The fourth installment of this five-part series on start-up marketing looks at how marketers can focus on getting noticed for their content and as a result contribute to lead generation and the business pipeline.
In parts one and two of this series, I covered the research and strategic planning that goes into the first few weeks of the chief marketing officer’s (CMO) first month in a start-up, covering industry and competitive research, and making key decisions for strategy, branding, positioning, messaging, and also developing objectives and key results (OKRs).
In part three I took a deeper look into a start-up’s marketing plan, and more specifically looked at how to implement content marketing to ensure success in your start-up or small business.
With that in place, now, in part four, I will discuss content and lead generation and the business pipeline. Presuming the last two weeks of the CMO’s first month in the start-up are dedicated to campaign and content planning, let’s talk about the steps one can take from start to finish in the matter of two weeks.
Since the companies I’ve worked for have all been in the digital tech industry and mostly in the Cloud/SaaS side, all the channels I will list will be digital in nature, with the exception of “events.” I like to divide my channels into an inbound list and an outbound list and plan targets, efforts, and budgets accordingly:
Inbound Channels
Outbound Channels
Channels have to be listed on the basis of the CMO’s understanding of where best to find the target audience and their attention. (That was so much easier to put into one sentence than it is to do!)
It is useful to begin forming an opinion on which channels will be more productive than others. The return on investment (ROI) of a channel is based roughly on three factors: the cost involved, the volume of lead generation (or any other quantifiable benefits), and the propensity to impact business (e.g. lead conversion). This is where a matrix (like the one shown below) proves handy.
This one is designed along the lines of the GE-McKinsey matrix and is oriented toward the eventual goal of lead generation.
The CMO may have a separate matrix for branding and awareness, if so desired.
Based on this understanding, quarterly targets and actions will be planned for every channel.
In this step, the CMO creates a project plan for multi-channel campaigns based on the targets that have been set. This provides a company-wide view of key initiatives, the timelines to watch for, which campaigns will lead to how many leads being generated, and also an overall budget for the said period.
Several of the channels included in the plan will be a new foray for the brand. The months that follow set standards for channel ROI and the investment mix thereafter. Some of the things to take care of would be:
Much akin to a new government, the “honeymoon period” (if there was one), is over.
In my final blog in this series, I will cover the 10 things the CMO should have definitely completed in her/his first month. Watch out for it!
