Here at Triggerfish we strive to help companies form a Marketing Operations mindset.
This means moving away from a project-driven or “set it and forget it” way of thinking and evolving your marketing function to operate on a weekly, monthly and quarterly basis.
Your MarTech will never be “done”, so instead of reaching for the holy grail end result, think about identifying the right things to work on and making incremental progress over time.
To help organisations start thinking operationally with respect to their marketing function, or help them build a marketing operations team, we have created this 12-part blog series. We will be covering everything from Sales & Marketing alignment, growth marketing, digital strategy, creating ROI, cross-functional teams, and much more!
Today, Business Strategy
Business Strategy means learning to say “No”. Often, people think business strategy - or strategy in general, is all the cool things that we're going to do. But more often than not, it's being clear about what we're not going to do, so that we can just do one or two things really clearly.
In other words, business strategy is the opposite of doing lots of things. It's about the ability to say no to a whole lot of things. The way we think about that from a marketing operations point of view is incorporating business strategy into our growth goals – the things that matter to the business.
These goals are often articulated by the C-level execs. They are the things that they're going to place one or two bets on, that will drive business growth in the future. Being clear about those few things that matter, that are going to actually take the business to the next level, also means we can say no to things that don't align to that.
At Triggerfish, when onboarding a new customer or undergoing an annual reset, we always conduct a Business Direction & Growth Goals workshop. We ensure that at least one C-level executive is in the room, with all other relevant stakeholders – ensuring that our projects are always sanctioned by the C-level executives and understood by all. We use this process to make sure that we get the marketing alignment to business goals. As we’ve mentioned, marketing activities are often tactical, rather than strategic, so there’s a chance that they can fall out of alignment with business goals.
So, we use the Business Direction workshop to say no to a whole bunch of stuff that doesn't align, and yes to things that do align. In that process, we get clearer on ensuring any work we do at a marketing level is absolutely 100% aligned to business strategy too.
Business strategy eliminates busy work
It’s very easy to work just to do work – to work on tasks so that you look good for your boss, without really considering whether the tasks are aligned to business needs. If you have fewer tasks, however, you tend to get more done, and the tasks themselves are performed at a higher level of quality. When these tasks are aligned with business goals, the organisation can see dramatic progress in a relatively short amount of time.
To further the accomplishment of business goals, we can also break them down into more manageable deliverables. By achieving these deliverables, we can show progress – and demonstrate that we’re not just slacking – without necessarily having to work at a breakneck pace. Anecdotally, we at Triggerfish have seen that businesses that adopt this method tend to move faster while having more ability to course-correct on things that aren’t working out.
Being wrong is part of the process, so it’s good to create an environment where it’s okay to be wrong – allowing you to fail fast and iterate until you get it right.
The Business Direction Workshop
As we’ve mentioned, we offer a one-day business strategy workshop that we call the Business Direction workshop. There we hear from the C-suite representative with everyone in the room. Next, we outline how marketing activities can create linkages to the business goals. We also spend time understanding who buys our products from a customer point understanding who buys our products from a customer point of view and identifying who we can then speak to as a result of that.
We help craft the business strategy using techniques that include customer insights interviews, applied market research, and results from investigating the buyer’s journey. At the end of the day, we help discover the functional and emotional reasons why customers find and purchase your products.
Lastly, we explore the details around the tactical activity that's working and not working with any assets you might have today. This helps develop a continual list of issues, and lets us prioritise them according to which is the most severe – with severe issues including those that affects assets which are heavily related to business goals.
People can and do spend months and years creating a business strategy, but we feel like it’s better to take a pragmatic approach. Create an outline, focus on a few simple tasks, then reevaluate every three months. You’ll find that your big dreams will become real that much faster.
Here at Triggerfish, we strive to provide companies with a best-in-class experience that can supercharge marketing efforts and realign them towards business goals. If you’d like to learn more about how we can help you transform your marketing approach, contact us today!