Welcome to another episode of 7 Minute Marketing with Pam. My name is Pam Didner and I love sharing a little dosage of B2B, digital and content marketing. That’s what I do. And thank you for listening.
Every week, I’ll pick one marketing question and attempt to address it with actionable takeaways in 7 minutes or less. So send me your questions. I want to help you take on your marketing challenges.
During my recent workshop, “7 Ways to Increase Conversions with Digital Content”, I tried to hone in on the fact that increasing conversions is not about replies to your customers’ angry tweets on Twitter or drip e-mail for nurturing. Don’t get me wrong, these tactics are important. But it’s even more important to see the forest for the trees.
Yes, see the forest for the trees!
What I am trying to say is that you need to focus on understanding different touchpoints that you use to engage with your customers. For example: if you have an integrated campaign using banner ads, paid keywords, Facebook ads, email and Twitter outreach to drive traffic to your website, can you articulate each channel step-by-step that your customers come to your website and from which channel? Put all of the touch points on a big sheet of paper, then sit back and stare at this data and internalize how these channels may tie together.
By doing that, you can see how each channel are tied together. That’s what I mean about “seeing the forest for the trees”. I strongly believe in the importance of seeing how each marketing channel integrates since your customers will come in from varying channels. If you know how the channels work together, you can provide a better customer experience.
The next day, as I checked out the hotel, I ran into Elaina Mango who attended my workshop the day before. She is the Director of Communications and Social Media. Elaina recognized me from the workshop, and we ended up walking together to the Social Media Strategies Summit. We started talking about our favorite topic: marketing. We talked about how important digital is. I made a mention that it’s challenging to create a 3-hour workshop when my workshop audiences are a mix of young marketing specialists who want deep know-hows and seasoned marketing professionals who just want to think holistically. They have different expectations. Yet, I feel compelled to speak more broadly, which may not meet the expectations of some marketers who look for a deep dive.
One thing marketing teams don’t do
Then Elaina said something that surprised me. She said there’s one thing that marketing teams don’t do anymore. I said, “What is that?” She said, “Mapping.” Man, that word was music to my ears. She said in the earlier days before technology, her teams would get together and use post-it notes to map out marketing activities and campaigns on the wall. The team would talk about the issues and move around the post-it notes. Everyone would understand the steps, process, and ownership. It was boring, but it was essential. She said, “It’s funny that we don’t do that anymore.”
I agree with her. I used to facilitate “map days” early on when I was with Intel. Interestingly enough, I had not done it for several years before I left. It seemed that everyone was always busy and no one wanted to spend an entire day doing that.
Mapping is similar to creating and documenting the marketing outreach workflow that I discussed at my workshop. Understand the steps that you lay out for your customers and the integration of your marketing channels. It will provide you with the holistic view of the overall marketing efforts.
Elaina, thank you so much for coming to my session. Maybe it’s time to bring mapping back to your marketing team. That was a wonderful morning walk. I hope to see you at future events.
That is this week’s 7-minute Marketing with Pam. If you have a question for me, you can schedule a call or reach out to me on social media.
Thank you for listening, until next week.
What can Pam Didner do for you?
Being in the corporate world for 20+ years and having held various positions from accounting and supply chain management, and marketing to sales enablement, she knows how corporations work. She can make you and your team a rock star by identifying areas to shine and do better. She does that through private coaching, keynote speaking, workshop training, and hands-on consulting. Contact her or find her on LinkedIn and Twitter. A quick note: Check out her new 90-Day Revenue Reboot, if you are struggling with marketing.
