For businesses in growth or Scale Up mode, transformation is a constant. The need to change, reinvent and reorganise. This is typically in key areas like operations, integration, structures and systems. But Marketing Transformation? Sometimes this is the piece of the jigsaw that’s missing.
A partner of M4G (and CEO of a Scale Up) explained the process to us like this. ‘In overcoming barriers to growth there’s an overwhelming list of transformational items on your plate’. ‘This is where external consultants come in. They can support in those transformational areas where the leadership team don’t have the skills or the time’.
Once the consultants have left, what then? The transformation required to reshape the business has been delivered. But what about the storytelling? Selling the business in its new guise is THE story. This is the piece we usually find missing. To sum up; you may be on the road to business transformation, but what about Marketing Transformation?
If you can’t capture your transformation in ways that are meaningful to your staff and customers then you’re actually risking losing more than you gain. Confusion, rumour, mis-information, misunderstanding. Furthermore, there are horrible practical consequences too – staff leave, customers start to look elsewhere. Of course, you know there’s a bright future to come – why won’t your staff and customers understand that?
This is where true Marketing Transformation come in. What do we mean by that? True Marketing Transformation is fully and systematically capturing all the changes you’re making to the business. All packaged into a coherent set of stories that your key stakeholders will understand and embrace. And we mean the tough and challenging ones, not just the easy, positive ones.
To sum up, Marketing Transformation should be an essential part of any business transformation. At M4G we believe it’s crucial for the this to happen as a single, seamless process, not as two disconnected parts.
Photo by Ross Findon on Unsplash