Strategic Marketing Services

Strategic Sales and Marketing Plans

A well planned and executed strategy lies at the heart of high business performance. Our sales and marketing strategy professionals help business leaders enhance short and long-term value by creating breakthrough strategies for both Sales and Marketing.

Sound strategy is the cornerstone of success and a pre-requisite for high performance. To create a successful sales and marketing strategy we must first research your market in detail, and then decide what actions the organization must take to achieve its sales and marketing objectives. Thereafter, management must ensure that their strategies achieve the desired results. As a result Articulate Marketing clients’ consistently out-perform their competitors.

Our team of strategy specialists recognises the importance of understanding the objectives and personal drivers of our clients. No matter what size your business is, we have a team ready to work with you to realise the full potential of your business. We provide viable, practical and cost effective solutions and advice based on real world experience which add value to our client’s business, and help them realise their true potential.

The whole process is totally transparent. You can see the return on your investment with Articulate Marketing from day one. We bring ideas, enthusiasm and energy to every business we work with. Add to this some of the best analytical and practical minds available to you, working in a structured way with you and your team and you can see why successful companies use Articulate Marketing to guide their business to success.

The deliverable will be a Strategic Sales and Marketing plan that includes:

Internal and external analysis of your current market environment, highlighting issues that need addressed, areas to monitored and ideas for lead generation, new distribution opportunities, pricing and communication campaigns.
Target market and customer segments, including a customer portrait for each segment that identifies how they search for and buy your product or service.
A customer journey route map through the buying decision process to identify all current and potential customer motivations and barriers to ensure you have them covered each of theses off in your marketing mix.
A 12 month communication plan containing a list of tactical marketing activities to get you started.

SME marketing support

Research has shown that the three main factors preventing most SMEs from marketing themselves effectively are :

They never have enough time.
They think they can't afford to.
They aren't sure how to go about it.

Our SME Marketing Services provides smaller organisations with access to marketing expertise and services of the quality that usually only larger businesses can afford. Specifically designed for small and medium businesses, this 'appointment' style of consultancy suits busy, time poor business owners who are trying to be all things to all men. This service provides you with regular access at a convenient time and place to our marketing experts in bookable one or two hourly slots (minimum eight hours) to help you find realistic solutions to your marketing issues, whatever they may be. There are just a few examples of how our existing clients have used these sessions:

- advice on how to conduct market research - help on how to improve their Internet Marketing strategy - developing and practicing an elevator pitch - help with writing content for an email campaign - advice on how to use Social media tools - advice on how to integrate Social Media into the marketing mix - marketing collateral development - improving customer segmentation - improving customer knowledge - Internet Marketing, becoming visible to Google - website design advice -

Competitor analysis

In order to survive in today's very competitive market place you must be aware of who you are competing against and how you stack up against them. Regular detailed analysis of your competitors should be a vital part of your marketing activity, because if you do not understand what your competitors are doing and why your customers might buy from them, you cannot respond and maintain a competitive edge.

A competitor analysis report from Articulate Marketing will help you understand exactly what you key direct competitors are up to in terms of how they present their product, their positioning, their pricing strategy their promotional tactics plus their strengths and weaknesses compared to your product or service.

If you understand your customers better than your competitors, then you will be rewarded with loyal customers and evangelists for your product/service. Why? Because you know what they want, when they want it and how to deliver it in a way that suits them. In order to meet your customer's needs you need to know what influences them in terms of:

- Where do they search for information on your product/service?
- What media influences them?
- What's important to them when they compare your products with your competitors?
- Will they come back, if not why?

Finding out about your existing customers help you to understand how to meet their specific needs, which in turn will gain you loyal existing customers as well as helping you develop targeted promotional campaigns to find 'warm' new customers.

Customer Segmentation

Customer segmention is dividing your market into groups of individual markets with similar wants or needs that a company divides the market into distinct groups who have distinct needs, wants, behaviour or who might want different products & services. Broadly, markets can be divided according to a number of general criteria, such as by industry or public versus private, although industrial market segmentation is quite different from consumer market segmentation, both have similar objectives. All of these methods of segmentation are merely proxies for true segments, which don't always fit into convenient demographic boundaries.

The process of segmentation is distinct from positioning (designing an appropriate marketing mix for each segment). The overall intent is to identify groups of similar customers and potential customers; to prioritize the groups to address; to understand their behaviour; and to respond with appropriate marketing strategies that satisfy the different preferences of each chosen segment therefore improving your results.

Many small firms need help to pull together a practical and realistic marketing campaign to launch their business or a new product line that will help you attract more ideal customers. In this scenario we can work with you on a project basis to help you understand how to segment you customers and develop buyer personas for each segment containing clear objectives, strategies and tactics that will help you achieve your sales targets - provided you are clear about who it is you want to attract. We will work closely with you to tailor the right marketing mix to suit your objectives and your budget.

Customer Positioning

Once a market segment has been identified (via segmentation), and targeted (in which the viability of servicing the market intended), the segment is then subject to positioning. Positioning involves ascertaining how a product or a company is perceived in the minds of your consumers.

This part of the segmentation process consists of drawing up a perceptual map, which highlights rival goods withinyour industry according to perceived quality and price. After the perceptual map has been devised, we will help you develop the marketing communications mix best suited to the produc/servicet in question.

Sales Consultancy

Articulate Marketing’s Sales Consultancy arm, provide fixed cost business sales support in an effective and flexible way enabling you to pick and choose from a menu of services appropriate to the stage of your business. Everything we do is customised to your requirements and helps you grow as a business. As sales consultants we can work full-time for a specific time period but ordinarily we are employed on an interim or part-time basis, either as an Interim Sales Manager or Interim Sales Director to assist with a particular project or challenge.

We improve sales performance in your organisation by analysing your current sales methodology, sales processes and people and establishing what you could be doing better

By providing an objective and independent view we are able to see things clearly and ensure that you get the results you need in areas such as:

developing an effective sales and marketing proposition to acquire more customers
strategies for growth and testing new products or services
adopting a more consultative and solution sales approach, training and mentoring sales staff
improving sales processes and systems, performance management and incentivisation
Board level non-executive roles

With more than 20 years sales experience in both UK and US companies, we understand the dynamics of both large global and small and medium sized local businesses. Our Lead Consultant, Colin Rigby, managed high performing sales teams across the UK and Europe in industries such as IT , Health , FMCG, Training and Development, New Technologies, combining sales management expertise with aggressive personal and team sales targets.