Hey Marketers, Get Your Priorities Straight
By Nick Scarpino and Avinash Kaushik
5/5
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About this ebook
For startups, small businesses, and non-profit organizations, the idea of investing time and money into marketing communications can be very intimidating. Deciding between an investment in the next rising social media site, attending an industry trade show, or developing a direct mail program is daunting for businesses with marketing staffs of twenty people. Doing it with just a handful or fewer may seem nearly impossible, as the increasing number of available opportunities can be overwhelming. This book will help you set priorities for your marketing communication investments. It walks through an easy-to-understand visual framework by which all marketing communication tactics should be considered; so as new marketing options come and go, you’ll know which ones to embrace and which ones to skip. The book also outlines the five must-have tactics all marketers must do before anything else. Real-life examples are everywhere in this book, making it easy to see exactly how the entire process works.
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Reviews for Hey Marketers, Get Your Priorities Straight
2 ratings1 review
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
Jan 29, 2016
So what do you do to get your business selling ? Which steps will bring you the best results fastest ? What should be your first move ? These are things most of us are not taught in school. The author here goes through the steps, the bumps you may encounter and how to deal with them. Most importantly, staying on the path to success and not dwelling in the muck that will not move you forward. There isn't much you can sell without a good marketing program. I found a lot of very useful information, some that never even occurred to me in the past. A useful book for anyone selling himself or his business.
Book preview
Hey Marketers, Get Your Priorities Straight - Nick Scarpino
There are nearly six million businesses in the United States with fewer than 100 employees¹. Most of these companies have fewer than five people working exclusively in marketing roles. In fact, many of these companies don’t even have a single person dedicated exclusively to marketing. This book is meant for these types of companies. This book is for the team of three bakers looking to open their second shop within the next two years. It’s for the dentist of 20 years down the street looking to build his business. It’s for the lawyer who has started her own practice but doesn’t know how to attract new customers. It’s for the church or other non-profit organization looking to build its member base and increase donations. And yes, it’s even for the technology startup that knows it has to bring in customers while still perfecting its platform.
I love companies of this size because they can make decisions quickly and implement great ideas. They can build great brands based on real, meaningful relationships with customers. They’re scrappy, creative, and know how to hustle to get things done. But many of them have so many things other than marketing on which they need to focus — like securing funding, focusing on building great products and services, expanding distribution, and on and on. By the time a small business is ready to think about building a website, creating a sales kit, or sponsoring an event, it doesn’t have time or money to invest in something that won’t help grow the business. Small businesses need marketing communications that both build their brand and directly impact the bottom line.
What do I mean by marketing communications?
Well, there are many aspects of marketing; namely, the traditionally accepted Four Ps:
product features, pricing, placement (otherwise known as distribution
), and promotion. Volumes of books have been written on each of these Four Ps. This book focuses exclusively on the last one — promoting your product or service — and I call it by its all-encompassing name: marketing communication.
If I had it my way, marketing scholars would add another p
to their four, and of course, it would be prioritization.
I think it’s that important, especially for startups, small businesses, and non-profit organizations.
It’s easy for marketers in small businesses to quickly feel like they are drowning in a sea of to-do lists. And while there are never concrete answers in marketing — after all, nobody can tell the future — there are principles for making marketing communications decisions that have been tested through time. This book provides guidance for making these decisions and taking the guesswork out of setting marketing communication priorities, given our world of imperfect information.
In this book, I walk through an easy-to-understand visual framework by which all marketing communication tactics should be considered; so as new marketing options come and go, you’ll know which ones to embrace and which ones to forget. I also outline the five must-have things all marketers must do before anything else. Real-life examples are everywhere in this book, making it easy to see exactly how the entire process works. By the end of this book, you will be able to:
Start a marketing communications program (if you haven’t already) by beginning with the five marketing communication tactics you must do before anything else.
Prioritize the current marketing ideas in your head and identify which ones to do first and which ones to skip.
Prioritize future marketing communication ideas as they arise. When the next big social media website presents an advertising opportunity, you’ll know whether or not it will be worth the effort.
I intentionally kept this book to a reasonable length. (That means it’s fairly short and easily digestible.) Why? Because it’s hyper-focused on helping you set priorities. I’ve prioritized the topic of setting priorities and remained focused on that single topic throughout the book.
This book is not a set of recommended marketing tactics. Rather, it’s a framework for prioritizing the initiatives you are likely already considering. I’m not going to tell you that you’ll be wildly successful if you maintain a great social media account. Or that the trade show at the end of the year is going to produce the most sales leads for you. Marketing platforms come and go quickly these days. This book outlines ways in which to prioritize marketing communications today, and will help guide your way when everything changes in a few years, as will surely happen.
This is not a book for companies with marketing departments of 20 people. Nor is it a book for companies who have small marketing departments but outsource most of their work to agencies. Marketing functions within these types of companies are much different than their small business counterparts. Companies with large marketing departments or a lot of agency support have much higher budgets and have the luxury of testing a wide variety of custom marketing tactics to see which ones work best.
Many startups, small businesses, and non-profit organizations might consider marketing as an expense they can’t afford to spare. They may not see it as an investment that can help grow a business or charitable cause. (Perhaps you are nodding your head in agreement right now.) While these organizations may be willing to test the waters with a few marketing tactics, they don’t have the margin of error that their larger counterparts have. When you’re a small but mighty team of marketers or even just a single person who has to wear the marketing hat for the company, prioritization matters. There’s no room for error.
There’s also a difference in specialization between small and large marketing teams. Marketers within small businesses have to execute with excellence across a wide variety of marketing tactics. Marketers within large companies are able to become specialists on just a few tactics and therefore require a different level of marketing knowledge.
This book is mostly for business to consumer marketers and non-profit organizations, although you’ll probably find value in the lessons contained here if you market only to other businesses, as well. You should know, though, that all of the examples discussed reference business to consumer and non-profit marketing.
What This Book Is Not
This is not a book on how to create high-level marketing strategy. There are plenty of books on that topic. Allow me to give you an example of the difference between a strategy and a tactic:
If your goal is to create a successful pizza restaurant, you might have a few different marketing strategies for doing so:
Creating a family-friendly environment
Staying open late on weekends
Having ultra-fast delivery to the