Practical tips! What pitfalls should you avoid in marketing in 2023?

Digital marketing tools must serve the business and be rooted in business pain points. Only when the basic capabilities of the enterprise, such as marketing strategy capabilities, organizational management capabilities, and process efficiency, are straightened out, can the digital marketing capabilities of the enterprise be truly improved. How to formulate a marketing plan and how to avoid those marketing pitfalls. The author of the following article answers this question for us. Let's take a look.

On the first day of work in the new year, I had a chat with Wang Xuan, the founder of MarketinginGrow, in the evening to answer questions and solve doubts for the majority of marketing partners. The topic revolved around the 2023 marketing plan and "How to avoid those marketing pitfalls in 2023" . The whole live broadcast focused on three aspects. The following is a text version of my answer, which is specially organized.

1. As we embark on our journey into 2023, what suggestions do you have for developing a marketing plan?

Q: We racked our brains to make dozens of marketing plans in 2022, but the budget was cut on the market side due to difficult circumstances. What marketing plans do you have for guests in 2023?

Teacher Jade: This topic should be what the current market partners are most concerned about. The economic downturn and market budget reduction are also a major trend. I think market people should grasp the part they can control to offset the negative impact of uncertain factors such as market budget reduction.

From a strategic perspective, we must first determine the business objectives of the enterprise, fully link the marketing objectives with the business objectives of the enterprise, and fully apply the thinking mode of the pyramid principle when determining the objectives and marketing plans. So how do we apply the thinking mode of the pyramid principle to the formulation of marketing plans? Let me give you an example.

For example, we first determine the core marketing goal, which can be summarized in one sentence: driving the growth of corporate sales revenue through marketing digitalization. Then, this core goal can be divided into three levels, and no more than five levels.

For example, the first target level can be: improve the return on investment, and the return on investment can be expressed by the calculation formula: ROI = revenue / marketing expense; the second target level can be to increase business leads and opportunities (marketing pipeline increase), that is to say, the amount of business opportunities brought by marketing activities will increase. This business opportunity may not be able to become an order immediately. We all know that B2B business has its particularity. Depending on the business form, the conversion cycle may be longer, so before directly converting the order, there is a process of becoming a business opportunity first; there can also be a third level.

You can define the content of the levels yourself. My suggestion is not to have more than 5 levels, as it is easy to lose focus. Just grasp the core ones.

Then at each level, the work of the marketing department needs to be further deepened. Taking the first item of improving investment returns as an example, what effective marketing activities can support the predictable investment returns? The next level can be divided into four layers:

1. Open up new marketing channels and increase conversion
2. Refined operations for existing customers improve the value contribution of individual users
3. Abandon channels with lower return on investment in 2022
4. Fully mobilize and integrate resources, fully adjust the marketing department structure, establish clear and efficient process implementation, etc.

The same goes for the second target level, and so on. In this way, the formulation of the marketing plan is rooted in the core marketing goals of the enterprise. At the same time, the marketing goals are based on the business goals of the enterprise, focusing on the big and letting go of the small. With a solid foundation, the execution skills will be the key. However, a good plan and a good start are half the battle. If the plan is done well in the front, the possibility of success in the back will be greatly increased.

2. How to seize the marketing opportunities in 2023? How to achieve sustained growth?

Q: It is said that the more chaotic the market is, the more obvious the differentiation needs to be. How do business leaders plan their business differentiation strategies? Suddenly, a spring breeze comes, and thousands of pear trees bloom. This poem is a perfect way to describe the rapidly changing marketing environment. In just a few months, the company's marketing strategy may no longer be applicable. How can we seize the marketing opportunities in 2023 at the beginning of the year and grasp the ever-changing marketing environment? As a business leader, how can you find the difference with other brands and achieve sustainable growth?

Teacher Jade: First of all, companies need to find the value anchor that distinguishes them from their core competitors. This requires a comprehensive review of the company's overall business conditions, marketing conditions, pitfalls encountered in 2022, and success stories. Several core questions need to be answered: Who am I? How am I different? How do you know? In other words, why do consumers buy you instead of it? What is the core interest point that distinguishes you from your competitors?

Second-best alternative

There is a concept called NBA plays a key role in this. NBA here is not the full name of the Major League Basketball, it is the abbreviation of next best alternative in English. Suppose your product is relatively expensive, and the customer's budget is limited and cannot reach a consensus with you, then the customer will have to settle for the second best and want to find the second best alternative. It is close to the concept of opportunity cost in economics, which is the cost that consumers and customers pay for giving up other options in order to choose you.

