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Marketing Canvas - Budget

Last update: 10/12/2024

In a nutshell

Discover the importance of a well-structured marketing budget in our comprehensive guide. We delve into the critical role of budgeting within the Marketing Canvas method by Laurent Bouty. Learn how to track and manage marketing expenses, whether you're a multinational corporation or a budding startup. Understand the significance of budgeting in terms of industry benchmarks, and discover strategies to spend wisely. Our guide offers practical tools to translate your budget into action, from understanding your audience to tracking expenses effectively. Moreover, learn to evaluate and improve your budgeting practices with our score-based self-assessment. Lastly, get inspired by a real-life example of green clean use case. Whether you're a marketing novice or an entrepreneur seeking new insights, this article offers an essential exploration of the powerful tool that is your marketing budget.

In the Marketing Canvas

The Marketing Canvas is a powerful tool for entrepreneurs and non-marketers to build a robust marketing strategy. It consists of six meta-dimensions, each with four sub-dimensions, for a total of 24 sub-dimensions defining your Marketing Strategy. One of these sub-dimensions is BUDGET, which falls under the METRICS meta-category.

Defining Budget

The Marketing Canvas model proposed by Laurent Bouty offers an in-depth methodology to conceptualize and structure your marketing plan. The fundamental section Bouty underscores is "Metrics," and the sub-dimension "Budget" within it. This sub-dimension serves as a barometer to quantify and keep track of your marketing expenditure, a crucial determinant of your company's marketing efforts' overall success.

The Budget dimension's relevance is ubiquitous, regardless of your company's size. For larger conglomerates, where tracking expenses becomes a standard protocol, marketing becomes an essential cog in the wheel. Conversely, smaller entities like startups or SMEs may not implement such stringent measures, overlooking the importance of earmarking a designated marketing budget, which could potentially hinder growth.

Renowned benchmarks, Gartner and CMOsurvey, offer a broad understanding of how companies, across industries and sizes, allocate their marketing budgets. These benchmarks divulge that, on average, about 11% of the yearly budget is dedicated to marketing expenditure. An alternative way of approaching this is by calculating the ratio between your marketing budget and your revenue. The marketing budget generally represents 6% to 10% of your revenue, a number that can fluctuate depending on your revenue size.

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Marketing Canvas Method by Laurent Bouty - Marketing Budget

As per the industry suggestions, startups could consider setting aside up to 20% of the anticipated gross revenue for the marketing budget. However, the crucial takeaway here is that it is not solely about allocating funds to marketing, but ensuring that these funds are utilized judiciously. This involves associating your expenses with your actions – if you plan to perform action X to achieve objective Y, how much will Z (the budget) amount to?

Underutilizing your marketing budget can pose problems. It may create a negative impression of your leadership, indicating a lack of execution on planned strategies. Similarly, if your marketing budget falls below the market average, it may indicate under-investment compared to your competitors, acting as an impediment to your business's growth.

A survey by Sortlist conducted in 2021 revealed that the Covid19 pandemic had either positively or negatively impacted the marketing budget for SMBs. On average, the annual budget hovered around a maximum of 10,000€ for 50% of the companies surveyed. However, this figure only accounted for media and content expenses, excluding human resources and platform investments.

Tools for Budget

Having a well-planned budget is a keystone to any successful marketing strategy. However, to implement this successfully, certain tools can provide a great deal of assistance. Software platforms like QuickBooks, Zoho Books, or Sage 50cloud are excellent options for maintaining and tracking your budget. They not only help you keep your budget in check but also ensure the finances are appropriately aligned with your marketing goals.

Spreadsheets can also play a significant role in managing your budget. They provide a straightforward and uncomplicated way to input and track your budget figures. Excel or Google Sheets, with their various functions, can aid in organizing and categorizing your budget.

Moreover, platforms like HubSpot offer a dedicated Marketing Hub that includes budget management tools within their software. This feature enables companies to plan, track, and measure their marketing budgets and ROI from a single platform.

Translating Budget into Action

Translating your budget into action entails strategic decision-making. It involves a deep understanding of your audience and consistent engagement, preparedness for budget variability, consideration of the marketing lifecycle, tracking expenses, and balancing creativity with cost.

For instance, if your target audience is primarily online, then directing a significant portion of your budget to digital marketing would be a wise decision. However, for a local audience, traditional advertising methods, such as billboards or local press, may be more effective.

Maintaining consistency in your marketing approach can result in more significant outcomes than sporadic, high-cost campaigns. This strategy requires planning for sustained engagement with your audience.

Marketing budget needs can change with time. It is vital to remain flexible and adapt your budget based on business needs, market trends, and campaign results.

In marketing, some initiatives, like SEO or content marketing, may take a longer time to deliver results. It's crucial to account for these long-term strategies in your budget, alongside short-term ones.

By using accounting or budgeting software, you can keep an accurate record of your marketing expenditures. This data can provide valuable insights for future budgeting decisions.

While high-cost campaigns may appear more attractive, the most creative ideas are often the most cost-effective. Always seek to balance creativity and budget constraints.

Statements for self-assessment

Is your Marketing Budget helping you achieve your goals?

Evaluating the effectiveness of your marketing budget is a critical step towards its optimization. Here, you assess if your budget is helping you reach your goals.

