Since many of us are being forced to make cuts in staffing and resource access, this blog specifically addresses how to manage your marketing and communication department activities with more limited resources. Ultimately, the goal should not only be about reducing headcounts and dividing up tasks but seen as an opportunity to rethink how to move forward, setting a marketing and communications department up for growth and eventual prosperity.

So, let me get started. I believe there are six strategic areas that every marketing communications department should touch in some fashion. They are: Brand Strategy, Paid Outreach, Customer Interactions/ecommerce, Earned media, Partnerships and Technology Transformation.

Brand Strategy is something you should always be mindful of; it doesn’t necessarily mean you need to be working on it every day, but it is your true north; it is the direction in which you are moving; it impacts everything that you do from a marketing and communications standpoint; it needs to be reviewed, assessed, and updated on a regular basis; and it encapsulates your values. Without a strong brand strategy, you are moving forward without a rudder.

Paid Outreach includes all the efforts where you pay to push out your communications – through traditional media, digital media and social media (yes, boosting your post is paid outreach, not earned).  Its major goal is to raise awareness among all those important audiences you don’t necessarily reach through your current efforts. Paid Outreach expands your universe and gets you in front of people who don’t get exposure to you.  Regardless all your other efforts it’s the quickest and most efficient way to reach people.

Customer Communication and Ecommerce.  I put this as third since these are your most dedicated fans, and they deserve a good portion of your time. Some products and services have relatively short repurchase cycles, while others take much longer, but regardless, all your past customers are truly your best future, and if you’re in a relationship-oriented business, as most nonprofits are, it behooves you to stay in touch with these folks.

Earned Media involves both media relations and social media. It takes a lot of effort, more than most people who aren’t doing it realize. And I’ve seen many businesses that become too reliant on it and overdo it. Sure, you produce impressions without out-of-pocket costs, but it takes a significant amount of effort to create innovative content and generate many interactions. That is wonderful, but social media must be tempered. I am not a Luddite — I believe in social media and media relations, and I think that if you have a massive budget and you can go out and connect with influencers and get paid placements, then it’s worthwhile. But most organizations don’t have a massive budget.

Partnerships, on the other hand, are an area in which people under-resource. Every organization has partners, whether for commercial or mutual alliance goals. Especially at this time, there are numerous opportunities to collaborate with partners, whether it’s working together and sharing resources, taking advantage of something they do that you don’t do well, offering them something they can’t do and thus gaining some credit among their audience, or finding some overlaps among allied businesses. Partnerships are probably the one area that people should focus on right now. I can give you 1,000 lovely little phrases about how we flourish together and divided we fall, but I’ll spare you. The point is that your partners can be a huge asset to you now and it is a marketing and communications opportunity area everyone should be looking into with more intentionality.

The final one is, for lack of a better description, technological transformation. And this isn’t just about pushing you to use generative AI. It’s basically about going back and looking at every aspect of your marketing department to see how you can function more effectively. (Note that I did not say cheaper, but more effectively). It is about increasing your use of virtual meetings and automated tools. It is about pulling more out of your data that is inherent in your existing reporting, whether it’s more in-depth analysis of your CRM, using the other features in your reporting software, doing a sentiment analysis on your social media posts, testing content and comms distribution channels. I promise you, you can make your department run more effectively if you are more intentional about using the technology that already exists in your organization. 

It goes without saying that you can’t do all these at the same time and it’s unlikely that you’re going to get to all of them over the course of the next year. What you need to do is to go back and prioritize. And don’t prioritize based on what you’re doing right now, but what will help your top line. I think for starters Brand Strategy is obviously important, but Customer Communications is vital. And then, squeezing more out of Partnership opportunities – it is low hanging fruit.  If budgets allow, increase Paid Outreach. It’s worth noting, as your competitors cut back on Paid Outreach you can increase your presence and share-of-voice.  If you want to go ahead put time and effort into Earned Media go for it but just note it’s not the end all or be all especially when your challenges require that you find ways to grow.

Last month’s blog on the difference between a business plan and business strategy generated a lot of great comments and feedback. The most popular asked how exactly does one go about creating a distinctive strategy, especially in a competitive market. That’s a question that every organization – from private to public, profit to non-profit – should address. So here’s our perspective on how to move forward.

