This is the first in a three-part series focusing on Marketing Strategy Execution – which costs nothing, yet is the single biggest problem for marketers going forwards into 2021!

I’d like to start by sharing a statistic. Almost 50% of organisational marketing capabilities are wasted, often going unused as a direct result of skills shortages and not having the know-how to use MarTech to full effect, (Gartner). Shocking as this is, it’s made worse by the fact that marketing budgets are suffering ongoing cuts – having been in decline prior to the pandemic and suffering further tightening as CFOs rush to cut costs.

We’re living in the age of digital transformation, and a lot of this is going to waste. Organisations capture data but have no clear strategy for using it – something that needs to change to remain competitive in a marketplace where the attention span of consumers is around half that of a goldfish. That’s not an exaggeration. The average human attention span in 2020 was 7 seconds, dropping to 4 seconds when it came to digital media!

This is why designing a solid Marketing Execution Strategy is critical, and doing this in a way that ensures you’ll also be able to follow your plan through.

Designing a Marketing Execution Strategy

It might seem counterintuitive, but sometimes the best place to start is to look at where most organisations go wrong. And, typically, this is a result of poor execution and communication. True, developing a strategy does involve ‘copying’ what has worked well with similar organisations in the past, to an extent. However, you also need to make sure the execution is feasible!

When you’re thinking about execution, you have to realise that this will often involve behavioural change at a company-wide level. You will have to lead this change for your strategy to be successful. It’s all very well signing off on a ‘stroke of the pen’ strategy, but when it comes to a deeper strategy involving long-term change you need to plan for how you’re going to get your team on board, and accept that this is part of your responsibility.

Areas of focus in a Marketing Execution Strategy

A key part of a Marketing Execution Strategy is to lay out plans for consumer outreach, based on your customer habits and life-cycles. However, this needs to be done in a logical and methodical way to succeed, with the focus where it’s needed most.

You need to establish which activities will have the biggest impact on your business performance (more advice on this in part two!) and divert your focus accordingly. A timeline needs to be in place, and time-sensitive objectives prioritised.

This goes beyond agreeing on these high-impact activities in the marketing department, and needs to also involve getting your extended or ‘support’ teams on board. Creation of a ‘marketing scoreboard’ comes into play here, enabling data-driven marketing performance measurement and linking marketing activities to your overall business strategy.

There also needs to be a plan for governance of the strategy in place, with it being clear who is responsible for each part of your strategy, and where accountability lies.

Join me in part two for a discussion of which activities within your Marketing Execution Strategy you can leverage to help you move mountains!



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