For a comprehensive evaluation, rate your agreement with the following statements on a scale from -3 (completely disagree) to +3 (completely agree):

1. Your marketing budget allocation is based on several factors, including your industry sector, your business capacity, your goals, and how quickly you need to make an impact.

2. Your marketing budget is a component of your overall business plan, outlining the costs of how you are going to achieve your marketing goals within a certain timeframe.

3. You constantly monitor your marketing efforts. If something in your marketing plan is not working, you move that spending into another area.

4. You leave a portion of your budget (10%?) in exploring new ways, figuring out what works and what doesn’t, and exercising your creative muscles

Each of these statements evaluates a critical aspect of your marketing budget. Your scores would indicate which areas need improvement, and which areas are effectively managed.

Marketing Canvas Method - Question - Marketing Budget

Interpretation of the scores

• Negative scores (-1 to -3): Indicate significant gaps in your budgeting process. Resource allocation may lack strategic alignment, monitoring may be insufficient, and there may be little or no investment in innovation.

• A score of zero (0): Reflects partial effectiveness. While the budget is functional, it may not be fully aligned with goals, flexible, or innovative enough to drive optimal results.

• Positive scores (+1 to +3): Suggest a well-optimized budget strategy. Allocation is strategic, monitoring is robust, and there is a deliberate focus on testing and innovation.

Case Study: Green Clean’s Budget strategy

• Misaligned understanding (-3, -2, -1): Green Clean allocates its marketing budget without clear alignment to business goals. The budget lacks flexibility, with no resources reserved for experimentation, leading to stagnation in results.

• Surface understanding (0): Green Clean allocates a functional budget aligned with its business plan but struggles to reallocate funds from underperforming initiatives. There is minimal investment in innovation, limiting growth potential.

• Deep understanding (+1, +2, +3): Green Clean’s budget is strategically allocated across campaigns, aligned with business goals, and includes 10% for experimentation. Performance is closely monitored, with resources reallocated dynamically to maximize impact.

Conclusion

The Budget sub-dimension emphasizes the importance of strategic allocation, continuous monitoring, and innovation in marketing. A well-structured budget not only aligns with business goals but also ensures flexibility and encourages creative exploration, enabling sustainable growth and competitive differentiation.

Sources

1. Gartner CMO Spend Survey 2020-2021, Gartner, https://www.gartner.com/en/marketing/research/annual-cmo-spend-survey-research

2. CMO Survey 2020, Deloitte, pdf, https://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/Deloitte/us/Documents/CMO/us-cmo-survey-highlights-and-insights-report-feb-2020.pdf

3. Sortlist, 2021 Marketing Survey: Budgets, Trends and Inspiration for SMBs, https://www.sortlist.com/blog/marketing-survey-smbs-budgets-trends-inspiration/

4. Medium, 5 Steps to Creating a Small Business Marketing Budget, https://medium.com/@the_manifest/5-steps-to-creating-a-small-business-marketing-budget-2f807065068a

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Marketing Canvas - Pricing

Last update: 24/11/2024

In a nutshell

The Pricing sub-dimension in the Marketing Canvas examines how your pricing strategy supports your value proposition, aligns with customer expectations, and reflects your brand positioning. Pricing is not merely a financial decision but a strategic tool that communicates value, differentiates your offering, and influences customer behavior toward sustainable choices.

For instance, a brand like Green Clean might emphasize pricing transparency and offer incentives for sustainable behaviors, such as discounts on refillable products, to align with its eco-friendly mission and customer expectations.

Introduction

The Pricing sub-dimension in the Marketing Canvas is critical to ensuring your value proposition is both competitive and aligned with your brand’s goals. A well-designed pricing strategy balances customer Willingness To Pay (WTP), perceived value, and cost structure while promoting sustainability. It ensures your offering creates more value than its cost and encourages customers to engage with your brand’s most impactful and sustainable options.

Pricing also reinforces brand positioning by reflecting the quality, exclusivity, or accessibility of your product or service.

What is pricing?

Pricing is the monetary expression of your value proposition, reflecting the worth of your product or service to customers. A strong pricing strategy:

• Communicates Value: Ensures that customers perceive the benefits of your offering as exceeding its cost.

• Reflects Willingness To Pay: Aligns with what customers are willing to pay for solving their problems.

• Covers Costs: Accounts for the full costs associated with delivering your value proposition.

• Supports Positioning: Aligns with your brand’s image and goals in the category.

• Promotes Sustainability: Incentivizes customers to choose sustainable options.

For example, Green Clean might set a premium price for its eco-friendly cleaning solutions to reflect their unique value while offering subscription discounts for refills to encourage long-term sustainable behaviors.

Pricing: an in-depth perspective

PRICING is a pivotal element of your marketing strategy that requires meticulous analysis due to its complexity and profound impact on value creation. In the Marketing Canvas Method, PRICING goes beyond simply competing with market rates for similar offerings. Instead, it focuses on leveraging pricing as a strategic tool to create or preserve value, propelling your brand upward on the economic value curve.

Perceived Price and the Value Curve

At the core of effective PRICING is the concept of the Perceived Price—how customers interpret the value of your offering relative to its cost. Understanding the standard pricing unit in your market is critical to analyzing your position.

For instance:

• In a supermarket, shampoos or soaps are typically priced per milliliter in Europe, while coffee is sold by weight.