The first step is to acknowledge that nothing ever stays the same, and to actively lean into the changes. Over the course of a reasonable period of time, the market shifts, consumer preferences shift, competition shifts and then internally, your organization may have gone through some changes as well. So, as much as it seems everything is the same, assume it isn’t, and then start looking for the changes. To come up with new and relevant strategy, you need to shift your perspective. You can’t attack the problem the same way as before, otherwise you’re going to end up pretty much where you are now.

So, how do you do that? Here are three suggestions:

1.       Introduce new input. The goal is to come up with insights that are new and different, and were not factors in the previous iteration of the strategic planning process. This means either investing in research or going beyond the usual analysis. You know you are on the right track when you have “eureka moments” — when you see something that you know you can’t ignore. For example, start with an objective analysis of your ecosystem, which includes your competitors, your partners and of course your customer and client base. Take a look at new trends and what products and services your market is adopting. 

2.       Bring new people into the process. These folks don’t necessarily have to be outside of the organization, they may be folks who don’t usually sit in on these types of meetings.  There is a rule though: whomever you bring in needs to be imaginative and willing to express their opinions. This is about adding fresh thinking to the mix; bringing in people who will process the information differently. Now, if there isn’t anyone internally that fits that description, then find someone external to the organization. It could be someone who’s works in a different industry or market and has had experience coming up with strategies.

3.       Change the question. We like to start every planning session with a question we want to have answered by the end of the planning process. The question isn’t necessarily an objective, like “How do we increase market share?”  But it might be more like, “how do we make ourselves essential to our customers and clients?” Or, “how do we make sure our graduates pursue meaningful, life-fulfilling careers?” Or, “how can our services revitalize our community?” Don’t be afraid to ask a big question. As a matter of fact, the bigger the better because it will force you to reach for big answers and not be satisfied with crumbs.

Strategy and strategic thinking are terms that have lost much of their meaning because they are applied to just about any form of planning or thinking. So, don’t let yourself get fooled into thinking that because the meeting is a “strategic planning meeting” that’s what is really going to happen. Whatever it’s called, a real, successful strategy planning process is a heavy lift intended to point the whole organization toward new and different (and hopefully) more fertile shores. If you end up where you are now, you missed the opportunity.

When we ask what people are looking forward to in 2025, we are hearing that many are reconsidering their business plans. In certain instances, they are even considering re-strategizing since they expect significant changes due to new technologies, funding, and even a change in target audience sentiments. We applaud this because there is a lot that is going on that suggests the next couple of years will see shifts in the landscape. It’s important, though, to remember that planning and strategizing are two different activities. Most of you who receive our emails know this, but it might be worthwhile to clarify.

A strategy is a planned course of action for accomplishing a set of goals. It’s not the actual actions one takes, but rather the path an organization follows. It considers the competitive landscape, your organization’s position in it, your competitive advantages, and most importantly, the products that can be leveraged, and the attributes that your target audience finds most appealing.

For instance, Folger’s Coffee’s approach, as expressed in their tagline, “The best part of waking up is Folger’s in your cup,” is to be the number one coffee brand consumed in the mornings. They don’t want to compete with Starbucks and other beverages for other coffee drinking occasions. They just want to own the morning. And Folger’s has done everything it can to make the morning home cup of coffee theirs – from the choice of bean blends to the packaging, to the sensory cues, especially the aroma.

A strategy gives rise to a plan, one that lays out the steps along the strategic path. The plan is the steps, it details how to get there rather than where to go. A key component is a budget. Aside from being orderly and logical, an effective plan relies on access to reliable data and objective analysis. In a time where data seems to be sprouting from just about everywhere, it’s important to know which data sets and points are organizational drivers. I’ve seen meetings spin out of control because there was way too much time spent on numbers that in the end had very little true impact on the plan. 

I’ve also seen, and this one way too often, subjective misinterpretations of data.  I can’t emphasize enough how important it is to be objective in the planning process. And one of the signs that planning is being too heavily influenced by subjectivity is the phrase “because it’s what we’ve always done.” Like an over-stuffed closet, sometimes you need to get rid of those items that that are beloved but no longer fit or are out of fashion. This is especially true when it comes to marketing and communications.  Which is why It’s helpful to have a “closet organizer.”  Someone to help assess what to keep and what to throw out. And a qualified organizer has the breadth of experience, not to mention the objectivity, to see the clutter and have feasible options at the ready.

So, as you start the process, make sure you are clear as to whether you need to re-think your strategy or re-plot your plan. If you want to make sure, we’re happy to chat with you.