Most organizations understand that marketing is important, but few adopt a truly holistic approach to marketing. Marketing is a vital process for small entrepreneurial start-ups to billion dollars enterprises because no business venture can become established and grow without a thriving customer base. Every business must differentiate their company’s products or services – so its distinctiveness and value are clear to the customer. This is the job of marketing.
According to the most recent B2B Marketing Mix report, 67 percent of companies surveyed named lead generation as their top marketing objective. Of course leads are important, but customer experience is critical for sustainable growth of the business, so marketing departments must do more than just enable sales teams to do their job.
Good marketers, in fact, understand what customers want, how a company’s solutions meet those needs and how to communicate that relationship effectively. A marketing-first approach to business ensures that the products and services the company offers are relevant to the marketplace. Through components like brand-building and brand positioning (both internally and externally), the best marketing-first companies drive their competitive advantages – and their success.
Most business owners find marketing both critically important as well as a challenging part of their success. There are so many elements of marketing to master: branding, competitive differentiation, story-telling, digital, social, thought leadership, sales enablement, ongoing customer communications, and more. So today, we’re lucky to have Monique de Maio with us, the CMO and Founder of a 23+ year old marketing consulting firm, ondemand CMO, to discuss how to create a sustainable competitive advantage for your business, through the development of a strategic holistic marketing plan.
