I spend a lot of time in meetings with clients, and some of that time is spent explaining the next steps in our strategy to help grow their business. And since our clients aren’t marketers, they always have questions. Sometimes why we’re moving in a certain direction, the steps in a particular activity, or what results we should expect.
My favorite question, however, is this: “Hey, when we’ve done that, will we be able to do this?”
Why do I like that question so much?
That question means that the client is beginning to understand three key things:
The Potential of Marketing
That question tends to be a light-bulb moment for our clients. Often we’re brought in because they know they need help to grow their business, and we’ve convinced them to at least give us a go. But often the client needs to experience the concepts for themselves to fully understand the potential of what we do to grow their businesses. Even if the idea they’ve had won’t work or isn’t something that’s possible, they’re seeing how everything connects.
The Marketing System
Seeing how everything connects moves the clients from a discreet campaign approach to a systems approach, where every marketing activity builds on every other marketing activity. From the brand down to the nurturing newsletter, there’s a connective tissue that makes it all work together to grow the business. While we certainly have been engaged to provide discreet campaigns and projects (hello, websites!), we prefer to help the client build a consistent, repeatable system that generates leads and grows the business like a machine.
The Value of Data
We spend quite a bit of time and effort gathering data about our clients’ customers at every possible opportunity. Anytime there’s an interaction, if we can capture data and metadata from that interaction, we do so to refine the truth of the clients’ customer personas and create another opportunity to provide value.
It’s not the individual data capture efforts that are all that important, but the places where data points intersect to provide information. Finding those intersections requires both a critical volume of data as well as significant analysis, both automated and manual. When the client starts to see those intersections as well, it provides greater opportunities for collaboration.
The Answer to the Question Isn’t Important
When clients ask “When we’ve done that, will we be able to do this?” the answer isn’t important. What is important is that by asking that question, the client starts to contribute their insider industry knowledge to the overall marketing vision. When we have that level of collaboration, we can help grow your business even faster.
John’s the founder of Audacity Marketing. When he’s not racing motorcycles, he’s building marketing strategies for Audacity clients and anyone else who’ll listen.
John’s worn all the marketing hats, from consultant to agency owner to executive to university professor. He’s held leadership roles in industries from staffing to behavioral health to capital-C consulting. He’s branded or rebranded over 100 companies.
John buttresses 25+ years in marketing with an MBA from Georgia State University.
John lives with his girlfriend Suzanne, his dog Seamus, and his daughter Annie when she shows up from college.