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We have a back catalogue of over a decade of posts, almost all of which are still relevant and useful today.
Latest posts…
Why having a clear proposition isn’t enough
When we published our research paper last autumn, one of the key takeouts was that having a clear proposition wasn’t enough. Even when the leadership team and senior marketer are clear on what you’re selling and to whom, this doesn’t guarantee an effective marketing plan.
Bridging the gap from business strategy to marketing operations
A key role of marketing is to make sure the strategy, plan and activity supports the business’s objectives. Without that, the risk is scattergun marketing and it’s hard to prove the value of marketing
10 Ways to Screw Up Your Marketing Budget
Setting and getting buy in for your marketing budget can be challenging. It’s not uncommon to find MDs and FDs scratching their heads about what’s planned, or what was spent on, marketing. We also see vying for budget amongst sales teams, account managers and marketers – with each claiming they can put it to best use.
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The latest posts…
Why having a clear proposition isn’t enough
When we published our research paper last autumn, one of the key takeouts was that having a clear proposition wasn’t enough. Even when the leadership team and senior marketer are clear on what you’re selling and to whom, this doesn’t guarantee an effective marketing plan.
Bridging the gap from business strategy to marketing operations
A key role of marketing is to make sure the strategy, plan and activity supports the business’s objectives. Without that, the risk is scattergun marketing and it’s hard to prove the value of marketing
10 Ways to Screw Up Your Marketing Budget
Setting and getting buy in for your marketing budget can be challenging. It’s not uncommon to find MDs and FDs scratching their heads about what’s planned, or what was spent on, marketing. We also see vying for budget amongst sales teams, account managers and marketers – with each claiming they can put it to best use.
#WatertightWednesday Write-ups
Developing a ‘journey brain’
< Back to the Blog “Marketers are familiar with the customer journey. It’s the starting point for our thinking, strategies and plans. But what are the other ‘journeys’ in the business – employees, other stakeholders, growth? How can marketing contribute to and...
Recruiting & resourcing a stellar marketing team
< Back to the Blog “Whatever your size of business, recruiting and resourcing can be a tricky. What makes for a brilliant marketing team? What factors do you need to consider? In our roundtable this month we discussed the topic through three lenses - skills, roles...
Getting your FD onboard and loving marketing
< Back to the Blog “A marketer’s relationship with the FD is key. They can test your plan, help develop a metrics dashboard and facilitate budget conversations. However, it’s not a given that your FD will be on-board with marketing. So how can you gain their buy-in...
Find all of the write-ups here
Building a Marketing Team
Developing a ‘journey brain’
< Back to the Blog “Marketers are familiar with the customer journey. It’s the starting point for our thinking, strategies and plans. But what are the other ‘journeys’ in the business – employees, other stakeholders, growth? How can marketing contribute to and...
Recruiting & resourcing a stellar marketing team
< Back to the Blog “Whatever your size of business, recruiting and resourcing can be a tricky. What makes for a brilliant marketing team? What factors do you need to consider? In our roundtable this month we discussed the topic through three lenses - skills, roles...
Getting your FD onboard and loving marketing
< Back to the Blog “A marketer’s relationship with the FD is key. They can test your plan, help develop a metrics dashboard and facilitate budget conversations. However, it’s not a given that your FD will be on-board with marketing. So how can you gain their buy-in...
Listen to all the podcasts from the Watertight Wednesday roundtables here
Posts by Framework
Flow Foundations
10 Ways to Screw Up Your Marketing Budget
< Back to the Blog Board level marketers need to set budgets and get budgets supported by others. Effective budgeting is essential in any marketing leadership role. In this post, Bryony Thomas explores the ten things she most often sees blowing the marketing...
Marketing’s role in employer marketing
< Back to the Blog “How do you ensure you recruit the right candidates for your business, make your company attractive to work in and encourage people to stay? In our December roundtable we talked about three key bits of thinking to take into consideration and then...
Recruiting & resourcing a stellar marketing team
< Back to the Blog “Whatever your size of business, recruiting and resourcing can be a tricky. What makes for a brilliant marketing team? What factors do you need to consider? In our roundtable this month we discussed the topic through three lenses - skills, roles...
