BMC blog: Let’s put it all together

05 Jul BMC blog: Let’s put it all together

Back in the 1970s high-pitched soul supremos The Stylistics sang Let’s Put it All Together in typical beautiful falsetto fashion.

Proof, if needed, of the virtue of harmony.

As the CGM Business Media Club 2018-19 series comes to a conclusion, this month’s meeting will focus on harmony – putting all the various thoughts, ideas and facets of marketing learned and developed over the last 10 months into one coordinated plan.

During that time, we’ve covered the fundamentals of communications and marketing including: 

– Understanding the ‘why?’ of your business (why you do what you do and what you really do rather than literally do) and the value of communicating your message with clarity;

– Ways to win hearts and minds via thought leadership and storytelling;

– Practical tactics of acquisition marketing, shaping a customer experience model and productification (packaging your services into buyable products);

– Image and reputation, both looking good by design and building trust and a respected profile – and how to protect it by learning by how to manage a media crisis.

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The Business Media Club is essentially about people. It never has been or ever will be about telling people what to do or treating everyone the same.

We’re unique human beings so the club is a sharing, interactive experience designed to help members and visitors develop ideas together.

The folks who attend the club regularly have travelled the distance with us and we hope they’ll stay with us for fresh themes in our 2019-2020 season.

There have also been some personal challenges over the past 10 months:

– Understanding who you are, what you want from your career or business and how to market the skills and aptitudes you have to offer;

– How to impart that knowledge by creating your own narrative and telling your own story;

– Confronting the very real challenges of marketing in the digital era and indeed how to protect your reputation (nothing matters more but it can be shredded in seconds on social media). 

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The programme is intuitive to form a thorough communications and marketing strategy – but, in truth, can be constructed in any order.

Defining and understanding your audience and knowing what message you want to get out there should be centre stage. The rest is academic unless you know your core audience (and it is not just customers).

At the opposite end, having a crisis plan in place is common sense and needs to be hammered firmly into place early doors. You’d be surprised how readily it is squeezed out in preference to more appetising aspects of marketing.

Deciding which marketing cards you want to play and in which order is also vital.

But we’re essentially hard-wired to be creative and proactive people so the age-old in-built skills of storytelling and explaining how we do things our way is the glue that binds it all together into a powerful, rounded, marketing mix.

It all adds up to a unique experience and amazing commitment from the folks who have, once again, helped make the club special.

The final meeting of our 2018-19 programme will be celebratory and of course harmonious.

Whether you are a regular and past attendee or new visitor why not join us?

The next Business Media Club meeting is on Friday, July 19 (9.45am-12.30pm) at the CGM Media Centre, Cadbury House, Worcester, WR3 8SG.

For further information call 01905 754336, email CGM at info@chrisgreenmedia.co.uk or to book directly visit our Eventbrite page.