Marketing is constantly evolving and it’s now more important than ever to create compelling experiences for your customers so they become your brand advocates. Your story is no longer about your product or service offerings but more about what resonates with your customers. To succeed, companies must take a transformational approach by telling a simple story, creating a clear and compelling strategy, and aligning the systems to execute flawlessly. Here are 23 expert tips that can help you excel with your Story, Strategy, and Systems to transform your marketing efforts:

23 Expert Tips to Transform Your Marketing from Dave Sutton

  1. Marketing is in a state of transition. Digital, data, and demand are more important than ever. And the CMO sits at the intersection of converting digital know-how and data analytics into consumer demand.
    Kimberly A. Whitler
    @KimWhitler
    LinkedIn
  2. The primary differentiator between the transformational CMO and the CMO of yesterday is that they are performance-driven CMOs. They have a fundamental understanding of the levers of growth, have insight on the relative importance and value of these levers, and know how to convert this understanding into enterprise-wide action that drives overall performance.
    Bruce Rogers
    @Brogers825
    LinkedIn
  3. Core to leading any significant change effort is the organizational alignment. No amount of tactical change management training will substitute for having an entire organization that has a clear vision of goals, shared responsibility, and personal accountability to achieve results… Strong organizational alignment commands buy-in: there is no option not to be on board with strategic initiatives.
    Kelli Hinshaw
    @kellihinshaw
    LinkedIn
  4. Unless you have absolute clarity of what your brand stands for, everything else is irrelevant.
    Mark Baynes
    LinkedIn
  5. Brands are built around stories. And stories of identity – who we are, where we’ve come from – are the most effective stories of all. This storytelling is a powerful way to bring brands to life.
    Bill Dauphinais
  6. People don’t buy goods and services, they buy relations, stories and magic.
    Seth Godin
    @ThisIsSethsBlog
    LinkedIn
  7. An advertising message focused purely on a transaction are met with an immediate yes or no reaction; most people will forget the ad several hours later. However, branded advertising that tells an authentic story engages people on a deeper level. This is what makes stories so powerful–they are memorable and lasting.
    John Cinquina
    @redmeetsblue
    LinkedIn
  8. 2017 will be the year brands will have to shift from advertising and promotion to true storytelling. They will need to personalize and humanize the way they tell authentic stories.
    Michael Brenner
    @BrennerMichael
    LinkedIn
  9. You have to engage with your audience more authentically because people are no longer forced to view your advertising.
    Jacob Warwick
    @jacobwarwick
    LinkedIn
  10. As the buyer’s journey becomes increasingly digital and the line between digital and non-digital touches begins to blur, the ability to seamlessly plan all marketing and deliver a consistent, mutually supportive set of interactions to prospects will be the hallmark of an effective demand creation team.
    Monica Behncke
    @mbbaustin
    LinkedIn
  11. Your team needs a direct and clear connection between organizational goals and daily projects. Without this correlation between their work and the missions of the company, it’s a lot harder to drive better performance.
    Chris Arringdale
    @rsnapclientcare
    LinkedIn
  12. Catering to all existing marketing channels is next to impossible. There’s too much to do and too much to promote. A possible (yet not easy) workaround is being an early adopter. Early adoption is more important than ever thanks to the over-saturation of marketing channels: look for emerging marketing channels that are still unsaturated.
    Ann Smarty
    @seosmarty
    LinkedIn
  13. The single most important ingredient to an effective customer-driven marketing strategy is relevant data.
    Doug Fowler
    @dougfowler
    LinkedIn
  14. If you have big news, you need a big plan. And that’s where the product launch comes in. From establishing the proper messaging and creating the assets to enabling your sales team and keeping momentum, there’s a lot that goes into putting together a solid product launch plan.
    Marcus Andrews
    @Marcus_Andrews
    LinkedIn
  15. The most important ingredient of a successful B2B marketing strategy is consumer insights. Starting with the intention and messaging of your campaign, the data you gather around consumers’ thoughts, behaviors, feelings and values towards a particular product or brand will be the key to your campaign success.
    Sarah Tourville
    LinkedIn
  16. If you form a strategy without research, your brand will barely float, and at the speed industries move at today, brands sink fast.
    Ryan Holmes
    @invoker
    LinkedIn
  17. Mediocre marketers think in terms of campaigns. Great marketers think in terms of growth frameworks.
    Neil Patel
    @neilpatel
    LinkedIn
  18. I believe the most effective way marketers can leverage big data in their marketing strategy is simple and it comes down to two things; The right message, the right audience.
    Chad McDonald
    LinkedIn
  19. Brands are confusing brand love with brand attention – giving people cheap gifts might keep them on the radar but it won’t grow affection for the future.
    Tiffany Kenyon
    LinkedIn
  20. Content is fire, social media is gasoline. Without useful content – without content that entertains, without content that breaks through – it’s much, much more difficult to create and maintain an audience then it used to be.
    Jay Baer
    @jaybaer
    LinkedIn
  21. Content is king but engagement is queen, and the lady rules the house!
    Mari Smith
    @marismith
    LinkedIn
  22. Where I see the big opportunity is to take that data and tell automation to send a piece of content at this time, making a more real-time, data-driven process for sending nurture campaigns. This would get ahead of competitors, coming across as relevant and timely.
    Mike Ballard
    @mballard5574
    LinkedIn
  23. Putting in place effective marketing technology really all starts with understanding how the consumer is changing and which channels are experiencing growth and why.
    Jason Heller
    @JasonHeller
    LinkedIn

To truly transform, marketing must get all 3S’s right: the right Story, the right Strategy, the right Systems, all measured through the lens of Simplicity, Clarity, and Alignment. Learn more about how TopRight’s 3S Approach (Story, Strategy, and Systems) can help you transform your marketing to drive measurable results in our new eBook: Transformational Marketing – Moving to the TopRight.