Put Some Icing On Your Marketing (Cake) Plan!

By Perry Rearick, Chief Editor, Follow Your Buyer

Last week I invited you to think about your B2B marketing plan like baking a cake and to be sure you’ve included all the right ingredients.

But we don’t want to forget the icing on our cake!

Icing is a big attention-getter when it comes to cakes. Who doesn’t enjoy scanning all those cakes in the bakery showcase? And the icing is often the initial differentiator.

Consider the icing to be the paid media part of your marketing plan.

You can purchase a couple cans of premade frosting, it’s easy to use and loaded with sugar. It’s also cheap, so you buy extra to eat with a spoon right from the container. And what you’re left with is a meh cake and stomachache.

But consider those cakes with fancy edging, colorful designs, flowers on top, and a personalized message in artistic script.  

Your paid media should do the same. It’s what draws a target audience’s attention to you and encourages them to want more and become engaged with the rest of the value you offer.  

When determining the right media partner for your marketing plan, I recall advice offered by my friend Elliott Berger, Board Member at Orientation Marketing and former CMO at Catalent. He urges marketers to look beyond the rate card when selecting a media partner.

The rate card lists the products the publisher or media company offers along with the pricing: banner ads, email blasts and newsletter inclusions. It is the premade frosting for the rest of your marketing plan. And as I stated, you’ll end up with mediocrity and a tummy ache.

Your media partner should be a partner, and that’s the icing on the cake. When assessing where to invest in paid media, here are three things to think about and ask for beyond the rate card.

• Does the media company take the time to understand your business, your objectives, your overall marketing plan and then develop a customized media plan to support you? Or do they simply plug you into their model dictated by their media kit and rate card?
• How often does the media company audit their subscribers and remove those who are not active? People change companies and their contact information, circulation departments should have a strategy to keep their subscriber data honest.
• Will the media company deliver reports on your investment with them? I’m not talking about how many inclusions or banner ads they ran, or clicks and opens, but detailed target audience engagement. That means reports on their audience engagement with your content, identifying which content is most effective with the target audience you seek, and helping you draw conclusions about where engaged audience members are in their buyer’s journey to inform your next actions.

So, when it comes to the icing on your marketing plan, get the good stuff.

I hope you have a great week!