketer. If you’re getting push back on your budget requests, here are three key ways to get better buy-in by distinguishing the three marketing budgets, index-linking your requests, and using Visual Budgeting to express your rationale.
How to get buy-in on your marketing budget
Getting the backing of your board for the marketing budget you need to do a good job is a key skill of a client-side marketer. If you’re getting push back on your budget requests, here are three key ways to get better buy-in by distinguishing the three marketing budgets, index-linking your requests, and using Visual Budgeting to express your rationale.
10 things a digital marketing apprentice can do for your business
Do you have a long list of digital marketing tasks that could do with some focused attention? Picking this up when you have time just doesn’t work. Google juice, social followers, community engagement, etc. all thrive with consistency. There are key technical skills needed to do this stuff. This is why adding a digital marketing apprentice can give you such a boost. In this post Rachael Wheatley looks at 10 deeply practical tasks a digital marketing apprentice could do for your business.
The questions to ask when interviewing a Marketing Manager
You can use the Watertight Marketing book to plan your activity, and decide on the tweaky ou need to your marketing leaks – but who will you get to do the work? We regularly support in recruiting marketers into their teams. In this post, Cheryl Crichton picks out here two favourite interview questions from amongst a handy list of things you could ask.
What makes marketing work?
What most people see of marketing is what goes out into the world. By definition, the visible marketing is what businesses are putting out the get noticed and get people interested. This is Taps in the Watertight Marketing core metaphor (See Chapter 2 & 8). The thing is, if you’re not a marketer, it can be easy to assume that what you see is all there is. If you only actually do the stuff that’s visible, it won’t work! There are underpinning foundation activities under the radar that are essential to seeing a return.
Why should you invest in marketing when sales are soaring anyway?
10 reasons to invest in a marketing operation when times are good…
“Most 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, in many of our most committed clients, the sales are already soaring. In working with CEOs, MDs, and Sales Directors in this context, it’s natural to question why they need marketing at all.” ~ Bryony Thomas, Author | Watertight Marketing
Fourth Flow Foundation – Maintain Momentum
Shining a light on your vision, values and milestones
Agreeing vision, values, goals and milestones is a shared responsibility across the leadership team. Marketing’s role is to turn these into something that engages and inspires employees, suppliers, clients and prospects alike. To do that, you use both numbers and narrative. Each has an important part in motivating your audience.
Do you have a compelling narrative for your numbers?
When I ask the leadership team of a growing business about their vision for the next 3-5 years, I will almost always be given a revenue number they want to reach. For me, this is like talking to people about a road trip by junction number. It’s practical, but not compelling. In this post, we explore how a marketer can narrative to really bring things to life.
What skills does a marketing director need?
Getting the backing of your board for the marketing budget you need to do a good job is a key skill of a client-side marketer. If you’re getting push back on your budget requests, here are three key ways to get better buy-in by distinguishing the three marketing budgets, index-linking your requests, and using Visual Budgeting to express your rationale.
What makes marketing work?
What most people see of marketing is what goes out into the world. By definition, the visible marketing is what businesses are putting out the get noticed and get people interested. This is Taps in the Watertight Marketing core metaphor (See Chapter 2 & 8). The thing is, if you’re not a marketer, it can be easy to assume that what you see is all there is. If you only actually do the stuff that’s visible, it won’t work! There are underpinning foundation activities under the radar that are essential to seeing a return.