Touchpoint Leaks™
What to insource and what to outsource
< Back to the Blog As any in-house marketer will tell you, there will come a time when you might need to use external specialists. There are all sorts of factors involved in deciding what to keep in-house and what might need outsourcing. It might be that you don’t...
Using Metrics to get Buy-in From Your Colleagues
< Back to the Blog For any marketing role I’ve been in and with any marketer I talk to, metrics and measuring marketing success is a key issue. We’re often asked about the number of leads we’re going to generate or how many people we’ll get to an event. These are...
How do you get buy-in to your marketing budget?
< Back to the Blog Many people not in the marketing team have a view that marketing budgets are not always well justified. They can come across as more of a cost rather than being activities from which the business can derive real – even long-term – value. So how...
Logic Sandwich
The storage company that made room for new marketing ideas
← Back to Case Studies George Spence took a Practitioner Guided approach to working through the Chapter Companion Courses on the Watertight Webschool, and then retained the services of a Certified Practitioner to maintain the momentum. Client: George...
You can’t logic someone out of love
< Back to the Blog How many people do you think will be getting a Valentine card this year, who don't really deserve it? Looking beyond a person's failings could be said to be the very definition of love. And, this is one of the reasons why – as a business – having...
Does your content deserve a visual?
One my favourite books is ‘Information is Beautiful' by David McCandless. He powerfully demonstrates how the way you present information has a direct correlation to how much people engage with it. Whilst this isn’t a new idea, the content...
The Time Triangle
Get luckier… do more marketing
Have you ever noticed how when you ask people how they landed a big client, they’ll often say it was just luck that they were in the right place, at the right time. Ok, so sometimes luck plays a part… but you can be a whole lot luckier if you know where...
Why marketing is a load of old twaddle
Ok, that's the polite version of the headline. Feel free to make an internal translation on that last word. Because that's what people do all the time. What you say isn't always what people hear. They interpret your words with their own...
Why you should treat your customers like adult cats
I do love to take the opportunity to get a photo of my cat, Dylan, into a presentation. But, there is a serious point to make. A point that any cat 'owner' can relate to. <~ And, there's the thing, you never really 'own' a cat. Now, if...
Influencer Icecream
Should you be saying ‘No’ to new business?
< Back to the Blog This post is also available over on our PodBlogDoing the wrong kind of work is so damaging, I've included it as one of the Four Foundation Foundations in Watertight Marketing. Which means that learning when, and how, to say no to a potential new...
Is their team on your team?
This is the fourth in a series of posts looking at The Watertight Marketing Framework. Today, we’re looking at your audiences, i.e. who do you need to talk to. Buying decisions, particularly high-value or complex ones, are not made in...
What is Watertight Marketing?
All this week I'll be introducing the Watertight Marketing Framework - giving you the headlines on the key concepts explored in Part Two of the the book. Understanding how real people really buy things is central to getting your business onto...
Profit Purpose Matrix
What makes marketing work?
< Back to the Blog This post is also available over on our PodBlogI often start workshops by offering to write up on the board in red or green pen. Red for something they hate about marketing, and green for something they love about marketing. Without fail there...
Growth: Do you want lifetime value, margin or volume?
< Back to the Blog This post is also available over on our PodBlogJoin us in March for our conferenceI was chatting with one of our clients last week. This is a £20m+ b2b service provider. They have a core service that's low margin, but gives them a platform to...
Why your direct competitors are often the least important
< Back to the Blog This post is also available over on our PodBlogIf I say 'competitors' to you, I'm willing to bet that you think of people that offer similar things to you. So, Burger King would be a competitor to McDonalds, and Pepsi a competitor to Coke......
Posts by Touchpoint Leak™
The Touchpoint Leaks™ framework is introduced in Chapter 2 of the Watertight Marketing book. You can use this to create a Touchpoint Leak™ Traffic Light Report to find your focus Leak. Then please use Part Three of the book, and these posts to #tweakyourleaks
"Watertight has made a massive difference to me and our business... I’m a sales person but knew we needed the support of marketing to further our growth. We’ve achieved 500% growth in 4 years; I attribute a lot of that success to working with Watertight."
