Do your customers understand your business strategic standing or purpose?
It is essential that you know the answer to that question!
Employing a freelance agent or independent contractor to research your target market understanding of your strategic vision/position will add enormously to the decision-making process within your business. That will add value to the development initiatives, the success of your current actions and future direction of communication investment.
Every business, of whatever size, age or area of operation must communicate its core strategic position, vision or message.
It is this position that underpins individual product or service messages in both B2C or B2B businesses.
What makes you unique? Your products? Services? Innovations? Or do you simply supply products at the most competitive prices?
That communication might occur
- in a random, ad hoc manner
- through internal teams via a directed training/briefing/management led process
- involve a social marketing execution or
- with a formal plan where a professional agency might be involved with communication or advertising channels.
And obviously, your target market is clearly identified. You know who is important to your business.
Are you confident that the right message is being sent to the right targets/people and that their interpretation of that message is producing the most positive understanding of your business?
This is the one area of the business that requires the largest investment and one which creates the greatest amount of internal conflict. There is nothing that creates division as money, resource and time being invested in an activity in which the larger team (and yourself) either do not have confidence in or where the results are not evaluated, measured and reported on.
Such evaluation can be informal or qualitative (own staff or yourself talking to target markets) or very formal (with a professional research agency conducting quantitative research)
Obviously, the key business process is to bring the research in, understand its implications and evaluate the success (or failure) of the communication effort and then invest the time and money to reinforce or reposition the way your target market understands your business.
This is a process every business must take itself through, from small start-ups to large corporate groups.
One key problem is that such a process is often disruptive; time, teamwork and strategic direction. And your time, spent solving such divisiveness, could be better spent on improving the business! Do you have the time to speak often and closely enough to key customers and pick up your own independent feel for the strategic understanding your communication activities have developed? Are the people appointed to do the research independent enough to complete the research transparently? Or do they have an interest in reporting the success of the investment? Here you must question internal staff and external agencies working on your behalf. And very often such research will create arguments between different members of your team with you ending as judge and peacemaker.
Such research can be face to face or media driven. If your business communicates primarily in the printed or electronic media an advertising agency with access to that electronic footprint might be the best way of tackling the opportunity.
For businesses for whom trade shows, exhibitions and similar networking events are a prime communication channel it is essential to follow up attendance as soon as possible. And to use that email list thus generated. That and face to face will optimize this.
More particularly in this new world of digital or online communication it becomes critical. What is the picture the reader is seeing? It is often the case that an enormous amount of time is spent on developing the channels, the content and management of both but the effectiveness of that is seldom evaluated. And the digital agency will aggressively sell you their expertise. Plenty of work will be done but what will it achieve?
It here that a freelance agent such as myself will add enormous value at relatively low cost.
Before you waste any more resource on communicating your position, find out what you customers believe now.
Then you are ready for the next steps!
About Garth Sutherland
Garth Sutherland has an extensive multicultural understanding.
He has worked with local brands (creating independent strategic positions) and international brands (integrating the international brand vision with the local demand to optimize the “on the ground” brand presence). His strengths include bringing a strong strategic focus into all aspects of marketing delivery, working with multi-agency perspectives, independent thinking & implementing with a consistent and practical teamwork focused delivery.
He is currently studying towards a BPhil (Honours) Degree in Marketing Management.
If you are looking to maximize the strategic value of your brand opportunity, Garth is the ideal resource to task.
You can contact him on +971 (0) 55 273 0665 or +27 (0)81 265 5803 or at garthsu@gmail.com