Whether your organization has a large or small marketing budget, you want to know your marketing dollars are being put to good use.
Even the world’s largest companies struggle with simply managing their marketing activities, much less maximizing them. When it comes to your brand, the difference between managing and maximizing is enormous. As a full-service agency, Raindrop Marketing helps to transform your marketing plan into a cohesive marketing and communications plan, shifting your marketing efforts from reactive to proactive.
What is a Marketing Plan?
A traditional marketing plan exists primarily to provide a general understanding of where your marketing dollars are going. It creates a structure for your marketing activities and ties them to goals, so you have a means of measuring the results.
What is a Marketing and Communications Plan?
The tendency many businesses have when developing a marketing plan is to promote when needed, as opposed to when will have the highest impact. That’s why we differentiate between a marketing plan vs. a marketing and communications plan. Without an emphasis on communication, marketing becomes very boring and ineffective.
In a marketing capacity, communication means not just telling what has happened, but what is going to happen and what is happening. Marketing and communications are meant to go hand in hand, but are often disconnected by “the daily grind” that is in-house marketing.
What it Means to Communicate Proactively
Should you relay information to your audience before, during, or after the fact? The correct answer is all three. Proactive communication allows you to create and distribute ongoing value, which in turn builds a stronger brand connection. Given the accountability that comes with marketing, it is your responsibility to keep your audience in the know regarding your organization. Consider the following scenario:
- Two companies win an award.
- Company A has not sent an email blast to its client base in two months and has only sent three email blasts to its client base over the past year.
- Company B has been creating and sharing content with its client base in a monthly newsletter every month for the past year and has also been consistent with its social media efforts—even when there’s no award or event to promote.
- Company A and Company B both create a press release announcing their new award. The press release is the full extent of Company A’s efforts because that’s all they can manage.
- Meanwhile, because they have established proactive marketing habits, Company B is able to maximize their award exposure, first by getting the press release out much sooner, and then by creating a video interview with their CEO talking about what the award means for the organization and its clients.
Which company would you rather be? This comparison illustrates the value of proactive communications from both brand and PR perspectives. Company B reaps the rewards from its previous and current efforts at the same time.
Context is King
When you engage people early and consistently, you answer their questions before they have to ask them. You also create context for your marketing. The common phrase in marketing today is “Content is king.” We’d challenge that and say it’s actually context that makes the difference. When your audience is familiar and comfortable with you, they care more about what you have to say.
Example: Coronado Unified School District
Our client, the Coronado Unified School District, recently hired a new superintendent named Karl Mueller. To communicate the new hire to the schools’ parents, faculty, staff, and the Coronado community, we introduced Karl in a cute and engaging video. Take a look:
CUSD Students Interview the New Superintendent Karl Mueller from Raindrop Marketing on Vimeo.
The video tallied more than 4,000 views in its first 24 hours online, while giving everyone involved with the school a chance to meet Karl and feel a connection to him. It was also part of a video series we created to maximize the school district’s exposure during registration week.
Make Your Marketing Matter
By being proactive with your communications, you have a chance to turn marketing tasks into meaningful messages that deepen your relationship with your audience. With a marketing agency like Raindrop by your side, it’s easier to not only think ahead, but think bigger. Have a feeling we might be the proactive marketing partner you’ve been looking for? Check out our work and give us a shout!
By: Jacques Spitzer