Think it’s time to take your marketing from practice-mode to GAME TIME?!
Then this is the perfect place to start.
Our tried-and-tested strategy – the GAME Methodology™ – has driven massive success for our clients, and now you too can access this structured roadmap to marketing nirvana.
Our GAME Methodology™ has helped hundreds of companies get their marketing from average to awesome. It is a comprehensive yet high-level view of your marketing plan, and especially for those unsure of where to get started, or if you feel your marketing is “stuck”, then this is for you.
GAME stands for Goals, Audience, Marketing Plan and Enhancement.
We’ll quickly go through each one of these to give you the inspiration to kick your marketing into high gear!
Goals
The defining question here is “What”. What are your goals? These are your actual goals and what you want to achieve. Without SMART (specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound) goals, you’re not setting yourself up for optimal success. Everything you do from here on feeds into achieving these goals.
Visualize success (a method common across elite athletes and business people). Really, visualize your goals being achieved, because you will achieve them if you plan for success and implement that plan correctly. Have your goals written down (or even better, written UP: on screens, on desks, on mirrors).
Record your progress to ensure you’re on track, and take corrective action when required.
Audience
This is your “Who”. Who you’re marketing to. Have very specific personas built, and for each one have your path to getting in front of them with your message, and then converting this into your goal/success factor.
The more detail you can give, the better. Why? For example, if you’re marketing to an IT manager, you can’t just email them and tell them about your product. But if you know that IT managers typically read TechRepublic on a Monday morning to catch up on industry news, you have information that forms part of your armory as you go into battle.
Personas must include “job to be done” (more on this later), they must include non-work-related habits and interests, they must include what that persona’s KPIs are, as well as what typically makes them look good to their boss.
Spending time on defining and editing your audience is worth all the effort and investment. It informs your entire campaign strategy, and prevents wasted resources down the line.
This is also where the “Why” comes in. Why are you relevant to your audience? What are you offering that’s important to them?
Marketing plan
Now that you have your goals and your audience, you have to decide how to reach that audience to achieve your goals. Questions will include:
- What’s my timeframe and budget?
- What are my other resources like? (e.g. team size and strengths)
- Am I well known in the market or not?
- What should my Paid vs Organic split be?
- What Platforms should I be using? (e.g. which social media channels)
- What does my marketing flow look like? (e.g. ads to landing pages, get email address, 3 personalized and differentiated marketing emails based on audience type/user actions/enriched data, set up call)
- How does your campaign fit together holistically, and how does each separate and discrete element support the whole? (including social media, landing pages, emails, long-form content strategy). The best marketing campaigns are when the entire campaign is designed together in a seamless flow that gently guides the potential customer towards your goal in an authentic and mutual value-creating manner
- We speak about more a bit later, but consistency and continuity are extremely important across channels
- How are you leveraging your multipliers and connectors, such as reputation management platforms and ratings sites?
- What is your messaging, positioning, voice and tone?
- We suggest setting up a separate document (contact us for a great template) that puts these elements together. This is a dealmaker (or dealbreaker) when it comes to the success of your marketing.
- Tip: use real-world references like Gwyneth Paltrow or Ryan Reynolds to help nail messaging, positioning, voice and tone
Enhancement
So much about marketing, specifically digital marketing, comes down continuously optimizing, enhancing, measuring and improving.
You can’t launch a campaign like a “fire and forget” missile. You have to constantly reassess and update.
See how your audience is reacting, who is reacting, what messages are resonating. A/B testing is important and not only when it comes to email subject lines. Keep your finger on the pulse – pretend you are the audience, click through on the email, be honest with yourself about what the experience is like and how it could be better. Feedback can come from every point in your campaign journey, you just have to be focused to hear it and take it on board. Not just in terms of improving, but also when it comes to future opportunities.
Get GAMING!
Implementing the GAME Methodology™ is part process, part mindset. If you’re looking for a partner to help drive the marketing results you’re looking for, get in touch and we’d love to discuss your business goals.
