Think BIG

Organize your ideas to achieve results

How do you ensure your marketing idea, project, or campaign is successful? How do you ensure you are not creating something which will be obsolete in a month, a quarter, or a year? During my career, I’ve worked in corporate organizations, start-ups and had my own company. Sometimes we’ve been looking for short term improvements, sometimes for long term results. In this blog post, I’ll go through the steps I’ve found essential and useful to build successful marketing campaigns and initiatives.

Use feedback to your advantage

We mustn’t let other people’s feedback and input affect us negatively. My father spent the majority of his career at the national telco provider in Denmark. I remember him telling me about a meeting he had with the CEO, probably in the mid-’90s. The meeting was going well, and my father felt confident enough to put some of his most innovative thinking forward. The CEO replied: “Mr. Sorensson ! I believe we should leave at least some problems for future generations to solve”.

There are three key points to remember about this conversation:

You need to think and dream big to achieve your goals.
Don’t boil the ocean. Take it step-by-step
Don’t take feedback as a no. Please take it as a suggestion for improvement and keep going.

I’m a marketing man, so this is my favorite part. For a marketing initiative to be successful, you must look at the big picture. It would help if you involved the product/service team as well as the sales team. There is no point in generating lots of demand if your product team cannot fulfill the need. Likewise, 1,000’s of leads is a wasted effort if the sales team is not equipped to follow up and bring the opportunities to close.

The brainstorming, or planning phase, is vital as this is where you get all the crazy and wild ideas on the table, whiteboard or however you’re managing this exercise. It’s ok to come up with unrealistic ideas, plans, and goals at this stage. The fact that you and the team are ambitious shows you have a passion for what you do, the company, and have confidence in your abilities to pull this off.

Prioritize

Now is the time to look at all the ideas and work out a plan. What items from your brainstorming are realistically going to get you somewhere? Are there any ‘low hanging fruits’ where you might be able to achieve results with minimal efforts in a short space of time? This is also the time to look at a timeline and decide milestones, goals, and objectives.

Start small

This phase is where your ideas and plans will stand the test. You can pick a market, segment, geography, or other groups to get started. You might be successful in a country or region of a country, which may be a good place for you to start your initiative. The important thing here is that the vertical or segment you decide to run your tests is a good match for personas and products.

Evaluate

How did your pilot perform? Is it ready to launch on a larger scale? And it’s ok if you’re not. Then you go back to the previous step, Start small, adjust, and recalibrate your plan and campaign components. This concept is to adapt and improve to ensure you, your team continually, and your organization reaches your goals and objectives. Once you’re happy with your campaign or project, it’s time to plan your next steps. Which country, region, market, or segment will you target first, second, third, and so on?

Scale/build/grow fast

You’ve now been through all phases and found out what works for you and your offering. Now is the time to roll-out your initiative or campaign to your target markets and reap the benefits. I’ve called this phase scale/build/grow fast for a reason. The words tell you it’s not a full roll-out. It’s still a work in progress, but you’ve taken all the steps needed to put you and your team in a position for success. As your campaign results gather momentum, you can roll-out in other markets, segments, or geographies.

Want to discuss ideas and get inspiration and input? Schedule a meeting below