BMC blog: Big ideas to be the focus of CGM Business Media Club 2022

14 Jan BMC blog: Big ideas to be the focus of CGM Business Media Club 2022

Developing One Big Thing. That’s the focus of this year’s CGM Business Media Club programme.

Now in its ninth year, with some 1,700 visitors attending our meetings over the years, it’s fair to say we’ve successfully refreshed our club but maintained the same ethos and spirit by constantly tweaking the focus of our annual 10 meeting programme.

So why focus on just One Big Thing in 2022? Surely, we all need lots of marketing strands?

Maybe, but developing or refreshing one stellar facet of your business, be it a product, service or some other aspect, can prove the exemplar for everything else to follow.

That’s why we’re kicking off in January with focus and marketing campaign forward planning to set a clear vision of who you are and what you want your business to be. Focusing specifically on One Big Thing can sharpen that vision. If you can see it, you can believe it.

Authenticity comes from the heart, so you’ll develop it with passion, effort and enthusiasm and go about it better if you are true to your beliefs and values to share with customers, suppliers, partners, employees, whoever.

February’s meeting moves onto originality – daring to break free from the herd by using your imagination, creativity and strength of character to stand out – not just in the way you devise or re-purpose your products or services but how you can take them to market differently – disrupting the norm, disturbing the cosy complacency that can creep into any professional or industry and diversifying to meet the post-Covid mood of our times. This is business unusual – not just to shape your One Big Thing but also your own distinct argot and style.

Our Spring meetings are about communicating the character of your business. In March, we focus on how to develop a storytelling culture for your One Big Thing, as an authentic narrative thread that can flow through your entire communications.

April’s meeting will urge you to get linguistically light on your feet – at how to build customer relationships designed to win buy-in (not just selling) and develop the two-way dialogue that works best when we listen.

In May, we’ll set your creative juices flowing by creating marketing content that counts and encouraging you to become your own multimedia content editor. We’ll give you ideas to pep up your marketing with a variety of appealing content to promote your One Big Thing and your wider business to the right audience and in the best ways to build trust, inspire interaction and motivate people to get in touch.

June will see a totally new feature for the club – a practical journey through some of our favourite marketing tools and tactics that can save time and create great looking content. Partly this is about tools you can use to seamlessly promote your business but also tactics to keep your calendar brimming with proactively planned and coordinated campaign content.

Our last summer meeting in July is about getting ready to roll out your One Big Idea by showing how to prepare perfect marketing pitch decks, proposals and presentations that ooze poise and panache.

Come autumn we turn to profile and trust. September’s meeting focuses on the power of PR, the best form of value-driven, profile and credibility-raising marketing you can do to promote your One Big Thing, not least how to achieve the lofty thought leadership position of becoming a media go-to guy, someone the media regularly turns to for expert comment.

In October, as an essential feature in the club programme, we look at reputation management – how to nurture the integrity of our businesses with value-driven activity and to protect it with a pre-prepared media crisis plan to ward off reputational harm.

Our final meeting of the year in November asks: Don’t you just love it…when a plan comes together? as we compose a holistic comms and marketing programme to fully market your One Big Thing in 2023.

We will continue to offer two different meeting options each month – one held on the final Friday morning of each month with a second meeting on the following Thursday afternoon. Attendees receive a brand new resource pack with manual notes for each meeting, links to recommended reading and media content, and three quick win tasks per meeting to test and try out and one deeper strategic challenge to implement after each session.

More than ever, the Business Media Club 2022 will be about people – the amazing enthusiasm and energy our attendees bring to our meetings by sharing thoughts, interacting and, hopefully, soaking up lots of inspiration, motivation that can lead to positive action – all done safely online, of course, from your home or workspace to keep costs down and minimise our carbon footprint.

For further information, visit our Business Media Club page.