• In the service industry, consulting services are often charged per hour or day.

Once the reference pricing unit is established, you can calculate the perceived price of your offering compared to competitors using the formula:

24 / (E - C) * (M7 - C) - 12

Where:

• E is the highest unit price in the market,

• C is the lowest unit price,

• M7 is your unit price.

This calculation helps determine your position on the value curve, indicating whether your PRICING strategy accelerates or impedes your business growth.

Example: Artisanal Coffee

Suppose your artisanal coffee beans are priced at $15 per pound (M7). In your market, the highest-priced coffee is $20 per pound (E) and the lowest is $10 per pound (C). Applying the formula provides insight into where your pricing strategy positions you on the value curve.

A strong position on the curve suggests your pricing reflects perceived value, while a weak position may signal the need for adjustment to better align with market conditions and customer expectations.

PRICING and Perceived Value

PRICING is intrinsically tied to how customers perceive the value of your product or service:

• If your offering is seen as a commodity, customers will gravitate toward the lowest price.

• Conversely, if your unique value proposition is clear, customers may accept higher prices that reflect this differentiation.

For example:

• Starbucks customers willingly pay premium prices because they perceive value beyond the coffee itself—a unique experience.

• A luxury fashion brand can command high prices because it offers a transformational experience, making cost secondary for its target audience.

Key Principles of an effective PRICING strategy

An effective PRICING strategy should adhere to the following principles:

1. Be Value-Based: Align your price with your position on the economic value curve.

2. Consider Market Conditions: Analyze competitor pricing and customer price sensitivity to ensure relevance.

3. Enhance Your Brand’s Purpose and Positioning: Reflect your brand identity. For instance, a disruptive brand might challenge market norms with innovative pricing.

4. Strengthen Your Value Proposition: Reinforce the unique aspects of your offering to justify the price.

Ignoring these principles can lead to a PRICING strategy that acts as a brake on your progress, rather than an accelerator.

Assessing your pricing strategy

To evaluate your pricing, consider a scoring scale from -12 to +12:

• 12 represents a low price that may correspond to a low perceived value.

• +12 indicates a high price with a high perceived value.

For example:

• If your artisanal coffee is priced above average market rates but customers appreciate its unique quality and sourcing, resulting in a high perceived value, your pricing might score a +8 or higher on this scale.

• On the other hand, a low-priced coffee with limited differentiation might score closer to -8 or -12, reflecting a misaligned pricing strategy.

Value Map that helps you understand your current pricing situation

Translating pricing into action

A strong pricing strategy should consistently reflect your value proposition and support customer decision-making. Pricing decisions should be based on insights into customer behavior, cost structures, and competitive analysis, while integrating sustainability as a core principle.

Questions to consider:

• Does your pricing strategy create more value than the cost for your customers compared to alternatives?

• How well does your pricing align with your customers’ Willingness To Pay for solving their problems?

• Does your pricing account for all costs associated with delivering your value proposition?

• Is your pricing consistent with your brand positioning and category goals?

• How does your pricing strategy encourage sustainable choices?

Method for self-assessment

For a comprehensive evaluation of your understanding and application of the Pricing concept, rate your agreement with the following statements on a scale from -3 (completely disagree) to +3 (completely agree):

1. Your value proposition is creating more value than the cost of the next best alternative for your customers.

2. Your pricing strategy is based on customer Willingness To Pay (WTP) for solving their problem.

3. Your pricing strategy takes into account all costs associated with your value proposition.

4. Your pricing strategy is aligned with your brand positioning and your goals for the category.

5. Your pricing strategy encourages customers towards the most sustainable option available.

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Marketing Canvas Method - Value Proposition - Pricing by Laurent Bouty

Interpretation of the scores

Negative scores (-1 to -3): Negative scores suggest that your pricing strategy is misaligned with customer expectations, cost structures, or brand positioning. This can result in undervaluing your product, losing competitive advantage, or failing to support sustainability goals. Immediate action is required to reassess your pricing approach.

A score of zero (0): A neutral score reflects uncertainty or incomplete alignment in your pricing strategy. While some elements may be in place, such as cost coverage or WTP analysis, they lack cohesion or fail to drive sustainable behaviors effectively. Further refinement is needed to strengthen your strategy.

Positive scores (+1 to +3): Positive scores indicate that your pricing strategy effectively communicates value, aligns with customer WTP, covers costs, and supports brand positioning. Additionally, your pricing encourages sustainable choices, reinforcing your commitment to long-term impact and differentiation.

Case study: Green clean’s pricing

Misaligned understanding (-3, -2, -1): Green Clean’s pricing fails to reflect the value of its eco-friendly products, either undervaluing them compared to competitors or setting prices that exceed customer WTP. The lack of cost alignment and sustainability incentives weakens the brand’s positioning and reduces customer appeal.

Surface understanding (0): Green Clean’s pricing covers basic costs and aligns with industry averages but lacks differentiation or focus on sustainability. Customers may perceive value but are not incentivized to choose more sustainable options, limiting the brand’s impact and competitive edge.

Deep understanding (+1, +2, +3): Green Clean’s pricing highlights the value of its unique features, such as non-toxic ingredients and zero-waste packaging, while aligning with customer WTP. By offering subscription discounts and promoting refillable packaging, the brand encourages sustainable behavior. This strategy reinforces its eco-friendly positioning, builds customer loyalty, and ensures profitability.

