GUEST POST by Isabel Taylor – Marketing graduate & woman on the move!

In a true sense, marketing is collaboration with stakeholders on a higher level to achieve mutual goals. Without marketing, how would people know about your product? If you were starting a business, would you want your company’s values and beliefs reiterated throughout its actions? Alignment is a tricky but critical factor in any successful marketing campaigns.

Alignment in short means creating structured messages for appropriate audiences to achieve desired results. For example, marketing a new Xbox model to an elderly age group is not appropriate compared to marketing it to a younger demographic, say through Saturday Disney television. As the most ideal consumer the children would therefore be exposed to the product and in turn ask their parents for this new product. We all know how hard it is to say the word ‘no’ to a child. This idea of alignment can be dispelled over many topics, however the point is- know your audience and know how to reach them!

Thinking about your businesses strategy is also a great opportunity to check if your goals, objectives, strategies and tactics are aligned. Business overall goals should line up with your objectives. If your goal is to broaden brand awareness then an objective sets numerical targets, such as building brand awareness on social media by 20% in the next quarter. This also breaks down your strategy about how would you gain exposure and engage with people about your brand on social media. Implementing tactics is where your overall strategy is broken down, perhaps including Facebook advertising, a Twitter Q&A or even creating an Instagram competition.

Alignment is a structured way of thinking to achieve long term goals, its planning and its preparation. Don’t waste time on sending messages to stakeholders who will have little interest in your product, structuring messages towards an appropriate audience is vital to success.

This is a Guest Blog by Isabel Taylor.