Call it a marketer’s Book of Genesis: Objectives beget strategies beget tactics beget concepts beget execution. A project brief yields a creative brief, which inspires a breakthrough concept and then delivers results-generating executions. At least, that’s the way it should be.

Unfortunately, in our rush to market and our infatuation with showing off our use of the latest technology, we sometimes skip some steps. So let’s review the importance of following the process. 

Step 1: Define Your Marketing Objective.  You’d be surprised how many clients say their marketing objective is to make money. Of course. But making money (or, better, improving profitability) is a business objective. A marketing objective is specific to the task of communicating with the people who can give you their money, and the more specific the better. Your objective might be something like acquiring new customers, or renewing members, or changing consumer opinion, or driving traffic to an online or offline site. A marketing objective has a measurable result. 

Step 2: Develop Your Marketing Strategy.  While objectives are what you want to achieve, strategies are how you’re going to achieve them. Strategies are often confused with tactics. It is a strategy to “test promotional offers,” one tactic of which might be a free trial; a strategy to “appeal to young adults with a push-pull approach,” whose tactics might include using Facebook; and a strategy to “test direct mail formats” might include tactics like dimensional mail. 

Step 3: Write a Project Brief. There are likely to be many individual projects required to fulfill the marketing strategy. In an ideal world, each should have a project brief. After all, to fulfill on introducing a new product line, you may be sending direct mail to prospects and email to current customers, but these projects will have entirely different requirements. So the Project Brief will describe all the elements of the marketing strategy – including the USP, target audiences, features and benefits – and it will provide the specific details about the assignment, including the media, budget parameters, timing expectations, any brand mandatories, relevant calls-to-action, and so on. It is a “facts and stats” document.   

Step 4: Write a Creative Brief.  This may at first seem redundant to the Project Brief, because it should reiterate many of the same elements. But while your Project Brief might identify “thick soles” as a feature of your hiking boots and “keeping feet dry” as the benefit, your Creative Brief will re-address these attributes from the perspective of the target audience and in terms of the recommended media. If your audience is college students, you’ll want to tell them that thicker soles are the latest trend in hiking gear and that wet feet get smelly, and you might recommend reaching them on Facebook or through a branded style blog. But if you’re trying to sell to their parents, you might be better served with an email touting the durability of thicker soles and the reduced risk of catching cold. It is in the Creative Brief that you and your creative team start to shape the messaging and its delivery. 

Here, too, it is important to remember the difference between strategies and tactics. It is a creative strategy to build an interactive microsite for your microbrew. It is a creative tactic to post a flash-animated drinking game or beer-infused recipes. 

And, finally, Step 5: Know the Difference Between a Concept and an Execution. It’s standard practice to ask a creative team for at least three concepts for a new assignment. But remember that the difference between a concept and an execution is like the difference between a strategy and a tactic. 

A concept is about an idea, which is much harder to come by. Changing the position of elements on the page or changing the color of the background is a variation in execution. So be bold enough to dig for real ideas, and savvy enough not to throw them out just because you don’t like green. 

Branding and dialogue are excellent first steps – but they don’t pay the rent.  

To me, customer acquisition is getting somebody to buy from you for the very first time. Customer retention is getting a person who was bought from you at least one time to buy from you again. 

Branding is getting your product or service to be a part of the decision set when members of your targeted market segment want to purchase the product or service you sell.

Today, with an emphasis placed on gaining social media "followers," or being "liked," or in some other way engaging with your online suspects, prospects and customers, we need to understand that these efforts cost money and must be measured in terms of revenue and renewability. 

Consider the amount of thought and effort put into understanding how you can improve your results from a direct mail campaign by just one or two tenths of a percent. You test offers, formats, headlines, and so many others variables in a structured fashion where you can measure and attribute results to tested variables. Consider how you test different mailing lists, and segments of lists to maximize your results.

It is important to put the same effort and pay attention to the same details when engaging with your followers and other "fan-based" constituents.

Closed mouths don’t get fed

Many businesses today are handling their "followers" with kid gloves. They seem to be hesitant to use time-tested techniques to commercialize relationships.

It is important to recognize that your "followers" chose to initiate a relationship with your business. So you can consider them real prospects, and many of them may already be your customers. You have the opportunity to grow your relationship with them.

Ask for the order

A good place to begin is by segmenting your "followers." First, find your customers by matching transactional data. For everyone you can’t identify, ask them how they perceive of their relationship. You can do this directly with a poll, or a survey, or using more subtle tactics. 

Some marketers will express concern about alienating people in the delicate world of social media. To me, the reality is people will either want to solidify their relationship with you or they won’t. History dictates some of these people will never buy from you. The ones who truly have an interest in your company, products and services will respond to your efforts. This will empower you with knowledge you can use.

Now you should be on familiar ground. Now that your “followers” are organized by segment, develop strategies for each segment and work your magic.

Cultivating your “followers” has significant advantages

Your cost to develop new customers from these prospects will be lower than a traditional acquisition effort since the names are essentially free, and there is already some basic bonding between you and them, which bodes well for anticipated response rates. 

For retention, or getting your “following” current customers to buy again, social media represents another touch point where you can make an offer, with the added advantage of enhance customer insight from your interactive dialogue.  This makes me wonder: Should we create a new model called XRFM, where a person’s “expressed interest” might prove more predictive than RFM alone?  

Once you recognize the value of commercializing relationships with your “followers;” once you realize that a good number of them will be responsive to your efforts; and once you accept the fact that many “followers” are going to never become customers; then you will be able to test the value of marketing to the “follower” segments and calculate whether your branding efforts to attract and engage “followers” are significant to your business.