Conclusion

The Pricing sub-dimension is a strategic tool for aligning your value proposition with customer expectations, brand positioning, and sustainability goals. By creating value beyond cost, basing pricing on WTP, and incentivizing sustainable choices, businesses can enhance their competitive edge, foster customer loyalty, and achieve long-term success.

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Sources

1. Market and Economic Value, Laurent Bouty, https://laurentbouty.com/blog/2019/marketing-canvas-market-and-economic-value

2. Neil Patel - 5 Psychological Studies on Pricing That You Absolutely MUST Read, https://neilpatel.com/blog/5-psychological-studies/

3. The Ultimate Guide to Pricing Strategies, https://blog.hubspot.com/sales/pricing-strategy

4. Replyco, 23 Pricing Strategies Any eCommerce Seller Can Use to Increase Sales, https://replyco.com/brainery/23-pricing-strategies-for-ecommerce-sellers/

More on the Marketing Canvas

Marketing Canvas by Laurent Bouty

Marketing Canvas - Engagement

Last update: 30/10/2024

In a nutshell

Engagement sub-dimension in the Marketing Canvas focuses on how effectively a business can capture and sustain the interest of its customers. Engagement goes beyond simply attracting attention; it requires creating lasting connections that drive active participation, loyalty, and advocacy. By understanding the factors that influence engagement, companies can design marketing strategies that foster meaningful interactions with their audience.

For example, an eco-friendly cleaning brand like Green Clean might engage customers by sharing content on sustainable living, offering loyalty rewards, or creating a community around environmental responsibility. This level of engagement helps deepen customer relationships and build a strong brand community.

Introduction

Engagement sub-dimension, within the Customer category of the Marketing Canvas, focuses on building and maintaining a connection with customers that drives ongoing interest and involvement. This connection is based on a combination of communication, value delivery, and emotional resonance, which are key to keeping customers engaged over the long term.

While Pains and Gains look at addressing customer frustrations and needs, Engagement emphasizes the importance of continuous, active interaction, aiming to build loyalty and foster a community around the brand.

In the marketing canvas

The Marketing Canvas is a powerful tool for entrepreneurs and non-marketers to build a robust marketing strategy. It consists of six meta-dimensions, each with four sub-dimensions, for a total of 24 sub-dimensions defining your Marketing Strategy. One of these sub-dimensions is “Engagement”, which falls under the CUSTOMER category.

What is engagement?

Engagement represents the emotional and behavioral commitment a customer has with a brand. This commitment might manifest as repeat purchases, sharing positive feedback, participating in brand events, or advocating for the brand. Engaging customers requires understanding their interests, delivering consistent value, and encouraging them to participate in a shared experience with the brand.

For example, Green Clean might engage its eco-conscious customers by:

• Providing resources on reducing household waste.

• Offering loyalty rewards for repeat purchases of eco-friendly products.

• Organizing community events focused on environmental sustainability.

Engagement is essential for building a brand community and transforming customers into advocates.

Engagement: an in-depth perspective

Engagement is about maintaining a two-way interaction between a brand and its customers. It requires businesses to understand what motivates their customers to stay connected and to respond proactively to their interests and feedback.

For example:

• Active Engagement: A customer who frequently interacts with Green Clean’s social media content or attends brand-hosted events feels a personal connection with the company’s mission.

• Passive Engagement: A customer may use Green Clean’s products without actively engaging with the brand’s content or events. Converting passive engagement into active participation can enhance loyalty and increase brand advocacy.

Understanding the depth and type of customer engagement helps businesses tailor their approaches to meet the specific preferences of their audience.

Tools for engagement: the NPS methodology

The NPS methodology segments customers into three groups based on their level of engagement: Promoters, Passives, and Detractors. Promoters are champions of your brand who will actively recommend your products or services. Detractors, on the other hand, may express dissatisfaction and may discourage others from interacting with your company. Passives fall in-between; they are neither actively promoting nor detracting from your brand.

The usefulness of NPS doesn't stop at categorizing customers. When you compare your NPS score with your competitors', you can gain valuable insights into your brand's standing in the market. This comparison can be achieved through an NPS study of your competitor's customer base or the broader market.

Translating engagement into action

To foster deep and lasting engagement, businesses should prioritize consistent, value-driven interactions that resonate with customer interests. Encouraging feedback, providing valuable resources, and fostering a sense of community can transform passive customers into loyal, actively engaged brand advocates.

Questions to consider:

• How do your customers prefer to engage with your brand?

• What types of content or interactions resonate most with your audience?

• How can you create opportunities for customers to share their experiences and become advocates?

Statements for self-assessment

For a comprehensive evaluation of your understanding and application of the Engagement concept, rate your agreement with the following statements on a scale from -3 (completely disagree) to +3 (completely agree):

1. You have the right tools & systems at your disposal for measuring the engagement of your customer? e.g. NPS alike tools

2. The level of detractors amongst your customers is helping you achieve your goals.

3. The level of promoters amongst your customers is helping you achieve your goals.

4. You understand the role of sustainability in customer engagement and have aligned your strategies accordingly.

Marketing Canvas Method - Customers - Engagement by Laurent Bouty

Marketing Canvas Method - Customers - Engagement & Sustainability by Laurent Bouty

Interpretation of the scores

• Negative scores (-1 to -3): Suggest significant gaps in measuring and managing engagement. Detractors may be impacting your goals negatively, and promoters may not be effectively leveraged. Engagement strategies may lack alignment with sustainability principles.

• A score of zero (0): Reflects a functional but under-optimized engagement strategy. While tools and systems may exist, their use may not be systematic or effective, limiting overall impact.

• Positive scores (+1 to +3): Indicate a strong engagement strategy. Detractors are addressed effectively, promoters are empowered, and engagement efforts align with sustainability, driving loyalty and advocacy.

Case study: Green Clean’s Engagement strategy

• Misaligned understanding (-3, -2, -1): Green Clean lacks the tools to measure engagement and struggles to address customer dissatisfaction. Detractors outnumber promoters, harming the brand’s reputation, while sustainability efforts are absent from its engagement strategy.

• Surface understanding (0): Green Clean uses basic tools like surveys but lacks a cohesive approach to managing detractors and empowering promoters. Sustainability is a peripheral concern, limiting its appeal to eco-conscious customers.

• Deep understanding (+1, +2, +3): Green Clean leverages NPS and behavioral data to track engagement effectively. It proactively resolves detractor concerns, encourages promoters to share positive reviews, and integrates sustainability into its messaging, fostering strong customer relationships.

Conclusion

The Engagement sub-dimension highlights the importance of measuring and optimizing customer interactions to build loyalty, encourage advocacy, and align with sustainability. A thoughtful engagement strategy ensures that detractors are addressed, promoters are empowered, and the brand remains relevant in an eco-conscious market.

Sources

1. Harvard Business Review, 2003, https://hbr.org/2003/12/the-one-number-you-need-to-grow

2. Moving Beyond NPS, Medium, https://link.medium.com/OHO1Mz6IGY

3. Hubspot, The ultimate guide to your Net Promoter Score (NPS)

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More on the Marketing Canvas

Marketing Strategy Execution - How to start a movement?

Most of the time, I am facing the situation where I need to engage people in executing the strategy. Easy to say but probably the most difficult part of being a CMO (make it happen). One of my friend (@alainthys) showed me this video few years ago and it is so true!

When working on an innovative project or on a new commercial activity, who might be your first follower? Your existing client (a co-creation model)? Your sponsor (classical Corporate Model)? Your peers (collaborative model)? Anyone, that trust your idea?

So my question is: have you found your first follower? could you tell us what is his/her usual profile?

source: https://www.ted.com/talks/derek_sivers_how_to_start_a_movement?language=en

Marketing Strategy for Millennials from Marketing Cloud

Interesting Infographic from Marketing Cloud proposing 5 steps to creating your Marketing Strategy for Millennials. As you might have noticed, I am advocating the use of the Marketing Canvas for designing your Marketing Strategy. Let's check whether these steps fit into the process?

1. Step 1 is definitely a no-brainer. Data and customer knowledge will help you to be very specific when discussing canvas. Dimensions like Humans (if you want to uncover key insights and customer preferences), Journey (if you want to design great customer experience), Value proposition (if you want to design the most relevant offers) and conversation (if you want to be at the right place, right time with the right subject) will help you.
2. Step 2 is clearly identified in the canvas: Channel (in Journey), Content & Stories (Conversation), Media (Shared and Earned) and finally the global topic of conversations.
3. Step 3 is also covered in Engagement (word of mouth), Influencers (Conversations), Proofs (Value Proposition) and Moment of Truth (Journey)
4. Step 4 mentions that technology is key for millennials. It is true and it will influence preferred Channels (Journey), Media (Conversation) and Features (Value Proposition) but don't forget that Job To Be Done is why they engage with you and what problem they are trying to solve.
5. Step 5 is all about your Purpose (Brand) and  Listening (conversation). I am not a fan about education as I believe we don't educate customers but we engage them.

The conclusion is that the Marketing Canvas fits perfectly with these steps and can be applied for Millennials. Finally, I would like to mention that in the Budget dimensions, they are 2 important topics (capabilities and people) where you should invest for having the required tools and skills in your company if you want to do all of this.

More on Marketing Cloud: https://www.salesforce.com/products/marketing-cloud/best-practices/millenial-marketing-strategy/

3 Cs in a Digital World

Interesting article from Roland Berger Consultants about Sales in a Digital World. Their thesis is that you need to master 3 Cs if you want to have a voice in this new world:

1. Develop the Customer Base: It is definitely in line with what I am preaching. You should not only focus on acquisition but also on stimulation and retention. The CLV dimension of the Marketing Canvas is telling you how much you perform versus your ambition;
2. Orchestrate the Channel: I also agree but I would extend this to Orchestrate the Customer Journey as it is much broader than channel and it is integrating elements like Brand experience, touch-points, emotions and wow moments.
3. Manage the complexity: it is maybe fluffy as notion. We all know that we should manage the complexity, the question is how should I do that. One possible answer is in the article when they discussed centralisation. I think the key element there is to automate your processes (BPM, scripting, algorithms, ...) in order to reduce the chaos and uncertainty. but don't forget to keep the human part.

Source: Roland Berger, Think Act, The digital future of B2B sales

Questions you should ask with the Marketing Canvas

Below you will find a list of questions that will help you during the assessment of your marketing strategy with the Marketing Canvas. How does it work? You take the Canvas and go through all dimensions (after having defined your ambition - see article) asking all questions. You can have 2 potential answers for each question:

1. I don't know or No then it is playing against your ambition. It is a Brake and the colour is RED. This is something you should improve or change if you want to achieve your ambition.
2. Yes then it is playing in favour of your ambition. It is an Accelerator and the colour is GREEN. This is something you can leverage for achieving your ambition.

Customer Life Time Value

1. Is your MARKET growing? The market situation plays an important role when you are trying to grow. A saturated market will play against you while a new and growing market will play for you. Understanding this will help you when building your marketing strategy.
2. Is it easy and/or cheap to attract new USER ? Getting new customers has a price and could take time. If your customer acquisition is cheap and easy it will most probably play for you while if it takes time and/or it is expensive it will play against you when building your marketing strategy.
3. Are you maximizing the ARPU of your user? ARPU stands for Average Revenue Per User. It is a combination of transactions (how frequent people buy products/services) and prices (how much they pay when they buy something). If you believe you are maximizing the ARPU of your users, it will play for you. If not (or worst if it will decrease), it will play against you.
4. Is it easy to extend the LIFETIME (reduce churn) of your user? Keeping your users will generally play an important role in your financials. The more users you have, the more revenues are at stake. If keeping your users is expensive and difficult, it will play against you. If it is easy and/or cheap, it will play for you. 

Human

1. Is your current understanding of the JOB TO BE DONE of your users helping you to achieve your ambition? Knowing the Job To Be Done of your future and existing users is fundamental. This might help you to identify the untapped area or new insights that you could leverage. Could you leverage it for your ambition? If yes, it means that you can create value by addressing the job to be done.
2. Is your current understanding of the ASPIRATIONS of your users helping you to achieve your ambition? Knowing the aspirations of your future and existing users will help you to offer more than products or services and contribute to their lives. Do you know them? Can you leverage it?
3. Is your current understanding of the PAINS & GAINS of your users helping you to achieve your ambition? Getting the Job The Done has some pains (negative emotions) but also gains (positive emotions). If you have identified them and you are capable to leverage it, it will play for you. Otherwise, it will play against you.
4. Is the ENGAGEMENT of your users helping you to achieve your ambition? Knowing how much your users are engaged (NPS could help you) and being able to leverage it will certainly play in your favor. 

Brand

1. Is the PURPOSE of your Brand helping you to achieve your ambition? Having a purpose is probably the most important asset for your long-term business. Great companies are crystal clear about why they exist! Do you know your purpose? Is it robust enough and clear enough? Can you leverage it further for creating value? Not knowing or having a weak purpose will certainly play against your ambition. A strong purpose will help you when looking for extra value!
2. Is the POSITIONING of your Brand helping you to achieve your ambition? How to address your category will help you make choices and clarify how to stand out from the competition. Are you a leader (setting the standards), are you a challenger (playing the leader game but challenging it) or are you a game changer (redefining the game)? Can you leverage your positioning further (be more leader, challenger or game changer)? Not knowing this or answering no means that you need to revisit your current positioning for creating value.
3. Are the VALUES of your Brand helping you to achieve your ambition? Your values are your translation of your purpose into key behaviors. Most of the commercial activities are delivered through behaviors (from people or from systems). Do you know your values? Are they helping you for creating more value?
4. Is the IDENTITY of your Brand helping you to achieve your ambition? Your identity is how you translate your purpose into an image. Not having a clear identity or having an identity that couldn't be leveraged will block you when trying to create more value. 

Value Proposition

1. Are the FEATURES of your Value Proposition helping you to achieve your ambition?  Do you address the right functional features? are they aligned with your humans? Can you answer this question? Can you become more unique and different from the competitions? Not knowing if your features (functional characteristics of your products and services) could help you to create more value or answering no means that it will not help you when you will look for extra value.
2. Are the EMOTIONS of your Value Proposition helping you to achieve your ambition? Today, differentiation comes through emotions and not functional features. Do you know if you deliver the right emotional features? Can you leverage more the emotional dimensions in your value proposition for creating value? Answering yes means that you can create extra value through the emotional dimension of your value proposition.
3. Are the PRICES of your Value Proposition helping you to achieve your ambition? Your pricing can be a strong brake for creating extra value or a strong enabler. Do you know where your current pricing is creating value? Can you leverage it further? Being able to leverage your pricing for creating new value is a key asset for your future.
4. Are the PROOFS of your Value Proposition helping you to achieve your ambition? Do you have enough evidence that helps people understanding the value you create with your value proposition? Can you leverage your value proposition with more or better proofs?