Leak 1: Forgotten Customers
Customer Marketing: How to make sure your customers don’t feel forgotten
< Back to the Blog Customer marketing is one of the most important, and often overlooked, elements of a marketing plan. Your existing customers are the people who pay your bills folks! But, more than this, they are the foundation of your reputation, your word of...
3 tips for customer retention marketing that any small business can achieve
< Back to the Blog Welcoming your new customers on board is a critical factor in the overall success of your marketing, and indeed of your business sustainability. Customer retention is often as important a marketing task as customer acquisition. As the old saying...
Leak 2: Poor On-Boarding
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Leak 3: No Emotional Connection
What do your visuals say about you?
I've just come off a coaching call with a client, we're working on stemming Leak #3: No emotional connection and we got to talking about their visuals. There are two areas I ask clients to look at when considering their company's visual identity - the concept and the...
How to bring some personality to your blog
This is the third in a series of five blogs on blogging this week. A business blog is one of the simplest ways of overcoming Leak #7 (Information Overload) of the Thirteen Touchpoint Leaks. It acts as invitation information and a stepping stone between...
Leak 4: No Gateway
Three ways to pay (not what you think!)
< Back to the Blog I'm not talking about PayPal or invoices here, I'm talking about what people exchange with you in return for value at different stages of a buying decision. If you can crack this, your marketing will almost always deliver for you. As someone goes...
Is your content formatted for how your customers’ brains are wired?
< Back to the Blog Yesterday, I zoomed in on the power of visual content in your mix of materials. Today, I want to zoom back out to give you a way of planning a mix of content in different formats to ensure that you grab the attention of people who might be...
The only 5 things you should be doing in social media
< Back to the Blog Social media marketing can seem like a bit of a minefield. It can also seem like there’s a dizzying amount to learn before you can even get started. But, it really breaks down into four activities and one core skill – which are common across...
Leak 5: No Critical Approval
How to proactively generate word-of-mouth for your business
Many businesses will say that they generate most of their new business through word-of-mouth. However, dig a bit deeper and you often find that they are not doing anything to specifically support this... it's more a case of being a by-product...
How to overcome the third party veto in a complex sale
< Back to the Blog Following a strategy workshop that I ran with Watertight Marketing Certified Practitioner, Joshua Morse, there was some disagreement. Going through the Touchpoint Leak™ Assessment, Joshua rated – Leak 5: No Critical Approval – as Red, whilst the...
How many people have an opinion?
I blogged on Monday about how your business builds up its Commercial Karma through the way it conducts itself with every person it encounters. I often use this phrase, and people seem to like it, but perhaps don't take it as seriously as they could. I'd...
Leak 6: No Proof
Why do you need to use evidence in your marketing?
Lots of the growing businesses that we work with are the new kids on the block. They're up against established competition and can struggle to gain trust from people who feel they may be taking a risk with a less established organisation. So,...
Why are referred customers worth more?
You've heard it before, and you'll hear it again... referrals are the very best way to win new customers. Referred customers are cheaper to win. They convert more quickly. And, they spend more. In my book, Watertight Marketing, referrals comes...
Leak 7: Information Overload
How to bring some personality to your blog
This is the third in a series of five blogs on blogging this week. A business blog is one of the simplest ways of overcoming Leak #7 (Information Overload) of the Thirteen Touchpoint Leaks. It acts as invitation information and a stepping stone between...
Business blogs – the good, the great and the gratuitous
All this week, I’ll be blogging about blogging – sharing tips, hints and musings on how to make a blog the hub of your new business operation. A business blog is one of the simplest ways of overcoming Leak #7 (Information Overload) of the Thirteen...
Six internal business benefits of blogging
All this week, I'll be blogging about blogging - sharing tips, hints and musings on how to make a blog the hub of your new business operation. A business blog is one of the simplest ways of overcoming Leak #7 (Information Overload) of the Thirteen...
