If you want to design a successful marketing program, watch the movie “Memento.”
Here’s how that would work…
(If you’ve never seen the Christopher Nolan classic, Memento is a story that is told in reverse chronology. The first scene of the movie is actually the final event in the story. The second scene depicts the events that immediately preceded the first scene, or final chapter. The third scene depicts the events that immediately preceded that. And so on it goes, all the way to the final scene, which depicts the first event in the storyline — the one that kicked off the chain of events, told backwards, from back to front.)
Here’s how and why you should apply that same reverse chronology approach to reverse-engineer a successful, data-driven marketing strategy of your own:
What happens immediately prior to a sale, sign-up or conversion?
Typically, you’ve presented a quote, proposal, bid or budget estimate for a prospect’s consideration.
What happens immediately prior to that presentment of quote or contract?
Typically, a prospect has asked for, or agreed to, your submission of the proposal.
What happens immediately before that?
Typically, you present your capabilities, differentiation and value proposition to the prospect for consideration.
What happens immediately before that?
Likely, you’ve taken a series of meetings or phone calls with the prospect to assess need, discover the problem, and determine whether there is a match between what you offer and what the prospect needs solved or accomplished.
What happens immediately before that?
The prospect discovers you and expresses some level of interest or intent to see if you can help them.
This is where things get important, and how it can shape your strategy, for better or for worse…
How did this prospect discover you?
Did they find you on Google? Then your marketing strategy should focus on search engine marketing and SEO.
Did they respond to your outbound overture in, say, an email or newsletter? Focus your efforts on email marketing.
Were they influenced by some form of advertising? Where and how? Apply your budget and resources to more of the same.
Were they referred to you, by an existing client or trusted colleague? Or have they long been part of your network and ecosystem, and only reached out when they had a problem that required your services?
If the latter is true, as it is for most of my clients, then you need to engage in more of the kinds of activities that foster referrals and earn trust and authority over time and ongoing.
In the B2B space, generally speaking this means sharing your ideas and expertise with the world so that you can demonstrate capability and influence future referrals and inbound requests for your services.
Specifically, I’m referring to thought-leadership content and storytelling. For these types of buyers, you need to take a show-me-don’t-tell-me approach to demonstrating expertise and earning trust. It simply can’t be bought on the cheap or in the moment.
Whatever the customer journey looks like for you, map it from forward to back, and pick your ideal client as the hero in the journey.
For once you get to the beginning of the story, and can say with confidence what the first chapter is that sets the rest of the story in motion, you can confidently replicate that story arch and start to tell it over and over again…from the front to back.
You’ll engage in more of the sorts of activities that set the story’s wheels in motion, thereby making sure you get more final scenes that end the way you want the movie to end.
So map the story backward, so you can force the story forward with greater frequency and to greater effect.