What problem are we actually trying to solve here?
Think about it, the ultimate role of marketing is to attempt to persuade people to Think, Feel or Do something as a result of our communications (in which I include branding). With the ultimate outcome being that people’s Thinking, Feeling, or Doing has a positive impact on the business/organisation. If we don’t understand what that positive impact needs to be, we can’t tailor our work towards that. And in order to generate that positive impact, we need to understand why it is needed, i.e. the fundamental problem we’re trying to help address.
Another way of putting it is, why is the organisation investing in marketing activity? What is driving the justification for investment? Is there a new market entrant they need to defend their market share from? Is Tesco threatening to delist them? Is no one visiting the museum on Tuesdays? Are they trying to shift their business model before the industry changes? Have they invented an entirely new thing that people don’t understand yet? FYI, ‘We’re at year end and if we don’t use the budget up we’ll lose it for next year’ is not an acceptable answer.
THEN you can figure out the human behaviour or mindset behind that and craft a strategic approach to address it. But establish the underlying problem first, please.
[Photo by Dmitrii Ko on Unsplash]