Leak 8: How (format)
Is your content formatted for how your customers’ brains are wired?
< Back to the Blog Yesterday, I zoomed in on the power of visual content in your mix of materials. Today, I want to zoom back out to give you a way of planning a mix of content in different formats to ensure that you grab the attention of people who might be...
Does your content deserve a visual?
One my favourite books is ‘Information is Beautiful' by David McCandless. He powerfully demonstrates how the way you present information has a direct correlation to how much people engage with it. Whilst this isn’t a new idea, the content...
Leak 9: Where (channel)
The only 5 things you should be doing in social media
< Back to the Blog Social media marketing can seem like a bit of a minefield. It can also seem like there’s a dizzying amount to learn before you can even get started. But, it really breaks down into four activities and one core skill – which are common across...
Understanding the Awareness Equation
I’m often found telling businesses that they’ll never find a marketing silver bullet, or a magic formula to sales success. But, there’s one exception, and that’s The Awareness Equation. Applying it to your marketing is extremely powerful. It is the secret...
Leak 10: When (timing)
Three ways to pay (not what you think!)
< Back to the Blog I'm not talking about PayPal or invoices here, I'm talking about what people exchange with you in return for value at different stages of a buying decision. If you can crack this, your marketing will almost always deliver for you. As someone goes...
Is your content formatted for how your customers’ brains are wired?
< Back to the Blog Yesterday, I zoomed in on the power of visual content in your mix of materials. Today, I want to zoom back out to give you a way of planning a mix of content in different formats to ensure that you grab the attention of people who might be...
The only 5 things you should be doing in social media
< Back to the Blog Social media marketing can seem like a bit of a minefield. It can also seem like there’s a dizzying amount to learn before you can even get started. But, it really breaks down into four activities and one core skill – which are common across...
Leak 11: Who (Influencers)
How to proactively generate word-of-mouth for your business
Many businesses will say that they generate most of their new business through word-of-mouth. However, dig a bit deeper and you often find that they are not doing anything to specifically support this... it's more a case of being a by-product...
How to overcome the third party veto in a complex sale
< Back to the Blog Following a strategy workshop that I ran with Watertight Marketing Certified Practitioner, Joshua Morse, there was some disagreement. Going through the Touchpoint Leak™ Assessment, Joshua rated – Leak 5: No Critical Approval – as Red, whilst the...
How many people have an opinion?
I blogged on Monday about how your business builds up its Commercial Karma through the way it conducts itself with every person it encounters. I often use this phrase, and people seem to like it, but perhaps don't take it as seriously as they could. I'd...
Leak 12: What
The effect of marketing on staff morale
< Back to the Blog Lots of our clients are fast-growing businesses for whom finding and keeping good people can be as much of a challenge as finding and keeping profitable customers. So, I asked Peter Baynes to look at the effect of implementing Watertight...
The 3 Cs of What you do – clarity, consistency and context
At a recent client workshop we worked on a key issue that people knew of them, but for something they now only do a little of. The mental filing in the collective minds of the market was out of date. Certified Practitioner, Peter Baynes, joined...
How to make your company name and strap line work hard for your business
There are lots of ways to name a business, or a product. And, the addition of a strap line can take the name a little further. From nonsensical words, like Google, to highly descriptive names, like Compare the Market - there are just so many...
Leak 13: No Emotional Impact
What are the real triggers in a sales process?
< Back to the Blog As buyers we are exposed to more and more messages that fight for our time. As marketers, it’s often tempting to emphasise the unique features and logical prowess of an offering. But, the mind doesn’t work like that. There’s more to engaging the...
Three ways to pay (not what you think!)
< Back to the Blog I'm not talking about PayPal or invoices here, I'm talking about what people exchange with you in return for value at different stages of a buying decision. If you can crack this, your marketing will almost always deliver for you. As someone goes...
Is your content formatted for how your customers’ brains are wired?
< Back to the Blog Yesterday, I zoomed in on the power of visual content in your mix of materials. Today, I want to zoom back out to give you a way of planning a mix of content in different formats to ensure that you grab the attention of people who might be...