Why do we need to understand the NBA? The purpose is to understand the customer's next best choice can bring you a significant sales advantage: you can build an overall solution to make it more attractive than the next best choice. Because value is a relative concept, value is compared. You need to explain to customers what their second best choice is, where I am better, and maybe you only need to pay a slightly higher price to buy a product with higher value. At this time, customers have a reason to choose you.

Therefore, we first need to sort out and objectively analyze these basic issues, and then provide answers with data support after sufficient research. After finding the value anchor, we can fully amplify the differentiated competitive advantages.

Second, make full use of the capabilities of application scenarios, root marketing activities in marketing scenarios, create customer needs based on user pain points, customize personalized content applicable to business scenarios, and deliver value.

Third, I believe that the key to sustained growth lies in sustainability, not growth. The premise of sustained growth is that the enterprise truly builds its long-term competitive advantage and moat. Taking marketing advertising as an example, we should pay more attention to brand marketing. I talked with the CEO of an advertising company a while ago. She started her own business in the 1990s to do advertising, worked on brands, helped car companies customize marketing plans, and worked in e-commerce. I asked her what she was doing now? She said she helped companies build brands. You see, after a circle, she returned to branding.

Brand marketing is the basic capability and underlying logic of an enterprise. Brand and performance advertising need to be fully coordinated and developed together. Do not sacrifice the brand for temporary results. Instead, use the brand to drive the results and look at marketing from a more long-term perspective.

3. How to avoid marketing pitfalls in the new year?

Q: From traditional marketing to digital marketing, how can we avoid marketing pitfalls in the new year? Can the guests give some advice to the audience in the live broadcast room?

Teacher Jade: I think we must first realize that the future is extremely uncertain. It is inevitable to fall into pits. Success or failure is a matter of probability. Liu Run mentioned in his book "Underlying Logic":

There are two variables for success. One is the basic success rate, which varies from company to company, and the other is the number of attempts. If you want to avoid pitfalls and achieve more success, there are only two ways. The first is to increase the basic success rate. The more efficient the company's organizational structure, the stronger its cognitive ability and learning ability, the higher its basic success rate may be. The second is to increase the number of attempts. The more attempts you make, the higher the overall probability of success.

There is an interactive relationship between the basic success rate and the number of attempts. Generally speaking, if the company's learning ability is good, the more attempts it makes, the higher its basic success rate will be. So it is said that "failure is the mother of success". If you step into a pit, you will know how to get closer to the truth next time. So my answer to this question is not how to avoid stepping into a pit, but to recognize the reality, don't be afraid of stepping into a pit, step into it bravely, avoid anxiety and emotional internal consumption, think and act positively, insist on doing what you think is right, and just keep going.

Second, there is a pitfall that can definitely be avoided, that is, digital marketing must focus on protecting user privacy and using data legally and reasonably within the scope permitted by law. We say that data is the new oil. Data is the oil of the new era. Digital marketing is inseparable from data and is based on data mining, collection and application. However, digital marketing must be higher than the data itself. It is based on respect for human nature.

Third, in the digital marketing era, the interaction and integration of digital marketing and traditional marketing will definitely exist for a long time. For example, in many B2B companies, organizing exhibitions is still a very important marketing task. We cannot say that digital marketing and traditional marketing are either one or the other, but a coordinated and parallel process. One of my key tasks in helping companies this year is to see how to better use digital tools to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of exhibition planning. For example, the recruitment of early exhibitions, the reuse of content, and the integration of online and offline traffic are all breakthroughs.

There is an astonishing figure. According to statistics, there are more than 2,200 digital marketing tools in China alone. I think this figure may still be underestimated. The tools themselves cannot generate business value. It takes a lot of effort to combine these tools with business scenarios to make them work for me. Therefore, digital marketing tools must serve the business and be rooted in business pain points. Only when the basic capabilities of the enterprise, such as marketing strategy capabilities, organizational management capabilities, and process efficiency, are straightened out can the digital marketing capabilities of the enterprise be truly improved.

So my advice is that marketers must step out of their comfort zone at work, take a look at what other departments are doing, what resources can be integrated, pay more attention to what their bosses are worried about, and look at problems from a higher dimension. Some problems will be easily solved.

Author: Zhu Jingyu

Source: WeChat public account "Jade Digital Marketing (ID: Jade_Digital)"