Journey

1. Are the MOMENTS of your user journey helping you to achieve your ambition? Moments are the different steps a user is going through when he is trying to solve his problem. When using Mental Models, we can identify all key moments a user is going through and try to formulate the best brand experience possible. Do you know all moments of your users? Can you capture more value through these moments?
2. Is the EXPERIENCE of your user's journey helping you to achieve your ambition? As a Brand, you need to formulate a clear and articulated answer at each moment. These answers should reflect customer identity, satisfy the objectives and meet expectation. Do you have orchestrated answer (or is it random)? Can you capture more value through the experience of your user's journey?
3. Are the CHANNELS of your user journey helping you to achieve your ambition? The number of channels that can be used for transacting with a brand is growing. And each user is free to use channel(s) of his choice. Do you have an answer for all potential channels? Do you orchestrate these channels? Can you capture more value through these channels?
4. Are the MOMENTS OF TRUTH of your user journey helping you to achieve your ambition? Providing an orchestrated experience is already a great achievement. Next step is to transform some moments into Moments of Truth (also referred as like moments or wow moments). Do you know if you offer Moments of Truth? Can you capture more value through these moments of truth?

Conversation

1. Is the way you are currently LISTENING TO your users helping you to achieve your ambition? How can you have great conversations with your users if you don't listen to their voices? Do you systematically capture the voice of your users? Do you capture more value by listening to your users?
2. Are your CONTENT & STORIES for your users helping you to achieve your ambition? Monologues are no more working for engaging users with your brand. Should you have contents and stories? Do you know if you have content & stories? Do you capture as much as you can value through content & stories?
3. Is the current use of your MEDIA helping you to achieve your ambition? You can place your content & stories through different media: Paid, Owned, Earned or Shared? Do you know which media you are using? Do you capture as much as you can value through your media?
4. Are your INFLUENCERS helping you to achieve your ambition? People are trusting people. Do you know if you are using influencers? Do you capture as much as you can value through influencers?

Budget

1. Is your budget for Marketing FEES helping you to achieve your ambition? If you want to propagate your content, stories, and offers, you should balance your media investment between Owned, Paid, Earned and Shared. Have you well balanced your investments amongst these media? Is it enough for your ambition (have you compared this investment with your competitors) ?
2. Is your budget for Marketing PEOPLE (internal & external) helping you to achieve your ambition? To make things happening, you need a team (either insourced or outsourced). Do you have enough people for achieving your ambition?
3. Is your budget for Marketing KNOWLEDGE helping you to achieve your ambition? It is important to collect systematically enough knowledge through research, training, bootcamp or even consulting projects for achieving your target. Do you have properly invest in these topics for your ambition.
4. Is your budget for Marketing CAPABILITIES helping you to achieve your ambition? More and more marketers have a leading role when defining the technical roadmap of the company because of the impact on the customers (web site, mobile applications, automation, CRM and lead generation software, database, ...) Do you have invested enough in these topics for your ambition?

Why you need a bold question for your Marketing Strategy?

What is the best way to start defining the marketing strategy of your company, business or activity? My proposal is to start with a bold strategic question! Why?

Because the objective of your strategy is to achieve an ambition and most probably a financial ambition. Whether you are a startup or a stock listed company, you have to achieve a financial ambition if you want to stay in business. Thus first hypothesis is to have a financial ambition and preferably S.M.A.R.T. one.

Financial Ambition of Your Strategy

Then let's imagine, you don't do any strategy and you let the business in free wheel (no plan). Most probably you will face problems and situations (external or internal) that will block you to achieve your ambition. I suggest that you highlight the biggest problem, your #1 fear for your business. Thus second hypothesis is that you need to define your biggest fear as the context where you will do your strategy.

Biggest commercial fear you have

Question

HOW CAN I (FINANCIAL AMBITION) IN (TOP #1 FEAR) ?

Examples

HOW CAN I GROWTH MY REVENUE BY 5% IN AN AUTOMATED AND DIGITAL ENVIRONMENT? (Shoe Store)

HOW CAN I PROTECT MY REVENUE NEXT YEAR IN A MARKET WHERE UBER IS ARRIVING? (Taxi company)

HOW CAN I BE PROFITABLE AFTER 1 YEAR IN A MARKET WHERE NOBODY KNOWS ME YET ? (Startup company)

Quote

Marketing Strategy should start with a bold question

Next step

• https://laurentbouty.com/blog/2017/marketing-canvas-job-to-be-done

How To Define Your Commercial Plan for Your Startup with Marketing Canvas?

When you work on your commercial strategy for your startup, you can facilitate this conversation with using the Marketing Canvas (more on the canvas here). Please find below 10 steps you should follow:

KEY QUESTIONS TO BE ASKED

1. What is your goal? Big Idea? Define a question that will clarify your projected future like How can we achieve 1M€ after one year of operation? How can we generate 5% growth next year? How can we differentiate our brand in a digital world where predictive technologies driven by AI will become a standard?

2. What is the problem you are trying to solve? Clarify the job to be done for your customers.

3. Who is our buyer and user? Define your persona.

4. If not you who else? Define the category where you are playing and what are the alternatives for your buyer.

5. How do you want to be remembered? What people will say about you? Your BRAND

6. What is your answer to the problem your buyer has? What is your value proposition? Do you have USP, ESP, Clear Pricing and Proofs?

7. What experience people will have with you? Will it generate sales and engagement? JOURNEY

8. How do you discuss with your buyer? Do you have conversations? Do you listen? Do you have content, stories, influencers? Which media do you use?

9. Does it make any financial sense? What is your Marketing Budget and Revenue?

10. If you don't think it all works, iterate one more time

PROCESS FOR ZERO APPROACH

As a startup, you should define your strategic hypothesis. It is slightly different than an existing business because you are starting from a white page.

