Don't start with a pretty picture; start with channels and touchpoints.

Don’t start with a pretty picture! For years, the marketing and the leadership teams have been focused on creating standout adverts: memorable TV ads, attention grabbing radio spots, or performance-driving social and digital ads. It’s often about how good the brand looks and how clear the message is.

That’s not wrong but is it enough?

From all my years in managing global brands, I have arrived at a somewhat different place. I start with channels and touchpoints. Why?

Because you really only have 2 goals – engage with or interrupt your target audience.

So once you’ve defined and really understood your target audience, you need to ask yourself ‘where do they go to find information/advice? which social platform are they on? which newspapers do they read? which radio station do they listen to? which groups are they a part of?’

Think about this in terms of:

1. When and where you are going to interact with your audience across paid, owned, and earned channels, in a way that creates dialog and relevant interest.

2. What message/content you want to communicate through each channel to engage with or interrupt your target audience.

Then and only then can you truly bring this to life through a creative expression that takes into consideration audience, channel, context, timeliness, and message.

About The CMO Syndicate

The CMO Syndicate is a diverse group of world-class Chief Marketing Officers who rapidly solve growth and profit problems for CEOs, VCs, CMOs, and PE firms. As global CMOs from the world’s top companies, The CMO Syndicate is not a traditional marketing consulting agency, and we are not typical marketing or growth consultants. We are growth experts and operators who actually do the work on a part-time or project basis as outsourced fractional and interim CMOs.