Services

Research & Assessment

The first step in marketing is listening. Listening builds a strong foundation for effective marketing engagement.

When you deeply understand your buyer and what motivates them, your communications to them will be more effective.

Where to start? Comparing your efforts to the competition could be helpful. But, people often provide the best insights. Sales and customer service teams tell you what's working and what’s not. And your current customers can tell you how they chose you in the first place.

What's important to your buyer changes over time.

Buyers change their beliefs and understandings as they go from having little knowledge to making a final purchase decision. This is what marketers call the “Buyer’s Journey”.

Buyer Journey work is important because many companies make the mistake of emphasizing products and services way too soon, overwhelming the buyer. If you miss the mark on what you say, you miss a possible buyer.

Approach

Interviews

There’s always something to learn from a structured interview. Interviews help build marketing insights, and that helps planning, messaging, and prioritization. As the owner of Open Sky, I find that everyone can offer helpful insights — sales, executives, customer support, and customers.

Prioritization

I enjoy figuring out what needs special attention or prioritization. Because I have been doing many types of marketing for a long time, often in our collaboration, we can leap forward and get to some solid insights and take actions quickly.

Buyer Journey & Personas

When you choose to gain more knowledge about your buyer, I can interview your customers then write up buyer insights for you. You may think, “Why bother?” But once done, I guarantee that the light switch goes on, and you will start engaging your customers and prospects differently.

Prioritization & Planning

A plan, however short, declares what is important and what’s not.

It’s not easy to stick with a plan. Your company priorities change — or the market changes. But success increases when you plan — when it’s tracked and updated. When we build a plan you’ll see:

Increased marketing ROI
Stronger cost control
Less risks to revenue targets
More opportunity to align team on priorities
Increased sales from your best market fit

Your company's brand tone and messaging is important. Having the right "messaging pillars" ensures you are reinforcing the most important messages over and over again, reflecting the company's best competitive strengths. With this foundation in place, you are then ready to implement campaigns.

Approach

Marketing Spend

As the Owner of Open Sky Marketing, I work hard to maximize your marketing spend, finding the right venues for your business. So, together we'll identify the best marketing plan that brings in the best results.

Any plan should be doable and realistic — where you see benefits as soon as possible. Nothing brings in results like tying a program to business objectives and numbers.

Marketing Plan

Long documents are rarely read. But a short plan ensures team alignment — and that important goals are actually remembered and tracked.

As part of a “plan” I recommend including a section that describes your buyer and what motivates them. Most companies miss doing a good job here, and doing this part often results in creating a noticeable impact.

Prioritization & Alignment

Brainstorming can uncover big ideas. Bringing the team together often results in unexpected opportunities. And more sales.

Using my marketing lens, I facilitate these planning meetings. For example, just because you didn’t get leads from a website or from a conference last year does not mean that these venues are ineffective for you. You may have missed something.

Implementing

The majority of Open Sky time focuses on implementation.

Developing

Core messages to win and retain business
Sales talking points
Presentations e.g. webcasts

Writing

Articles, white papers
Website copy
Collateral
Success Stories

Managing

Agencies e.g. website, videographer
Events e.g. seminars, webinars
Tradeshow activities

How are these activities chosen? Sometimes you know what you need and we go straight to a specific project, like writing up a success story, or writing new website copy. Other times, what’s needed becomes clear after some level of research, assessment, and planning.

Approach

Bringing in a Specialist When Needed

For implementation work, I may choose to bring in other colleagues to ensure that the best help is brought into each project. These specialists may work under Open Sky, such as SEO, lead generation, and website agencies, or you may prefer to contract with these specialists directly.

Again, the Buyer Journey

Open Sky does project-based work such as; ghost-writing a short book, developing a thought leadership presentation, or developing the copy for a website. For any work we do, Open Sky always considers the “buyer journey”. Why? The type of information that buyers seek changes as they journey towards a decision. Making sure you use the right message at the right time to the right person is absolutely essential for marketing effectiveness.

Presentations Can Be Powerful

Many people find it challenging to create and deliver a highly effective presentation. I have lots of experience and formalized training in developing presentations that get results. I can also coach you to improve your own skills, whether it’s a presentation for a conference, webinar, or a sales meeting.

Let's Talk

If you know you could do a better job of marketing, but don’t know what’s next, let’s talk.

Email for a Call Time

I’d like to hear about your current challenges and goals.

I will be honest about whether I could help you. No matter the outcome, I expect you will leave with a few ideas or insights, as I enjoy making it worth your time.

Please let me know a few times that work for you.

Email for a Call Time

Services

Research & Assessment

Approach

Interviews

Prioritization

Buyer Journey & Personas

Prioritization & Planning

Approach

Marketing Spend

Marketing Plan

Prioritization & Alignment

Implementing

Developing

Writing

Managing

Approach

Bringing in a Specialist When Needed

Again, the Buyer Journey

Presentations Can Be Powerful

Let's Talk

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