Insights Based Marketing or ‘IBM’ stands for the four cogwheels of the marketing machine that should be turning together from the beginning without interruption: meaningful Insights, an agreed upon high-level Strategy, a signed-off Plan, and full Execution. IBM is part of the LIST Marketing Framework, so I could test it in depth at Apilio.
The value of market, customer and own company Insights is not only to learn and enable validated decision-making, but also to make everybody in the company’s ecosystem ‘move’ in the same direction. As today’s world is Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous (VUCA), insights needs to be generated continuously rather than once in a while.
A good marketing strategy not only uses those insights, but also represents inputs of every functional department and has their buy-in. An open dialogue between the marketer and the rest of the organization during the marketing strategy process, ensures marketing principles get a sanity check and are embedded into the organization.
The marketing plan is operational (it deals with the ‘what’ and the ‘how’ of execution) and, depending on the length of the sales cycle, it has a shorter or a longer horizon. While its goals are to be derived from the business plan and from the marketing strategy, and should not change, the plan itself has to flexible, so that adoptions in the marketing measures, messaging and materials can be made during execution.
In order to succeed, execution not only has to be lean, but also be connected continuously to the other three cogwheels. A good consultant, strategist or planner has to understand both how the marketing execution works and what the feedback of customers, partners and colleagues on that execution is. To gain insights on these two aspects, daily metrics have to be built in and shared from the beginning.
Blog about a practical implementation of the LIST Marketing Framework: