Ask anyone who is not in Marketing to explain what is does, and I’m sure you’ll get a long pause, or something along the lines of … Events? Giveaways? Promotions?   For a role that is pivotal in orchestrating business, Marketing is much misunderstood and undervalued.

I arrived in Marketing after having the practical experience of developing products, running team operations, and selling products, helping me understand how these disciplines are dependent on each other to drive business success.  You’ve developed a product – but why?  And who is going to buy it?  You need to sell your product and accelerate business – but where? And how?  It all starts with telling your story.  Then it’s your job to join the dots for prospects to ultimately create a ripple effect in the market.  Sounds simple?  It’s easier said than done, but here’s how to go about it.

Telling your story

The story of your business is your license to operate. Take the time to get it right, especially when dealing with new and crowded markets such as AI or Digital Transformation.  If you are a startup, your story should reflect where you are today but also provide enough room to grow.  Your story is ultimately the foundation of everything you do. It should illustrate how your products and services benefit people. For example, many companies provide AI tools that help process vast volumes of data, making the work of administrators easier, but not everyone knows how to inspire trust in technology that can be disruptive. That’s when it makes sense to tell a story to illustrate that you can trust your AI assistant as much as the rest of your team. Our storytelling framework will help develop your core value proposition and the associated messaging, taking an iterative, balanced approach.   

Joining the Dots

It’s important to understand your prospects and customers.  Empathy and understanding go a long way.  But they need to be translated into interesting narratives and actionable ways for prospects and customers to engage with you.  In the digital world, this means content – words, audio, visual – that helps people visualize the connection between what you deliver and what they need. 

Often, I see companies take a ‘do something once and expect results’ approach. But just as you wouldn’t get married after a first date or spend millions on a product you’ve seen only once, you can’t expect to win customers with a one-time contact or presentation.  This is where the BizFluency approach to ‘joining the dots’ comes in.  It involves understanding the buyer’s journey, optimizing your resources, and creating the right content to deliver leads and drive business, creating a powerful link between your business and the market. 

Our approach uses your story as the foundation, and includes development of a sales kit, marketing and communications plans and relevant content to maintain the storyline throughout.

Creating a Ripple Effect

Most companies and marketing executives aspire to have a ripple effect that goes viral, exponentially increasing sales and delivering business success or, for example, increasing awareness of an important cause, such as MND, so that funding pours in for research and better answers are found.

Coming full circle, this is where we go back to your story, which is the foundation for your messaging and positioning statements.  The ripples occur automatically when you optimize your internal enablement program and integrated marketing and communications plans, to then achieve market endorsement and business success.

Telling your story and enabling your teams doesn’t have to be complicated.  It’s always gratifying to see the way clients can effectively and easily tell their story after just a short time using the simple BizFluency storytelling approach.

Want to learn more about the BizFluency approach to Marketing? Contact us today.

As a Marketing Executive, I have had the privilege of working for some of the world’s leading software companies. I’ve learned that Marketing incorporates a vast number of skills – enabling information about what your customers and prospects need, and don’t know they need yet, to be delivered in a way that appeals to them.