The Fractional 
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Marketing Planning Series | Week 2 of 12 One thing I've learned from managing marketing across different organizations is that having a strategy doesn't automatically mean everyone knows what needs to happen next. The business may have established its objectives, identified its audience, selected its marketing channels, and determined its priorities, but there's still work to do before those decisions become actual marketing activities. That's where the planning process begin

Marketing Planning Series | Week 1 of 12 Over the past three months, we've explored the foundations of marketing strategy, from understanding your audience and positioning your business to evaluating competitors and identifying opportunities for growth. All of these elements help businesses determine where to focus their marketing efforts and what they're trying to accomplish. Now we're moving into Marketing Planning. Throughout my career, I've approached strategy and plannin

Marketing Strategy Series – Week 12 Over the past 12 weeks, we've explored different aspects of marketing strategy, from understanding your audience and developing your positioning to evaluating competitors and identifying opportunities for growth. Each of these plays an important role in helping businesses determine where to focus their marketing efforts. After more than a decade of working in marketing across different organizations and industries, I've learned that underst

Marketing Strategy Series – Week 11 Growth is one of the most common goals businesses bring to marketing. They want more customers, more revenue, greater visibility, or a larger share of the market. Naturally, the conversation often turns to what marketing can do to help them get there. But I've learned that growing a business isn't always as straightforward as increasing marketing activity. Sometimes the biggest opportunity is within the existing customer base. Other times,

Marketing Strategy Series – Week 10 I've worked with businesses that pay close attention to what their competitors are doing. They watch their social media, review their websites, follow their advertising, and look for new products or services being introduced into the market. I think that's a good thing. Understanding the competitive landscape is an important part of developing a marketing strategy. The problem starts when businesses treat what their competitors are doing as

Marketing Strategy Series – Week 9 Most businesses I've worked with don't have a shortage of marketing ideas. There's almost always another campaign that could be launched, another platform worth exploring, another audience to reach, or another opportunity that sounds promising. The challenge is deciding which of those opportunities actually deserves attention. It's easy to create a long list of things marketing should accomplish, especially when several of them could genuine

Marketing Strategy Series – Week 8 Businesses tend to organize marketing into individual activities. We have social media campaigns, email marketing, websites, advertising, sales conversations, customer communications, and dozens of other interactions that may be managed by different people or teams. Customers don't experience a business that way. They experience a series of interactions that gradually shape what they know about the organization, what they expect from it, and

Marketing Strategy Series – Week 7 Businesses spend a lot of time thinking about what they want to say. We develop taglines, write website copy, describe services, create presentations, and look for ways to explain what makes a business different. But good messaging isn't really about how much a business has to say. It's about how easily the right audience can understand it. I've seen businesses with great products, experienced teams, and strong customer relationships struggl

Marketing Strategy Series – Week 6 If someone recommended your business tomorrow, what would you want them to say about you? I think that's one of the simplest ways to start thinking about positioning. Your customers probably aren't going to repeat your mission statement or list every service you offer. They're going to remember something about your business and what made it different from the other options available to them. Maybe you're known for making a complicated proces

Marketing Strategy Series – Week 5 One of the first steps in almost any marketing strategy is defining the audience. We identify things like age, location, job title, company size, income, or industry and use that information to create a picture of the people we're trying to reach. That information can be useful, but I've learned that knowing who someone is on paper doesn't necessarily mean you understand them as a customer. Two people can have the same job title, work at sim

Marketing Strategy Series – Week 4 Marketing teams create a lot of things. Websites, social media posts, email campaigns, advertising, events, and videos are all part of the work. But over the years, I've learned that creating more marketing isn't really the goal. The bigger question is what all of that work is helping the business accomplish. Good marketing can create clarity, help businesses make smarter decisions, build trust with customers, and even create demand where it

Taking the time to build a strategy may feel slower at the beginning, but it often creates clarity that makes every decision afterward much easier.

After working with organizations across different industries, I've noticed the same marketing mistakes appear again and again. They're rarely caused by a lack of effort. More often, they're caused by solving the wrong problem.

If you asked ten people what marketing is, I wouldn't be surprised if eight of them answered, "Advertising."

Co-authored by: Tyler Riddell , Andrew Sosa , and DallasMeetup As many of you know, I’m one of the Executive Organizers of DallasMeetup...