Collins & Associates

A Marketing Solutions Consultancy

Resources

Common Marketing Myths & Resources

We work closely with our clients to provide the following resources.

Strategy & Planning

  • Strategic marketing plan development
  • Brand positioning
  • Market opportunity analysis
  • Market segmentation planning
  • Competitive intelligence analysis
  • Strategic alliance business development

Consumer Focused Research

  • Core value development & execution
  • Customer loyalty & rewards construct
  • Channel deliver touchpoint analysis
  • Consumer insight research
  • Consumer-driven product design/development

Marketing Science

  • Budgeting & funds allocation
  • Media mix modeling & analysis
  • Metric/dashboard development
  • Marketing operations audit
  • Marketing metrics
  • Predictive modeling

Marketing operations

  • Organization design
  • Strategic sourcing/vendor selection
  • Marketing communications
  • Advertising & promotions
  • Direct marketing/database analytics
  • Operational excellence-optimization
  • M&A integration

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Marketing Myths

Myth 1.
Successful marketing strategy is always established by the marketing and communications department…

Truth: Successful marketing strategic planning is the responsibility of multiple departments within companies. A strategic marketing planning committee that includes finance, sales, business planning, operations, and technology, needs to be formed to ensure that the marketing machine is focused on strategic plan initiatives determined by the organization’s leadership. Marketing strategy must be aligned with the company business strategy.

Myth 2.
Marketing is an Art, Not a Science…

Truth: In recent years, data-driven marketing has become the standard bearer in today’s fiercely competitive business world. Measurable performance and accountability have become the keys to marketing success. Today, there are a full range of metrics to evaluate marketing strategies. Savvy marketers are quickly becoming conversant in marketing scientific principles.

Myth 3.
The Wanamaker Dilemma, a marketers greatest fear is when the President wants to know which of their marketing investment yields a positive Return…

Truth: Marketers can rely on several data-driven performance measurement instruments that allow them to confidently answer this question that is as old a the “Mad Men” of the 1940’s, 50’s, and 60’s. Here are several metrics marketers use to understand how to measure marketing effectiveness—Net Profit, Return on Marketing Investment (ROMI), EBITDA, and Economic Profit (EVA). There are more metrics available, but these are the most commonly used ones.

Myth 4.
The age of traditional advertising is DEAD…

Truth: It’s more accurate to say that the marketing mix is broader and offers marketers with tools that deepen customer relationships more than ever before. When fully utilizing traditional and digital media, marketers can contribute to revenue growth goals.

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Common Challenges For Your Business

Here are some of the challenges Clark & Associates find many small to mid-sized companies face:

Limited annual budgets:

Unlike large corporations, small to mid-sized businesses don’t have a large team of experts to draw from. Keeping up with the latest innovations in technology and marketing can be difficult.

Overwhelming marketing choices:

There has been a rapid increase in digital marketing tools available, from SEO, social media, PPC and other online advertising methods, to content marketing, and mobile marketing. While it’s great to have choices, finding the optimal methods is difficult. Most businesses jump from one method to another, investing their company’s time and money. Unfortunately, they often don’t get the results they want or need. In some cases, this is because they don’t focus long enough on one method to learn it thoroughly or stick with it long enough to really reap the benefits.

Lack of Unique Sales Strategy:

Finding a unique selling proposition/point (USP) is an old business principle that is more relevant now than ever. Many businesses seem to look to their competitors for guidance on branding and marketing, which is always a mistake.

Lack of Funding for Marketing:

This is a widespread issue among small businesses. It’s a difficult dilemma because these companies need marketing to get attention and generate more revenue, but are lacking the funds to put invest in marketing outreach.

External Resources

We’ve been doing this for a long time! Here are some links to resources we highly recommend: