Visit  Lydia’s  Marke/ng  Consul/ng  at  www.lydiamarke/ngconsul/ng.com  

Contact  informa/on:  LYDIA  VOGTNER  lydia@lydiamarke/ngconsul/ng.com  415-­‐672-­‐1870  

Introduction

Are you tasked to develop a launch plan or a fully integrated marketing plan to drive leads?    

Introduction

Are you new to B2B marketing and unsure of best practices and/or the sales process?    

NEW?

If so, consider asking yourself the following questions before developing tactics

Introduction

These are some of the high-level areas to think through to help ensure success...

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Do you have a solid understanding of the business vision and financial goals?

1

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If not you should obtain it before doing anything else

If not, what do you need to do

to develop it?

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Do you have a point-of-view (POV) on how marketing can help meet those goals?

2

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Do you have a POV on which tactics within the marketing mix will have the strongest impact?

3

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Do you have the necessary budget and resources to effectively execute them?

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If not    make the business case to get what you need and if that’s not possible

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Encourage discussion about your barriers up front to help ensure the marketing team prioritizes effectively

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Do you have a framework for the marketing communications strategy…

…that allows stakeholders to

weigh in on objectives and

contribute tactical ideas?

4

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Are stakeholders aware of dependencies that may require their active participation?

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Make sure key people and areas are aligned with you and ready to do their part because if they’re not

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It could have an adverse effect on your results as well as internal relationships (and possibly the respect and morale of your staff)

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Do you have a Messaging and/or Brand Toolkit that everyone can work from when crafting communications such as…

5

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emails scripts

video promotions Websites

presentations product co

llate

ral bl

ogs

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It can be a rough draft that will evolve but at least some type of brand and messaging strategy is critical

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to ensure your message is relevant, engaging and consistent

This is a Company that gets me!

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Do you have a Measurement Strategy figured out across tactics?

6

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Have you figured out how all the metrics will come together to determine whether or not the plan is delivering?

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If not, get ahead of that and encourage dialogue early so that everyone is on the same page to determine... .

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How well the plan is set up to measure and

How best to address key gaps or potential risks in determining ROI

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Have you assessed where various components of the plan need to integrate to be effective?

For example...

7

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Is there a messaging framework that needs to be implemented simultaneously across the web, sales collateral, email, videos, etc.?

Are the dots connected to activate, manage and measure social media?

Understanding this could help you consider the necessary resources and execute in a timely manner

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Have you thought about third parties that are a dependency for certain tactics?

8

The sooner you can research and engage vendors and agencies necessary for implementation

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Such as for campaigns, design, research and lead management the better

This often takes longer and is more complicated than you think

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Have you determined who in your organization needs to be trained and educated about what the marketing team is doing?

9

Thinking about this ahead of time will help you gain respect

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as it ensures everyone is comfortable with what’s going on

and that key stakeholders are part of the process

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Have you established milestones to assess how the plan is doing?

10

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Do you have resources that can pull together the necessary data and information?

Always think ahead about how you will respond to a demand from Senior Management to...

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Show me how our marketing communications efforts are driving business and/or at a minimum supporting the sales process

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You’ll be considered a leader if you demonstrate you are proactively thinking this way

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Visit this blog post for the complete narrative: Beginner’s Checklist for the Corporate B2B Marketer

 .  Here are some great training resources if you want to stay current on B2B marketing trends and best practices ongoing

Membership Training Courses

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Community

Webinars Learning

Let me know if I can help. Visit http://www.lydiamarketingconsulting.com Contact information: LYDIA VOGTNER lydia@lydiamarketingconsulting.com 415-672-1870