Part 1- Target, Positioning

Define your key customer target (JTBD, ASPIRATION, PAINS & GAINS). As you are starting your business, you have no information on ENGAGEMENT.

Define your Brand strategy (PURPOSE and POSITIONING) and explain how you will differentiate your brand versus competitors. Explain what could be the VALUES of this brand and your IDENTITY strategy.

Define your Value Proposition (FEATURES, EMOTIONS and PRICING). Describe core, differentiated and unique features/emotions to support your Brand Strategy, matching your customer target and helping you to achieve your financial objectives. Do you have any PROOFS supporting your value proposition?

Part 2- Go To Market

Define your go to market approach and more specifically: Describe funnel journey (pre and post purchase) for your go to market: MOMENTS, EXPERIENCE, CHANNEL and MAGIC. Don't forget to align this with your brand strategy.

Describe your conversation strategy for your go to market. LISTENING, CONTENT, MEDIA and INFLUENCERS if any.

Part 3 - Metrics

Define your hypothesis in terms of metrics for your business: ACQUISITION (speed of acquisition), ARPU (average spending for each customer on the 12 months), LIFETIME (your churn assumption) and BUDGET (amount of € needed for supporting your strategy).

ASSESS YOUR ZERO APPROACH WITH YOUR TEAMS

Use the canvas and answer to these questions using all dimension while asking the same question:

Will my .... help me to achieve my goal?

RED: Not at all; GREEN: Definitely

Visualise your Commercial Strategy on Marketing Canvas

RED dimension must be reviewed or mitigated because that are not helping you to achieve your goal.

Interested in the Marketing Canvas, you can find more information here. 

Resources

• Startup Failure Rate Statistics To Take In [2020] - https://hustlelife.net/startup-failure-rate-statistics/

• Steve Blank - Startup Tools - https://steveblank.com/tools-and-blogs-for-entrepreneurs/

Infographic on the Marketing Canvas Process

The tool has been designed for facilitating the discussion when designing your strategy.

High-level process is:

• You start from an ambition/question (like increase revenue by 5%, have more digital transactions, be more meaningful, ...) 
• You discuss using the 28 dimensions asking:
  • What's blocking you to achieve your ambition? (brakes)
  • What's helping you (Accelerator)?
  • You can support this rating using any information, knowledge you have but it works also if you only rely on qualitative information.
• Then you map your answer on the Canvas. Red are brakes; Green are accelerators.
• Then you try to analyse these brakes/accelerators and understands what cause them, what are the correlation.
• Then you start ideating (brain-writing, co-create, ...), find crazy or impossible ideas) on what you could do (magic diamond, do things better, do different things).
• Then you prioritise your ideas.
• If you can you test it.
• Then you have your action plan.

Infographic Marketing Canvas

Marketing Strategy in Context

If you want to design the marketing strategy for your business, you should first start to analyse where you will play. What does it mean? It means that your product/service will be associated by consumers/buyers with other alternatives they have on the market (maybe no alternative exists which means that you creating a new category also referred as a blue ocean).

The Context of your Marketing strategy is the first element you analysed with the Marketing Canvas Method. It is composed by 3 distinctive elements: Category, Competitors and Trends (questions 1 & 3).

Marketing Canvas Method in 10 questions

The key questions you should ask yourself before you investigate what might be your scenarios for your strategy.

1. Identify the strategy where you would like to play. TESLA could have chosen the category where most of the electrical car offers where made. TESLA decided to enter the Segment F (Luxury saloon / full-size luxury sedan).

2. Key needs. What are the identified needs that customers/buyers are addressing when buying products/services in this category (pains/gains/functional needs).

3. Competitors. If not you, you else? It could be a competitor or a substitute. In the segment F, key competitors of TESLA are: BMW, Mercedes, Jaguar, Lexus, Audi, Porsche….

4. Rules of the category like average price, core features and add-ons, payment scheme/subscription model, buyer power. Price of a Porsche is around 100k€ which is the starting price point where TESLA positioned itself.

5. Category dynamic. What is the state of the category (few buyers/consumers or the market is saturated).

View fullsize

Marketing Strategy in Context

Examples:

• Tesla has decided to enter the luxury segment where no real electrical car offer did exist (key needs were speed, design, social recognition).

• Dove entered the cosmetic category where many alternatives existed

• Apple entered the portable music device (with iPod) where the current offers where based on features and technologies but latent motives existed (social recognition, design and simplicity).

So before you investigate which options you should follow, you need first to answer these questions because it will set the scene. Then you can start investigating your scenarios using the Marketing Canvas Method.

How to get real insights for your Marketing Strategy?

Richard Thorogood of Colgage-Palmolive describes how new technology is transforming market research, and how firms will need to adapt.

What has been the strategy for Airbnb to understand its customers and adapt to their needs? Chip Conley, Head of Hospitality at Airbnb, explains the process to achieve this

Using a real-world case study featuring one of the most iconic brands in clothing (Timberland), TEC Executive-in-Residence Kurian Tharakan shows how this clothing giant leveraged the motives, needs, wants and desires of their core customer.

Malcolm Gladwell gets inside the food industry's pursuit of the perfect spaghetti sauce -- and makes a larger argument about the nature of choice and happiness.

Insights in the Marketing Canvas