If you’re fluent in marketing speak, then there’s a good chance the CEO and the CFO have no idea what you’re saying when you are discussing how you’re going to drive your business with marketing. Worse, it may sound like fluff if you can’t talk to them in concrete terms they understand. The last thing you want to be seen as is the team with the biggest discretionary spend in the organization. Because when times get tight, those budgets will be the first to get slashed.
Sound like a CEO with simple message: Drive more sales
One thing that CEO’s do better than almost anyone in the organization is take complex ideas and simplify them into something that can be communicated – and repeated – consistently in the organization. So let’s take a page from their playbook…by taking complex ideas like integrated marketing communication strategies and reducing it to a concept that can be understood by everyone from the CEO down.
Better yet, you can shift the conversations around your integrated marketing communication plans from sounding fluffy to a powerful tool that sounds a lot more like it can deliver the results the company needs…literally more sales.
Keeping it simple with Steer, Stop and Sell
Drawing from the KISS model (Keep It Simple, Stupid), you can express your integrated marketing plan as nothing more complicated than:
- Steer
- Stop
- Sell
Obviously the CEO and CFO want to know how you’re going to deliver against these ideas. Now at least you have their attention. There’s no need to discuss addressable markets or what your awareness or trial plans are first…now they are an outgrowth of how you are going to Steer, Stop and Sell to retailers and shoppers.
The power of Steer, Stop and Sell
Each of these words can become part of a sentence to further explain what you mean. For example:
- We Steer consumers to our category and brand
- We Stop them at the shelf (or on the web) and reinforce why we are the brand of choice
- We Sell more shoppers by moving them from consideration to purchase
Make the connection
Here’s a brief snapshot of how the components of Steer, Stop and Sell can work together to build a clear and simple way of showing the power of your marketing. After each step is an example to show how it comes to life as part of your marketing plan.
Steer
- Driving more consumers to the category, brand and key retailers
- Raising awareness, consideration, and preference for our brand
- Using the web, social media and national promotions to engage interested consumers and drive traffic to retail
Stop
- Improving consumer education and understanding of our products
- Reinforcing why our brand is the only choice for shoppers
- Informing and directing interested consumers to seek our products on the web and at retail
Sell
- Driving sales by converting consumers from prospects to buyers
- Making our products more noticeable and compelling through effective packaging and in-store merchandising
- Delivering on our brand promise, quality and value
Show the power of your Steer, Stop and Sell path
Steer, Stop and Sell lets you make the connection for the CEO and CFO in a way that they can relate to – by demonstrating how your marketing is going to work to drive sales. In bringing your programs to life and creating deliberate links showing how the components of your spend are working together, your CEO and CFO can move from being baffled to being your advocate.
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