Hack: Marketing Canvas and Triple Bottom Line

As Marketers, we are not excused for being complaisant with the world around us. It should have been always the case but today the situation is so critical that we need to take action.

REVISIT STEP 2 - SET YOUR GOAL

The original approach at Step 2 was profit oriented. Indeed, during this step, we recommend to set a financial goal (revenue) before starting step 3 which is the assessment.

The triple bottom line approach (wikipedia) as proposed by John Elkington consists of extending the bottom line concept with sustainable elements. In addition to Profit, Elkington proposed to add Planet and People. The Marketing Canvas Method can be easily hacked for integrating the Triple Bottom Line concept by simply changing the way Goals are set during step 2.

HOW?

At Step 2, you can define goal for Profit (original approach) but also goal for Planet and People. It is not fully clear for me whether a standard framework exists with clear KPIs linking Marketing Strategy and Planet/People elements. You can chose the goals that would specifically work for you when discussing Planet and People topics. Based on a very quick desk research, I identified few topics that could be used for defining objectives for Planet and People. It would be interesting to have your point of views and make this list more robust. Don’t hesitate to comment this post.

LIST OF GOALS FOR PEOPLE AND PLANET

• Energy Management: How could you reduce your energy consumption and use more renewable energy when executing your marketing strategy? Goal?

• Resource Management: How could you make use of resources for your marketing strategy in such a way that our next generation or in future there are no effects on the resource? Goal?

• Waste Management: How could you collect, transport, process or dispose of, manage and monitor various waste materials generated by your marketing strategy? Goal?

• Employee Welfare: How could you reinforce employee welfare when executing your marketing strategy? Goal?

• Fair Trade: How could you reinforce fairness in your marketing strategy through dialogue, transparency and respect, that seeks greater equity in international trade? Goal?

• Cause Marketing: How can you better the society while executing your marketing strategy? Goal?

PROCESS

When you have defined these goals (e.g. CO2), you can apply the Marketing Canvas Method for assessing your current situation (STEP 3). Let’s take 2 examples from the 24 dimensions.:

• JOB TO BE DONE (CUSTOMERS): Is the knowledge of your customers’ job to be done helping you from achieving your goals?

• FEATURES (VALUE PROPOSITION): Are the features of your value proposition helping you achieve your goals?

By asking these questions, you have interesting discussions about your current ability to achieve these goals (like CO2) or not (Brake or Accelerator).

NEW TEMPLATE

Marketing Canvas Method and Triple Bottom Line

Marketing Canvas, some tips about the process

Canvas works really well if:

1. Start with a clear ambition, S.M.A.R.T. and linked with the finance. One of the usual mistake when doing a marketing strategy exercise is to not properly link the marketing actions with the financial consequences. In the Marketing Canvas exercise, we genuinely start from the financial ambition for addressing this issue. This ambition is about growth and thus the canvas is about growth hacking your marketing strategy.
2. Start with a clear persona representing a customer cluster sharing the same Job To Be Done (problem to be solved by your offer). It could happen that you can't achieve your ambition with your current persona/segment (in classical strategy, it corresponds to a cash cow or a future dog). If it is the case you should consider another segment with another job to be done.
3. Assess the current situation of your marketing mix by asking the 28 questions as defined in the canvas. Define clearly if each dimension TODAY is helping you to achieve your ambition (it is an accelerator) or is not (then we define this dimension as a brake). Do this exercise in team as it will create a shared understanding of the situation and support your answers with facts. 
4. Backward thinking is a very powerful way of finding solutions to any problem. In this process, try to visualise/imagine how dimension(s) defined as BRAKES would look like if they would help you with your ambition. What is different? Could you describe it? Does it really help with your ambition? If yes, then you have one idea of potential solutions. Find as many ideas as possible.
5. Having generated plenty of ideas (some could even be yellow ideas aka impossible ideas), you should prioritise it in order to finalise your preferred vision of this future where your ambition is achieved. What are the actions you should do to transform this future into a reality: Start Doing, Stop Doing, Do More, Do Less, Simplify, Magnify? Brainstorm as a team and list all actions.

6. You now have identified all actions for building your future but you have to organise it into a comprehensive and feasible roadmap. Some actions are low hanging fruits while others require more time and effort. One way to do this is to use these 2 criteria: contribution to the ambition and effort. Congratulations, you now have a roadmap and a marketing strategy.

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