I’ve sat on both sides of the marketing table – and it’s a big part of the reason Clarify exists.
I’ve worked in-house, as the Marketing Manager trying to spin multiple plates, and I’ve worked agency-side too.
Having experienced both, I’ve seen first-hand where gaps can appear, particularly between marketing strategy and actually getting things done.
That’s exactly the gap Clarify was built to fill.
I’ve been the in-house Marketing Manager…
Managing the agencies and suppliers, trying to get content signed off, chasing around different departments for information, updating collateral, planning and attending events., writing emails, fixing ‘urgent’ issues – and sometimes making the tea for the visitors.
All whilst still trying to do my day job…
If you’ve worked in a busy marketing role, you’ll probably know this feeling all too well!
There’s always something else that needs doing. And even when you’ve got external support, you’re often still the person responsible for briefing everyone, coordinating everything and making sure all those separate pieces of marketing actually fit together.
…and I’ve worked agency-side too
It’s here where I noticed something pretty common – there’s typically a big gap between the strategy and the working reality.
A consultant might deliver a brilliant strategy document, an agency might create the content or run a campaign and the internal team might be trying desperately to keep everything moving to meet deadlines.
But who’s joining all those dots together?
Who’s making sure the strategy turns into activity and that the activity connects back to what the business and sales team are trying to achieve?
We’re not really consultants, but we’re not a traditional marketing agency either.
I’d say we sit somewhere in the middle, plugging into a business as part of the team but with an overall view and long term plan.
We’re in the meetings, we’re speaking to sales and technical departments, we’re understanding the customers and we’re looking at what’s happening commercially and where the opportunities are.
Then we deliver on all of that long-term work that we’ve planned out.
What I quickly came to realise was that most businesses don’t need another strategy sitting in a folder somewhere gathering dust, because let’s face it we know the drill – someone comes in, gets everyone excited and then….everyone goes back to the day job. The part that was missing is the regular hands-on help to make it happen.
Strategy matters of course, but it’s only valuable when something actually happens as a result of it.
Marketing that works with your business
This is particularly important in B2B manufacturing and engineering businesses – marketing can’t operate in its own little bubble.
The best information is often sitting with the people speaking to customers every day; the sales team, technical experts, service engineers, product managers and leadership team.
Good marketing needs to get close enough to the the right people in the business to understand all of that and turn it into something useful. That’s why we don’t want to be the agency you speak to once a month, hand a list of jobs to and disappear again. We want to understand what customers are asking, where current enquiries are coming from, what’s happening in the pipeline, what products or markets the business wants to grow and more importantly, what’s stopping more sales coming in?
That’s how marketing becomes part of the commercial picture rather than a separate activity happening somewhere on the sidelines.
An outsourced marketing department
Our clients often describe Clarify less like an agency and more like an outsourced marketing department and that’s probably the best description of what we’ve built.
We’re there to think, we’re there to challenge and we’re there to bring an outside perspective and specialist marketing expertise.
But we’re also there to roll our sleeves up and do the work.
Because from lived experience I know that businesses don’t need more marketing ideas. They need the right ideas, joined up with the rest of the business — and someone to take ownership and help turn them into action.